Nemenčinė


Nemenčinė is a city in Vilnius district municipality, Lithuania, it is located only about north-east of Vilnius. Close to Nemenčinė forest was planted which forms a sentence Žalgiris 600 visible from the air.

Names

Nemenčinė is the original name of the town reflected in historical documents and still in use today. It derives from a Lithuanian word referring to the river Nemenčia. Other versions of the name include Niemenczyn in Polish, Неменчын in Belarusian, Неменчине in Russian, Nementschine in German and Nementchin in Yiddish.

History

Lithuanian wooden castle and the mound stood in Nemenčinė in 10-14th centuries. The settlement started to grow around the castle. In 1387, following the Christianization of Lithuania, Jogaila established the first Christian parish in Nemenčinė and built a church there. In a 1434 document Andrius Sakaitis, one of the most influential Lithuanian nobleman families during the reign of Grand Duke of Lithuania Casimir IV Jagiellon, listed Nemenčinė as his domain. In 1554, Nemenčinė after the Volok Reform got the rights of the town.
In 1613, the town was marked on the map of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania – Magni Ducatus Lithuaniae, et Regionum Adiacentium exacta Descriptio printed in Amsterdam and financed by the Lithuanian magnate Mikołaj Krzysztof Radziwiłł the Orphan.
Niemenczyn, as it was known in Polish, was administratively located in the Wilno Voivodeship of Poland in the interbellum.
During World War II, it was occupied by the Soviet Union from 1940, then by Nazi Germany from 1941, and then re-occupied by the Soviet Union in 1944. On 20 September 1941, 403 Jews from the town were massacred in a mass execution. 128 men, 186 women and 99 children were shot by an Einsatzgruppen of local Nazi collaborators. In 1971, a monument was erected on the execution site.

Ethnic composition

The ethnic composition of Nemenčinė is as follows:
Total population in 2011 – 5054
Total population in 2021 – 4831

International partnership

Nemenčinė is twinned with three towns in Poland: Węgorzewo, Ełk and Suwałki. It also has a partnership agreement with Poland's West Pomeranian Voivodeship, signed in Vilnius on 19 June 2009.

Sports

In 14 of September 2017 Nemenčinė Biathlon Stadium was opened and become a second operating Biathlon course in Lithuania.

People