Kovel

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Kovel
Ковель
Kowel
City of regional significance
Square in Kovel, 2002
Square in Kovel, 2002
Flag of Kovel
Flag
Coat of arms of Kovel
Coat of arms
Kovel is located in Volyn Oblast
Kovel
Kovel
Kovel is located in Ukraine
Kovel
Kovel
Coordinates: Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
Country  Ukraine
Oblast Volyn flag.svg Volyn Oblast
Raion Kovel City Municipality
Founded 13th century
Magdeburg law 1518
Government
 • Mayor Oleh Kinder[1]
Area
 • Total 47.3 km2 (18.3 sq mi)
Population (2013)
 • Total 68,912
 • Density 1,400/km2 (4,000/sq mi)
Time zone EET (UTC+2)
 • Summer (DST) EEST (UTC+3)
Postal code 45000
Area code(s) +380 3352
Website Municipal official site in Ukrainian

Kovel (Ukrainian: Ковель; Russian: Ковель, translit. Kovel’, Polish: Kowel, Yiddish: קאָוועל‎) is a town in Volyn Oblast (province), in northwestern Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of Kovel Raion (district), the town itself is designated as a town of oblast significance and is not part of the raion. Population: 68,912 (2013 est.)[2].

Kovel gives its name to one of the oldest Runic inscriptions which were lost during World War II. The Kovel spearhead, unearthed near the town in 1858, contained text in Gothic language (illustration).

History

Kovel (Kowel) was first mentioned in 1310.[3] It received city rights from the Polish King Sigismund I the Old in 1518.[3] In 1547 the owner of Kowel became Bona Sforza, Polish queen.[3] In 1564 starost of Kowel became Kurbski (d. 1584).[3] From 1566 to 1795 it was part of the Volhynian Voivodeship. Kowel was a royal city of Poland.

Kovel, Vokzalna Street, Second Polish Republic ca. 1918.[4]

After the Partitions of Poland the town fell into the Russian Empire for over a hundred years. During the First World War, the city was a site of the Battle of Kovel between the Central Powers and the Russian Empire. In the interwar period, Kovel served as the capital of Kovel County in Volhynian Voivodeship of the Polish Republic. It was an important garrison of the Polish Army, here the headquarters of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division was located. Furthermore, at the village of Czerkasy, a large depot of the Polish Army was located. In 1924, construction of the St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr Roman Catholic church began.

In World War II, following the Nazi German invasion of Poland and subsequently, their Operation Barbarossa the Germans murdered 18,000 Jews in Kovel, mostly during August and September 1942. Later on, in March and April 1944, Kovel was a site of fierce fighting between the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking and the Red Army.

During the Volhynian Genocide, the town was a shelter for ethnic Poles, escaping the genocide. In that period, Ukrainian nationalists murdered app. 3,700 Polish inhabitants of Kovel county. In early spring of 1944, the 27th Infantry Division of the Home Army operated in the area. Kovel was captured by the Red Army in July 1944. In 1945, at the insistence of Joseph Stalin (following the Tehran Conference of 1943) Poland's borders were redrawn, the Polish population was forcibly resettled and Kovel was incorporated into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. It has been a part of sovereign Ukraine since 1991.

Kovel historic railway station

Transportation

Kovel is the north-western hub of the Ukrainian rail system, with six rail lines radiating outward from the city. The first of these was built in 1873, connecting the city with Brest-Litovsk and Rivne. In 1877 Kovel was first linked by rail with Lublin and Warsaw in Congress Poland.

Gallery

Notable people

Sister cities

Kovel is twinned with

Column-generating template families

The templates listed here are not interchangeable. For example, using {{col-float}} with {{col-end}} instead of {{col-float-end}} would leave a HTML "div" (division) open, potentially harming any subsequent formatting.

Column templates
Type Family
Handles wiki
 table code?dagger
Responsive/
Mobile suited
Start template Column divider End template
Float "Col-float" Yes Yes {{Col-float}} {{Col-float-break}} {{Col-float-end}}
"Columns-start" Yes Yes {{Columns-start}} {{Column}} {{Columns-end}}
Columns "Div col" Yes Yes {{Div col}} {{Div col end}}
"Columns-list" No Yes {{Columns-list}} (wraps div col)
Flexbox "Flex columns" No Yes {{Flex columns}}
Table "Col" Yes No {{Col-begin}},
{{Col-begin-fixed}} or
{{Col-begin-small}}
{{Col-break}} or
{{Col-2}} .. {{Col-5}}
{{Col-end}}

dagger Can template handle the basic wiki markup {| | || |- |} used to create tables? If not, special templates that produce these elements (such as {{(!}}, {{!}}, {{!!}}, {{!-}}, {{!)}})—or HTML tags (<table>...</table>, <tr>...</tr>, etc.)—need to be used instead.

References

  1. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. Photograph from the Boris Feldblyum Collection

External links