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Top Attractions in Belarus

Minsk

Minsk is the capital and largest city of Belarus, situated on the Svislach and Nyamiha rivers. It is the administrative centre of the Commonwealth of Independent States . As the national capital, Minsk has a special administrative status in Belarus and is the administrative centre of Minsk Region and Minsk raion . In 2013, it had a population of 2,002,600. The earliest historical references to Minsk date to the 11th century, when it was noted as a provincial city within the principality of Polotsk. The settlement developed on the rivers. In 1242, Minsk became a part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It received town privileges in 1499. From 1569, it was a capital of the Minsk Voivodship in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was part of a region annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, as a consequence of the Second Partition of Poland. From 1919 to 1991, after the Russian Revolution, Minsk was the capital of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union.

Vitsyebsk

Vitebsk or Vitsebsk is the capital of the Vitebsk Region, in 2004 it had 342,381 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth largest city. It is served by Vitebsk Vostochny Airport and Vitebsk air base. Vitebsk developed from a river harbor where the Vitba River flows into the larger Western Dvina, which is spanned in the city by the Kirov Bridge. Archaeological research indicates that at the mouth of Vitba there were settlements by Baltic tribes, which were replaced in the 9th century by Slavic tribes Krivichs. According to the Chronicle of Michael Brigandine , Vitebsk was founded by Princess Olga of Kiev in 974. Other versions give 947 or 914. Academician Boris Rybakov and historian Leonid Alekseyev, based on the chronicles, have come to the conclusion that Princess Olga of Kiev could have established Vitebsk in 947. Leonid Alekseyev suggested that the chroniclers, moving the date from the account of the Byzantine era to a new era, got the year 947, but later mistakenly written in copying manuscripts 974. an important place on trade route from the Varangians to the Greeks, by the end of the 12th century Vitebsk became a center of trade and commerce, became the center of an independent principality, following Polotsk, and at times, Smolensk and Kiev princes. The official year of founding Vitebsk is 974, based on an anachronistic legend that it was founded by Olga of Kiev, but the first mention in historical record is from 1021, when Yaroslav the Wise of Kiev gave it to Bryachislav Izyaslavich, Prince of Polotsk. In the 12th and 13th centuries Vitebsk was the capital of the Principality of Vitebsk, an appanage principality which thrived at the crossroads of the river routes among the Baltic and Black seas. In 1320 the city was incorporated into the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a dowry of the Princess Maria, the first wife of Grand Duke of Lithuania Algirdas. By 1351 the city had erected a stone Upper and Lower Castle, the prince's palace. In 1410 Vitebsk participated in the Battle of Grunwald. In 1597, the townsfolk of Vitebsk were privileged with Magdeburg rights. However, the rights were taken away in 1623 after the citizens revolted against the imposed Union of Brest and killed Archbishop Josaphat Kuntsevych. During the First Partition of Poland in 1772, Vitebsk was annexed by the Russian Empire. Under the Russian Empire the historic centre of Vitebsk was rebuilt with Neoclassical architecture. By World War II, Vitebsk had a significant Jewish population: according to Russian census of 1897, out of the total population of 65,900, Jews constituted 34,400 . The most famous of its Jewish natives was the painter Marc Chagall. In 1919, Vitebsk was proclaimed to be part of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, but was soon transferred to the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and later to the short-lived Lithuanian-Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1924, it was returned to the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. During World War II, the city was under Nazi Germany occupation (10 July 1941 26 June 1944). Much of the old city was destroyed in the ensuing battles between the Germans and the Red Army soldiers. Most of the local Jews perished in the Vitebsk Ghetto massacre.

Gorky Park

Gorky Park is a public park in Minsk, Belarus. In is located near the Victory Square and the Yanka Kupala Park. The park was established in 1800 under the name Governors Garden. During the Soviet times it was renamed "парк культуры і адпачынку імя Максіма Горкага" after the famous Russian/Soviet writer Maksim Gorky. Parks with this name have been established in many cities of the Soviet Union. A part of the parks territory is occupied by an amusement park with a 56 meter high Ferris wheel. It also has an educational observatory with planetarium. The Ice Palace is also located in Gorky Park. President Lukashenko, known for his hobby of ice hockey, frequents this place, at which times the access to this part of the park is closed for general public.

New Hrodna Castle

The New Castle in Hrodna, Belarus is a royal palace of Augustus III of Poland and Stanisław August Poniatowski where the famous Grodno Sejm took place in 1793. New Hrodna Castle is situated at an altitude of 116 meters. The royal residence was built on the high bank of the Neman River at a little distance from the Old Hrodna Castle which had suffered great dilapidation in the aftermath of the Swedish occupation in the early 18th century. The two castles are joined by a 300-year-old arch bridge. The palace compound was designed by Carl Friedrich Pöppelmann. Construction was carried out between 1734 and 1751 under the supervision of several other Saxon architects, including Johann Friedrich Knöbel and Joachim Daniel von Jauch. The palace was completed under the direction of Giuseppe de Sacco in 1789 and remained home for King Stanisław II August until 1797. Used as a hospital and barracks throughout most of the 19th century, the palace was renovated by the Polish administration in the interwar period. Scarcely anything is left of the original fabric of the castle, whose refined Rococo detailing vanished during World War II. There followed a hasty and rather superficial refurbishing of the palace by the Soviets with a view to making it the headquarters of a local obkom. A plaque on the wall of the palace commemorates the council of war held in the royal residence by Tadeusz Kościuszko on 30 October 1794.

Ruzhany Palace

Ruzhany Palace is a ruined palace compound in Ruzhany village, Pruzhany Raion, Brest Voblast, Western Belarus. Between the 16th and 19th centuries Ruzhany, then called Różany, was the main seat of the senior line of the Sapieha noble family, known as the Sapiehas of Ruzhany. Ruzhany began its life in the late 16th century as the site of Lew Sapiehas castle, the palace being completed in 1602. The Sapieha residence was destroyed in the course of the internecine strife in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania when it was attacked by Michał Serwacy Wiśniowieckis forces in 1700. Ruzhany Palace was rebuilt as a grand Neoclassical residence in the 1770s by Aleksander Michał Sapieha, employing the services of the architect Jan Samuel Becker of Saxony, who set the palace in an English park landscape. Aside from the palace, there was a theatre, an orangery and several other outbuildings. Becker also designed the local church . By the time of King Stanisław IIs visit in 1784, work on the palace had been suspended. The Sapieha estates were nationalised in the aftermath of the November Uprising . Three years later, the palace compound was sold to be used as a textile mill and weaving factory. In 1914 the palace was accidentally set on fire by factory workers. The First World War and subsequent financial hardships prevented the buildings restoration until 1930, however the partially restored palace became a ruin again within fifteen years, a casualty of the Second World War. The ornate palace gate survives and has recently been restored.

Kreva Castle

Kreva Castle is the ruins of a major fortified residence of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in the village of Kreva, Belarus. Algirdass brother Kęstutis was imprisoned and murdered in the Kreva Castle in 1382. Kreva Castle is situated at an elevation of 220 m. The Union of Krewo, the first step towards the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, was signed in the castle three years later. The castle was sacked by the Crimean Tatars in the early 16th century and stood unoccupied for a long time. By the 19th century, much of the walls had crumbled away. The World War I dealt a final blow to the decaying structure, since the castle stood on the front line between Russian and German armed forces. In 19th and 20th centuries, the ruins were partially conserved, particularly by Poland in 1929. However, the monument crumbles further.

Chelyuskinites Park

Chelyuskinites Park is an urban forest park in Minsk, Belarus. The parks area is 78 hectares. The park contains an amusement park. Other attractions include a Childrens Railroad, operated exclusively by teenagers, and a cinema Raduga . There is a Minsk Metro station "Park Chalyuskintsau" next to the park. The park is adjacent to the Minsk Botanical Garden. The park was established during 1928-1932 as Kamaroúski Park and was renamed in 1934 for the crew of the SS Chelyuskin. It was based on the existing Kamaroúski Forest, enriched by noble and decorative species of trees. Historically the park was part of the Wańkowicz family estate and was called the Wańkowicz Forest. According to the book "In the claws of the GPU" of the Belarusian writer Frantsishak Alyakhnovich, Kamaroúski Forest was the place of the regular executions of the prisoners of Minsk NKVD prison.

Babruysk fortress

The Babruysk Fortress is a historic fortress in the city of Babruysk, Belarus that was built between 1810 and 1836. It is one of the best surviving examples of fortification architecture and design in the first half of the 19th century. The fortress was constructed in the historic center of the city, at the confluence of the Babruyka and Berezina rivers. It was one of the western Russian fortresses. In 1810, Tsar Alexander I sent out his military engineer Teodor Narbutt to find a site suitable for building a fortress somewhere on the Dnieper, between Mogilev and Rogachev in order to prepare for the looming threat in Western Europe. However, after his investigation, Narbut advised his superiors that a more strategic position would be on the shore of the Berezina river near Babruysk. This decision was approved by the Chief of Military Engineers, Count Carl Operman, who at the time had authority over all of Russian forts. On June 4, 1810, the Tsar issued an order for the Babruysk fortress to be constructed. Narbut had to resign for health reasons and was replaced by General Major Gabriel Ignatiev. The early fortress comprised five bastions, multiple soil ridges, and water channels. The basis for the Babruysk fortress was the Babruysk Jesuit house and a smaller Polish fortress, which were built earlier. Only partially completed, the fortress had to face Napoleons invading army in the summer of 1812. After the French army captured Minsk, General Ignatiev took command of the fort and the city of Babruysk, which served as a holdout for the retreating Russian forces. Soldiers from The Second Russian Army were provided with food and the wounded received medical treatment. After that they were ferried by the Berezina and Dniper to Smolensk, where the main Russian army was stationed. General Ignatiev remained in the fortress and oversaw its defence. The city faced an attack by the forces of General Dombrawski, the Polish Corps Commander of Napoleons Army. The siege lasted for four months, however the fortress held until the French forces began their retreat. Throughout this time Ignatiev was instrumental in collecting intelligence and forwarding it to the high command of the Russian army. Following the Napoleonic wars, in 1820, the fortress was further rapidly expanded by the addition of 18 more bastions and towers. The fort Freidrich Wilhelm was designed according to the plans of the architect A. Staubert in 1822. Tsar Alexander I himself and his brother arrived in Babruysk on September 24, 1825, at the completion of this building phase. By 1900 the fortress lost its military significance and was converted into a jail, used by Polish occupation forces and used for concentration camp by German occupation forces . Today, the Babruysk Fortress is registered as a national architectural monument of Belarus. However, the ruins of the Bobruysk fortress were removed in 2008 when the Bobruysk Ice Palace was erected.

National Opera and Ballet of Belarus

The National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre of the Republic of Belarus is located in a park in the Trinity Banlieu of the city of Minsk. Local people call it the "Opierny Teatr" or the "Opera and Ballet Theatre". It opened on 15 May 1933 but it first did not have its own venue for presentations at the Belarusian Drama Theatre building until 1938. The first permanent theatre was founded in Belarus in 1933 on the basis of the Belarusian opera and ballet school, the organizer of the studio being the famous Russian Opera singer Anton Bonachich . He was the first head of the new theatre. But he stayed in this position for a very short time, dying in 1933. The current theatre building was opened in 1939. It was designed by the Belarus architect from Leningrad, Iosif Langbard, whose original design was only partially implemented and some design details were omitted yielding to financial and other problems; the theatre has reliefs done by Zair Azgur.

Saint Sophia Cathedral in Polotsk

The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom in Polotsk was built by Prince Vseslav Briacheslavich between 1044 and 1066. It stands at the confluence of the Polota and Western Dvina Rivers on the eastern side of the city and is probably the oldest church in Belarus. The cathedral is, like the Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kiev and Saint Sophia Cathedral in Novgorod, named after the Holy Wisdom of God. After building his own cathedral, Vseslav, who was an izgoi prince, tried to seize the Kievan throne. Failing in that attempt, he raided the surrounding principalities; in 1067, he raided Novgorod the Great and looted the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom there, bringing a bell and other loot back to decorate his own Cathedral of Holy Wisdom. The cathedral is mentioned in The Tale of Igor's Campaign, where it says that Vseslav would make nocturnal trips to Kiev as a werewolf and would hear the bells of Holy Wisdom at Polotsk as they rang for matins. The cathedral has been significantly rebuilt and heavily modified between the eleventh and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, only parts of the church date back to the time of Vseslav, although the names of the builders are inscribed in a stone at the base of the cathedral: David, Toma, Mikula, Kopes, Petr, and Vorish. The burial vaults of 16 Polotsk princes dating back to the eleventh century have been uncovered (indeed, Vseslav himself, said to have been a sorcerer as well as a werewolf, was buried in the cathedral he built). According to the Voskresenskaia Letopis (s.a. 1156), the cathedral originally had seven domes, later reduced to five after it was rebuilt following the fire of 1447. During 1596-1654 and 1668-1839 church was a Greek-Catholic cathedral. It was rebuilt again in 1618-1620 by Greek-Catholic Archbishop St. Josaphat Kuntsevych following a fire in 1607, and again after a fire destroyed the cathedral and the city in 1643. In 1705-1710, Peter the Great and Aleksandr Menshikov used the church as a powder magazine; the magazine exploded. Over the next almost three decades (1738-1765), the Uniate archbishop, Florian Hrebnicki, rebuilt the cathedral. The Vilnius' architect Johann Christoph Glaubitz was responsible for the current appearance, which is an example of the "Vilnius Baroque" style. Currently it is a baroque structure with towers and the domes have been removed (or at least not rebuilt). The cathedral housed a library and other important cultural artifacts, but the library was destroyed when King Stephen Báthory of Poland took the city during the Livonian War in the late 16th century. The town was also occupied by the French during the Napoleonic Invasion in 1812 and also during the Nazi Invasion in the 1940s during which a large number of inhabitants were slaughtered. The cathedral has also changed functions several times over the centuries. With the Union of Brest, the cathedral became a uniate or Eastern Rite Catholic Church and remained as such until 1839 where Bishop Joseph Siemaszko terminated the union and restored the Belarusian Greek Catholic Church with the Russian Orthodox Church. During the Soviet period, the cathedral housed the Polotsk Regional State Archive In 1967, restoration work took place as the cathedral was to be turned into a museum of atheism, but the museum was moved to Vitebsk in 1969. The cathedral is now part of the State Museum-Preserve of Polotsk and used as a concert hall with an organ. There is talk of returning the building to the Russian Orthodox Church.

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