03 Aug 2010

Re-Discovering Belarus

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As much as people like going abroad to see Europe or even farther if they are lucky (and no visas can stop that urge!) it seems to have become popular to travel around Belarus, discovering our own country. And though tourism infrastructure leaves much to be desired; and very often what you find is just another small soviet town with the statue of Lenin on the central square named after him, or remainders of an old palace which is falling apart because of careless neglect – sometimes you get to see a small piece of old mosaic on a half destroyed wall or a cross carved on an ancient stone and that makes you feel like touching the history and being a part of it. These moments help us reinforce our identity as Belarusians, a people with things to be proud of, things we want to keep for the future. One could say that such trips could be a recepy for our soar
many people take the adventurous approach and jus
I often told my foreign friends that due to the wars and the soviet rule in the XX’s century many of architectural monuments in Belarus disappeared forever. Apparently it is not true and besides a few old churches in Minsk and regional capitals one can find such beautiful cathedrals as the one in Herviaty on the boarder with Lithuania

As much as people like going abroad to see Europe or even farther if they are lucky (and no visas can stop that urge!) it seems that is becoming  popular for Belarusians to travel around Belarus. And though tourism infrastructure leaves much to be desired; and very often what you find is just another small soviet town with the statue of Lenin on the central square named after him, or remainders of an old palace which is falling apart because of careless neglect – sometimes you get to see a small piece of old mosaic on a fallen wall or a cross carved on an ancient stone, and that makes you feel like you’ve travelled back in time and that you are part of history. These moments help us reinforce our identity as Belarusians, a people with history and culture to be proud of, things we want to keep for the future. One could say that such trips could be a prescription to cure the chronic national identity deficiency of Belarusians.

I’ve often told my foreign friends that due to the wars and Soviet rule in the twentieth century, many historical architectural monuments in Belarus disappeared forever. Apparently it is not true and if you look a bit harder you can find such beautiful cathedrals as the one in Herviaty on the boarder with Lithuania. This neo-gothic cathedral was built a bit more than a century ago and together with the arboretum and the group of Apostle statues around the cathedral, this place deserves more attention from travelers.

More photos in the Belarusian article

Or there is this little place called Bystryca where an Augustinian Monastery, founded back in 1390, used to stand. Around 240 years after the monastery’s foundation a cathedral was built here and luckily it managed to survive a number of reconstructions and the recurrent change of hands from the catholic and christian orthodox churches.

More photos in the Belarusian article

Another interesting place is a neo-renaissance palace in Krasny Berah (to the southeast from Miensk) built by Viktor Shroter, a famous architect from St Petersburg, at the end of the 19th century. The palace is a mixture of many styles where each hall is decorated in a different way – all 36 halls of the palace have their unique style. During the USSR period the building was occupied by a vocational school which can still be recognized from the gate. Now the palace is in a revival stage and has been renovated for 16 years already. Hopefully the end is near and this interesting place will be opened to the general public soon.

More photos in the Belarusian article.

All of the articles about the forgotten, neglected and restored places in Belarus are written by the same author – Ales Bezuher, who has made dozens of trips to forgotten places of which the general public have not heard. The articles also describe the way Ales manages to get there, what is the story of the place, why it is interesting, what is the state of the place now. He or his fellow travelers take pictures so people can see it with their own eyes. Ales explains how the idea of this series was born:

I got this idea around the time when the Western boarders of Belarus were locked by visa tariffs which are difficult to overcome for Belarusian young people. It was exactly the time when we noticed the presence of interest towards places in Belarus which are not shown on TV or in standard tourist photo-books.

I would say that we rediscover Belarus.

I think it is also important to emphasize that all these interesting historical objects survived despite the current state ideology in the country that admits that we do have history before the October revolution but does not feel responsible to take care of that historical heritage. Unfortunately, only few people recognize these buildings as the heritage . And it will take time to promote these places as well as historical events connected to them to the general public.

This series of articles has raised more interest among young people to go discover Belarus while those places have not been destroyed or fallen apart yet. And it is no surprise that GenerationBY readers start suggesting in forums or comments to the articles to go somewhere interesting next weekend.

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