Everyone knows that there is Batoka Lukashenko in Belarus. Those who have been in the country know that even in small towns, not to mention Minsk - on the streets the cleanliness is sterile. But only travelers know that there are also plenty of attractions in Belarus. And there are no such things around. After all, it was Belarus that absorbed the history of several states, and this symbiosis of the Grand Principality of Lithuanian, the speech of the compulculation and the Russian Empire left its mentality, culture and architecture of his distinct trace. Some Belarusian castles are worth.
I do not hide, I feed a special passion to the castles. Stones have long stored not only heat, but also traces of history. Each castle is a kind of portal, a transition to another historical reality. What modern filling does not stuff his halls, centuries-old walls retain his true soul. Belarus in this respect was lucky, she has several beautiful castles and palaces, which despite the dashing tests of the past years, thanks to the efforts of the restorers returned their former beauty and greatness. About them my today's story.
Not orphan legacy
Just two hours from Minsk with his metropolitan, post-war architecture in the style of Stalin neoclassicism, is the small town of Nesvizh. His current appearance of the town owes the first ordinate to Nikolai Christophor Radziwill Lostke - the son of Nicholas Radziwill Black. Radziwill Syarota, having received a wooden Nesvizh's father inheritance, quickly turns it into a modern (mid-XVI century) Stone city with quarters and squares, town halls and chosets. All this is now the calling card of Nesviz. But the main decoration of the city is a generic nest Radzivilov, Nesvizhsky Castle. In a good way, it is rather a palace. Well, except that the mighty walls with bastions, fortress trees and ditch they talk about the initial purpose of this building. Syrotka conceived his residence as a fortress. On the right bank of the ears river on his idea and under the leadership of the Italian architect Giovanni Bernardoni for seven years - from 1583 to 1590th - the stone castle grew up.
But the subsequent generations of Radziwillov made their contribution to his appearance. As a result, an architectural masterpiece was turned out, which made various architectural styles - here are classicism, and baroque with Rococo, and Neoetics, and even modernism. Every owners brought something to him. Turning from the hall to the hall, they do not get tired of admiring - they knew how to live people. Parade halls with huge mirrors, cozy future French-style, solid cabinets - in English. Hunting apartments with huge fireplaces, musical salons with classic columns and narrow gothic ladies leading to the upper quarters ...
It should be understood that all this is only the reconstruction of the former gorgeous decoration of the palace. Legends walked about the wealth and treasures of the generic nest of Radzivilles. One of them tells about the twelve gold apostles, decorated with stones, which are allegedly the keepers of these lands. And while they are here, no one will be able to take possession of these lands and destroy Belarus. Therefore, in the difficult times of the apostles was hidden. And then generally removed in a hidden place, and their wax copies covered with gold paint put out. Many thieves caught this trick ... And the real apostles on the distance were not found.
When in 2004 it was decided to restore the castle in the same form, the museum workers turned to various departments and overseas organizations with a proposal to return to Nesvizhi Radziwilles, who after the accession of these lands to the USSR in 1939 were either exported or looted. Something managed to return. As, for example, huge mirrors of the castle of the castle. For a long time they decorated the Halls of the Yankan Kupala theater. Just like two large paired vases from France. Something was restored by sketches. Something burst at auctions. For example, an elegant bedroom set of mint color with the vensels of Radziwilles purchased at Sotheby's auction. But the billiard table made by the American company Brysvik (Bruswik) in 1896 - genuine. He was never taken out of the castle. During the Second World Movies, they tried to disassemble him, but nothing happened. A massive table consists of several large parts that will not imagine how to disconnect from each other. For this reason, the table came to the inheritance to the Soviet sanatorium, which is located in the castle of Radziwilles after the war. And in his current appearance, the palace was restored in 2011.
By the way, to revive the house chapel - the drone - one of the heiress of the genus, 91-year-old Eljbet Radziwill, the daughter of the last owner of the castle of Albrecht Radziwill. She lived in Nesvizh under 18. And I remembered well that where it was. According to her stories, sketches were drawn up. And in the recovery of the chapel, she invested their own funds. To the question of Belarusian journalists, does she want to regain their generic nest, the elderly lady answered: "What do I have such a big castle without holsters?" In the castle and indeed, up to 800 people lived.
And today the Nesvizh Palace and the park complex around it is one of the most famous tourist places in Belarus. Heat the interest of visitors and the legend of the castle. After all, he has even its own ghost - Black Panna, Barbara Radziville. The beloved wife of the owner of Sigismund castle was poisoned to learn his mother. Sigismund did not accept the loss and caused the spirit of the beloved with the help of alchemists. However, during a spiritual session, he could not restrain and concluded a ghost in embrace. Since then, the soul of Barbara cannot return to the sky. She wanders around the castle. But manifests itself only before the impending danger to warn about it. It is said that the last time the ghost was seen in 2002 - before the fire in Nesvizhsky Castle.
There are an old pond in the county park ...
Another of the famous possessions of Radziwillov is a worldly castle in the Grodno region. True, in contrast to Nesvizh, the fortress in the town of the world was not a generic nest by the Prince of Dynasty. The castle first owned the genus Ilyinich. It was Yuri Ilinich and built a fortress in the world in the architectural form that came to our time. The worldly castle will not call the palace - this is a full-fledged medieval fortress with characteristic towers, walls, transitions. But Christopher Radziwill Syarota completed him. Therefore, in the inner decoration of the castle, many details of their favorite details: for example, complex wooden ceilings with inlay. They are both in the world and in Nesvizh.
The soul in these walls breathed at the beginning of the XVIII century his new owner - Prince Mikhail Casimir Radziwill Fisheries. He rebuilds the castle, turning it out of the fortress in the front palace. The castle appears a parade, portrait and dance halls with oak parquet floors, carved ceilings, paintings. Here are excellent furniture, porcelain vases. And if the halls now can be contemplated during excursions, then the situation, alas, is irretrievably lost. However, this does not interfere, including the imagination, imagine how this residence looked in the second half of the 18th century, when his next owner, Prince Karol Stanislav on nicknamed Pan Kohank, who settled in the castle for permanent residence, arranged luxury balls here.
The fate of the worldly castle was violent. After Radzivil, he was in the possession of the Graph of Lion Petrovich Wittgenstein. And then was bought by the Cossack Atama Troops of Donskoy Nikolai Ivanovich Svyatopolk-Mirsky. He completed the construction of a worldly ensemble, erected a two-story palace opposite the castle and surrounding it with landscaped English park - with water bodies and islands. A terrible worldly legend is connected with this park. Before the place of the lake near the castle was an apple orchard. The prince ordered him to cut it out. However, the servants refused to chop flowering trees, and he called on the sucked people. During the creation of a reservoir, the son of a local witch was killed, and she cursed this place, wishing people to drow out in the lake as many as trees were cut down. At the age of 12, the daughter of Prince Sonya was drowned in the pond. And he himself died on the shore in 1898. They say before in the lake and really a lot of people. But in recent times, you do not hear: apparently, the number of condensed apple trees equalized with the number of victims.
On a visit to the shoe on the ship of the Viking
Well, finally, another wonderful tourist place is the Pansky Maent "Slah". Maent in Translated from Belorussky means "estate". The former estate of Lensky's princes on the banks of the Sula River is just 50 kilometers from Minsk - in the Column district. In the Soviet years, the Panish estate, where the intelligent and good-natured family of the Lensky Ancient Knight's Ostina, was destroyed. And now, by the efforts of private owners, this icon was revived, creating an ethnographic park-museum at its base, in which you can plunge into the life of the Polish gentry. And not only ... the route in the park is laid in such a way that you first get into the stone age, where you can warm up in a fireball by the fire and make a desire in Kromlethe - a megalithic structure of stones with runes. Then you get to the site of Slavic cults with the main pagan God of Slavyan - Rod. And from there to Varyags not far: the Viking ship will be met at the Varkazhskaya Pier - a Darcar, where you can arrange a small journey through the lake. Next is the medieval quarter. While he is unfair. The watchdog gothic tower is in the recovery stage. But there is a forge, where in the old technologies in the eyes of visitors, the arrow tips are spawned. There is a workshop on the rod of stone. And then on the stone pavement you fall on the weekdays of the Polish gentry. From the former stables, the estate of Lensky created the Royal Assembly with the hall of the Shankhetsky Glory. A huge fireplace with flaming lamps, armor of knights at the entrance, coarse wooden ceiling beams, stone walls - a complete feeling that I got on the pancake. Especially since the gentry here is a sable, a charm of a moonshine with a local distillery treats ... And a little bit, there is already a completely different age. On the hill, the house of Panov Lensky in the style of the Russian manor: the White House with Flygels and Columns. There, in several small rooms, Lensky Museum is now located. Such is a journey through historical milestones with visual pictures, games, ideas. In general, Belarus has something to surprise even a sophisticated tourist.