Rîbnița

Rîbnița, also written Rybnitsa, is a town in the breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria, on the left bank of the Dniester and separated from the river by a concrete dam. It is the seat of the Rîbnița District. The town was founded in 1628 as the Ruthenian village Rybnytsia, a name meaning fishery, and by 1657 was mentioned in documents as an important town. It was a private town of Polish noble families, fell briefly to the Ottoman Empire in 1672, passed from Poland to Russia in 1793, and in the twentieth century belonged to the Ukrainian People's Republic, Soviet Ukraine and from 1924 the Moldavian Autonomous Oblast. It is home to Moldova Steel Works, Transnistria's largest company. The 2004 census gave a population of 53,648.