HOMEL  , or GomEL, a

town of Russia, in the government of Mogilev, and 132 M. by rail S.S.E. of the town of Mogilev, on the Sozh, a tributary of the Dnieper . Pop . (1900) 45,081, nearly half of whom are Jews . It is an important junction of the railways from Vilna to Odessa and from Orel to Poland, and is in steamer communication with Kiev and Mogilev . In front of Prince Paskevich's castle stands an equestrian statue of the Polish general Joseph Poniatowski, and in the cathedral is the tomb of the chancellor Nikolai Petrovich Rumantsev, by Canova . The town carries on a brisk trade in hops, corn and timber; there are also paper-pulp mills and oil factories . Homel was founded in the 12th century, and after changing hands several times between Poles and Russians was annexed to Russia in 1772 . In 1648 it suffered at the hands of the Cossack chieftain Bogdan Chmielnicki .