Ryki ' is a town

Town

A town is a human settlement larger than a village but smaller than a city. The size a settlement must be in order to be called a "town" varies considerably in different parts of the world, so that, for example, many American "small towns" seem to British people to be no more than villages, while...

 in eastern Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 on the main road between Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

 and Lublin

Lublin

Lublin is the ninth largest city in Poland. It is the capital of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 350,392 . Lublin is also the largest Polish city east of the Vistula river...

. It has 9,767 inhabitants (as of 2007).

Situated in the Lublin Voivodeship

Lublin Voivodeship

- Administrative division :Lublin Voivodeship is divided into 24 counties : 4 city counties and 20 land counties. These are further divided into 213 gminas....

 (since 1999). It is the capital of Ryki County

Ryki County

Ryki County is a unit of territorial administration and local government in Lublin Voivodeship, eastern Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish local government reforms passed in 1998. Its administrative seat is the town of Ryki, which lies north-west of the...

.

History

Ryki was first mentioned as a village owned by the king of Poland in documents from 1439. It received its city charter in 1782 but lost it in 1810. During the German occupation in years 1939-1944 the Jewish community of Ryki, constituting about 70% of the town's population, perished in the Holocaust. Ryki again officially became a town in 1957.

One of the major investments of the Edward Gierek

Edward Gierek

Edward Gierek was a Polish communist politician.He was born in Porąbka, outside of Sosnowiec. He lost his father to a mining accident in a pit at the age of four. His mother married again and emigrated to northern France, where he was raised. He joined the French Communist Party in 1931 and was...

 era was in Ryki. It was in an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

-built cake and sweets factory. It was the largest such factory in the world, and was to produce 17 million cakes a week. However, it soon turned out that most of the ingredients had to be import

Import

The term import is derived from the conceptual meaning as to bring in the goods and services into the port of a country. The buyer of such goods and services is referred to an "importer" who is based in the country of import whereas the overseas based seller is referred to as an "exporter". Thus...

ed from abroad at high prices, and the factory was closed soon after its completion. It remained one of biggest fallacies of the Gierek era.

Famous namesakes

The surname of Hyman G. Rickover

Hyman G. Rickover

Hyman George Rickover was a four-star admiral of the United States Navy who directed the original development of naval nuclear propulsion and controlled its operations for three decades as director of Naval Reactors...

, a US Navy Admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

 and considered the Father of the Nuclear Navy, is derived from Ryki. Born in 1900 in Maków Mazowiecki

Maków Mazowiecki

Maków Mazowiecki is a town in Poland, in the Masovian Voivodship. It is the powiat capital of Maków County . Its population is 10,850....

, the young Rickover emigrated with his Jewish family in 1905 to the United States. The Admiral served on active duty for 63 years, longer than any other U.S. military officer.