Ruzhyn; Yiddish: רוזשין, Rizhn) is an urban-type settlement in Berdychiv Raion, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine.

Population: 4,209 (2022 estimate)[1] Archaeological discoveries of stone tools and carvings, dating to 5000 BCE were made in the Ruzhyn area.

The nomadic Scythians controlled the area from approximately 500-300 BCE, replaced by the Sarmatians, who were based on the western banks of the Dniester.

Later, a Hellenistic Antiv culture built a defensive wall near Ruzhyn, and extended its territorial reach to all the area between the Dniester & Dnieper Rivers.

In 1608, Kirik's brother Adam aided Dmitri – a false pretender to the throne in Moscow – to raise an army which consisted of a thousand horsemen.

With a peace treaty signed between Russia, Ukraine and Poland in 1667, lands including Ruzhyn reverted to Polish control.

Subsequently, brick factories, liquor distilleries, oil processing plants & steam-powered mills sprung up throughout Ruzhyn; as did a post office, another hospital, an Orthodox church and a synagogue.

Under this policy, the peasantry's produce was harvested, through mandatory quotas, only to be shipped to the population centers of Moscow, St. Petersburg etc.

Rabbi Israel Friedman (1796–1850) was the great-grandson of the Maggid of Mezritch, the chief disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism.

The impressive dome had been donated by Emperor Franz-Josef of Austria, who visited the synagogue on his way to the dedication of the Suez Canal.

Hearing that the czar had ordered his re-arrest, the Rebbe fled to Kishinev (Moldova), then to Iasi (Romania) Austria, and then re-settled in Sadagora (Bukovina-Ukraine), where he founded a large synagogue and re-established his Hasidic court.

The sugar factory, in nearby Toporakh, was owned by Moshe Isayevich Gorovitz and run by his manager, Yosef Franzovich Lissel.

Young Jewish workers in Ruzhyn, associated with the Bund, led by S. Ostrovsky distributed Socialist publications and called for strikes.

In October of that year, several strikers (S. Ostrovsky, Y. Mogilevsky, L. Pavalotsky, S. Trusevich and V. Urinova-Rabinovich) were arrested and sentenced to prison terms in the Archangel Gubernia in Siberia.

However, with the czar wildly claiming that 90% of the revolutionaries were Jews, pogroms swept the Russian Empire – notably in Ukraine and Bessarabia (Moldova).

Pogroms, led by Cossacks – set for immediately after the Orthodox Easter - tore into the Jewish communities, killing and looting Jews in scattered towns & villages.

Not only were provisions demanded (milk, foodstuffs, meat and warm clothing), but also an annual head tax of 200 rubles was imposed on the town.

While other members of these killing squads were hanged by the Soviets after the war, Rodenko was only arrested in the 1970s and died in prison, awaiting trial.