Belarus – Kobrin

Kobryn or Kobrin is a city in the Brest voblast of Belarus and the center of the Kobryn Raion. The city is located in the southwestern corner of Belarus where the Mukhavets River and Dnepr-Bug Canal meet. The city lies about 52 km east of the city of Brest.. It is at an altitude of 485 feet. It is a station on the Brest – Homiel railway line. As of 1995, the population was around 51,500. River transport is very common in Belarus. The picture on the card shows the river station at Kobrin City. This pretty card was sent to me by Alesia.

In prehistoric times it was inhabited by ancient Baltic Yotvingian tribe. After the Partition of Poland in 1795, the town was annexed by Imperial Russia. Occupied by Germany during the World War I, following the Polish-Bolshevik War it was handed to Poland under the terms of the Treaty of Riga and became a seat of a powiat within the Polesie Voivodship. During the Polish Defensive War of 1939 the town was the scene of heavy fighting between the Polish 60th Infantry Division of Colonel Adam Epler and the German XIX Panzer Corps of General Heinz Guderian. After three days of fighting the Poles withdrew southwards. Between 1939 and 1941 occupied by the Soviet Union, then until 1944 by Nazi Germany. During the latter period the majority of Jewish inhabitants were first amassed in a ghetto and then murdered by the Germans in their extermination camps. In 1945 the town was occupied once more by the USSR and attached to the Byelorussian SSR. Since 1991 it is a part of Belarus.