The town is located in Grodno Region on the river Ivyanka 158 kilometers away from Grodno. Motorways connect it with Lida, Volozhin, Lipniki, Yuratishki.

In early 16th century Ivye belonged to the Zaberezinski princely family, and in 1558-1654 the town was in the hands of the Kishki family. There was founded the famous Arian academy. In 1585-1593 the academy was headed by Ian Licinius Namyslovski, an outstanding poet and thinker born in Silesia.

 

 

One of the first Belarusian printing houses was founded in Ivye in 1611. This house issued a number of important theological and academic books, including the first Belarusian grammar that was highly appreciated by Mikhail Lomonosov, a great Russian scholar.

 

One of the most beautiful pieces of architecture in Ivye is St Peter and Paul’s Cathedral (17th century) that used to belong to Arians, Catholics and even Bernardines. It is a unique mixture of gothic style, renaissance, baroque and rococo. The Holy Cross Cathedral was also built in the 17th century.

 

In the 17th-19th centuries the town was handed over from one princely family to another It used to belong to the Slushki, the Glebovichs, the Zhizhemski, the Oginski, the Sapegi, the Tizengauzy.

 

In the 1656 part of Ivye was ruined by Russian troops led by Prince Trubetskoi. In 1795 the town became part of the Russian Empire.

 

In 1884 there was built a mosque in Ivye. The construction was sponsored by Countess Elvyra Zamoyskaya who then owned the town. A marble memorial plate with her name on still stands in one of the major halls of the mosque.

 

 

Ivye is considered to be the unofficial Tartar capital of Belarus. The town annually hosts a Muslim festival that gathers a lot of Tartars from Belarus and foreign countries.

 

Most of Ivye’s tourist attractions are in the downtown. These include the St Peter and Paul’s Cathedral, the Bernardine monastery (18-19th centuries), several dwelling houses built in late 19th — early 20th centuries and a 300-year-old oven covered with terra-cotta tiles.

 

Every year several hundred citizens of Israel and the USA come to Ivye on May 15 to honor the memory of three thousand Jews murdered here by fascists in 1942.

 

There is a small two-storey hotel, a restaurant and a cafe in Ivye.