Travel inspired by the past

The golden autumn is conducive to long walks and stylised photo shoots. Those who like romantic trips inspired by the past should take a thermos  of tea, turn on the navigator and go to the most beautiful Belarusian manor and park ensembles.

Photo by Aleksandr Gorbash

The Koziell-Poklewski estate in Krasny Bereg

Why do you need Disney, if you can get into a fairy tale in the Gomel Region? The country house of the Koziell-Poklewski noble family looks just like from a picture! Built at the end of the 19th century, it is perfectly preserved and is considered ‘a guide to the history of architectural styles’. The interior combines Gothic, Romanism, Rococo, Mannerism, Baroque and Classicism.

The Koziell-Poklewski estate in Krasny Bereg
Photo: www.planetabelarus.by

The Koziell-Poklewskis were wine merchants, mining and gold producers, owners of the asbestos industry in the Urals and the first shipping company on the rivers of Western Siberia. Their mansions have also been preserved in Yekaterinburg and Talitsa. Moreover, Alfons Koziell-Poklewski even served as the prototype for one of the heroes of Privalov’s Millions novel by Dmitry Mamin-Sibiryak. 
Having ‘stayed’ in the estate (there is now a museum), be sure to take a walk through the old park in the English style. A mysterious boulder with two triangular holes hid in the shade of firs and spruces. It is called the stone owl. By tradition, tourists ask this ‘bird’ for happiness in love.

The Lubansky estate in Loshitsa

Loshitsky Park is one of the most beautiful in the Belarusian capital. Hilly terrain with ponds and bridges, alleys in the shade of centuries-old trees, orchards and, of course, an old manor with a mystical past — that’s why Minskers love this place.

The Loshitsa estate museum excursion
Photo by Sergey Lozyuk


According to the chronicles, Loshitsa was first mentioned in 1557, but it acquired the shape that it has now at the end of the 19th century under Eustathius Lubansky. An industrialist, a deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Empire and an enthusiast of cycling, he loved to surprise guests, so the manor’s house impresses with eclectic styles and rich decoration. Particular attention is given to unique stoves and fireplaces. You won’t see this anywhere else for sure. In addition, a real magnolia grows right behind the house. Once Lyubansky planted it in honour of his bride Jadwiga. The marriage was happy but short-lived. Beautiful Yadya drowned. They say that from time to time in the park one can see a bright silhouette — the spirit of the mistress of the estate.
  

Bulgak estate 

The undeservedly forgotten ‘Belarusian Versailles’ will soon receive the first visitors after a grandiose reconstruction. The magnificent palace in the village of Zhilichi in the Mogilev Region can compete in beauty and elegance with the Nesvizh residence of the Radziwills. Enormous and impressive in wealth, it is framed by an emerald park and looks no less massive from a height than from the ground.
Bulgak estate in the village of Zhilichi
Photo by BELTA

All this splendour appeared thanks to Marshal of Bobruisk Ignatius Bulgak. He, being an officer of the Russian army, showed unprecedented courage in the Patriotic War of 1812 and reached Paris itself. There, the Belarusian developed his architectural taste, and after returning home, he began the construction of the estate, ‘like the French themselves’.
Ceilings, walls and floors have retained the original decor with bas-reliefs, paintings and stucco. On one of the pediments of the side outbuildings, one can notice the mysterious ‘all-seeing eye’. Some try to discern a mystical mystery or a Masonic trace in it, but historians are sure that Bulgak’s domestic Polish Roman Catholic church was located in this part of the building.

Shvykovsky’s estate in Pruzhany

The whole cream of the intelligentsia came to Valenty Shvykovsky for dinner parties, balls and card games. The original Neo-Renaissance villa was built in the 1850s by Francisco Lanzi. The famous artist Napoleon Orda and the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov loved to stay here.

Shvykovsky’s estate in Pruzhany
Photo: www.travelagency.by

Today anyone can do the same. The townspeople affectionately call the estate within the city ‘a small palace’ and, despite all the upheavals of the last century, they tried to preserve it in its original shape. Even the flowers in the greenhouse, as before, bloom and smell! True, now instead of the master’s quarters, museum expositions are located here. Among the most interesting rarities there are a pagan stone idol, which is over a thousand years old, and a rare 16th century Last Supper icon.
  

Oginski’s estate in Zalesye

A spacious house in the Classicism style with a lush garden stands on the banks of the Draj River in the Grodno Region. This place has a musical history.

Horse rides on the territory of the Oginski’s museum-estate in Zalesye
Photo by BELTA

In the 19th century, the estate was called the Northern Athens because the owner Mikhail Oginski gathered aristocratic bohemians here. He himself was not only a successful diplomat and confidant of Alexander I of Russia, but also a talented composer. It was to this family estate that he dedicated one of the most famous polonaises in the world — Farewell to the Motherland.

By Sofia Arsenyeva