Rēzekne

A Latgalian hill fort stood on the castle hill from the 9th century until German crusaders destroyed it in the 13th. In 1285, the year the name Rēzekne first appears, the Livonian Order built a stone castle here as a post on its eastern frontier, and the town was attacked many times by Russian and Lithuanian forces. It passed to Poland-Lithuania in 1559, received Magdeburg rights in the 17th century, and was occupied by Sweden in 1655–1660, when the castle's ramparts were demolished and the castle fell into ruin. After the First Partition of Poland in 1772 it became Rezhitsa in the Russian Empire, and received city rights in 1773.

The St Petersburg–Warsaw and Moscow–Ventspils railways turned a sleepy country town into a junction with two stations; the population reached 23,000 by the eve of the First World War, and in the 19th century around 60 per cent of residents were Jewish. In spring 1917 the first Latgalian congress, held here, declared that Latgale should unite with the other Latvian regions, and after independence Rēzekne became the cultural centre of Latgale.

The Second World War was catastrophic. The Jewish population was murdered in the Holocaust, mostly between July and October 1941, and Soviet bombing in 1944 destroyed two-thirds of the buildings; only about 5,000 people remained. Rebuilt as an industrial town, it had the fifth-highest industrial output in Soviet Latvia, but most of those factories closed after 1991. In recent years the city's finances have dominated the news: after falsifications in the budget came to light at the end of 2023 the mayor was suspended, the Saeima dismissed the council in 2024, and in the 2025 elections the same mayor returned to office.

Rēzekne calls itself the Heart of Latgale, and it is the main centre of the region's distinct identity. Latgalian, an East Baltic language that Latvian law classes as a historical variety of Latvian, is spoken across the region, and Catholicism, strengthened by Polish rule in the 17th and 18th centuries, shapes the city's calendar and skyline. The Sacred Heart Cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Rēzekne-Aglona, whose diocese includes the great pilgrimage basilica at Aglona.

The Latgales Māra monument sums up local feeling. Its central figure is popularly linked with Māra, the old Latvian goddess of motherhood and the earth, and holds up a cross for the region's Catholic faith; the words beneath, 'United for Latvia', recall Latgale's choice to join the rest of the country after three centuries apart. Toppled by the Soviets in 1940 and again in 1950, it was rebuilt from old photographs in 1992.

The city has always been mixed. Catholic, Lutheran, Orthodox and Old Believer churches stand within a short distance of the Green Synagogue, the last of eleven. Pottery is the region's signature craft, displayed in depth at the Latgale Culture and History Museum, and the GORS concert hall, opened in 2013, brings concerts, ballet, theatre and film to eastern Latvia.

In 2022 Rēzekne had 26,481 inhabitants, down by more than 16,000 since 1990 as people left for Riga and abroad. It is the second most densely populated city in Latvia after Riga. Russians formed the majority by 1989, but by 2025 Latvians, at 48 per cent, outnumbered Russians, at 40 per cent, with smaller Polish, Ukrainian and Belarusian communities.

Soviet planners built large factories here — a dairy cannery, a milking-equipment plant that employed more than 2,000 people, an electric-tool factory and a grain-products plant — together with the housing of the Northern District for their workers. Most of these could not survive competition after 1991 and closed. Industry has since restarted on a smaller scale, built on local raw materials and the skills of former metalworking staff, and European Union funds have rebuilt much of the infrastructure and many public buildings, though the borrowing that went with them left the city with the heaviest debts of any Latvian municipality in 2025. Rēzekne Academy of Technologies, the city's institution of higher education since 1993, is a major presence.

Life is quiet and close-knit. The castle hill, the cathedral and the concert hall form the centre of public life, and the lakes of the Latgale Upland are within easy reach for summer weekends.

Rēzekne eats from the Latvian table. Potatoes, pork, rye, cabbage and dairy are the staples. Cottage cheese, biezpiens, is traditionally eaten with boiled potatoes, lightly salted herring, spring onions and sour cream, and speķrauši, buns filled with finely cut streaky bacon and onion, are a common snack. Dishes adopted from Soviet cuisine — pelmeni (pelmeņi) with sour cream, borsch (borščs) and shashlik (šašliks) — are part of the Latvian table too.

The lakes nearby supply freshwater fish: Lake Rāzna alone holds pike, tench, zander, perch, bream and vendace among many other species. Hot- and cold-smoked fish and meat are common across Latvia, and potato pancakes are a popular dish.

Dark rye bread, rupjmaize, made from coarse rye flour, malt and caraway, has been a staple for centuries, and rye bread soup, maizes zupa, made from rye bread, whipped cream, dried fruit and cranberries, is a traditional dessert. Kvass, brewed from fermented rye or black bread, and beer, the most consumed alcoholic drink in Latvia, are popular drinks.