Cultural tourism

Belarus is a country in the center of Europe with magnificent nature and rich cultural and historical heritage. The history and culture of Belarus age many centuries. It has an advantageous geographical position and convenient transporting links. These two have always encouraged Belarus to intermingle with other countries’ cultures. For instance, by the end of the 10th century Byzantean style Christianity began to spread across Belarusian territory, thus facilitating the development of culture, the appearance of monumental stone architecture, painting art and literature.

Belarus absorbed the new ideas enthusiastically intertwining them into the canvas of the national culture. This fruitful synthesis is vividly reflected in the architecture, sculpture and painting.

In X-XIII centuries Belarus being a part of the Ryuriks Empire was an epicenter of the old Russian arts. The XIII century marks the beginning of the fair Belarusian architecture which absorbed some architectural patterns of Kiev Rus and Western Europe.

The tower in Kamenets, castles in Lida, Krevo, Mir, Nesvizh, Grodno remained.

In the Middle Ages the period of total defense architecture set on. The main type of monumental constructions were castles of princes and magnates with powerful walls and towers build of huge boulders and big-size bricks, surrounded by ramparts and ditches.Some of them have remained. Nowadays the towns’ and cities’ authorities carefully watch their historical citadels. So nowadays you can visit the fortification tower in Kamyenyets, a monumental castle in Krevo (ÕIII-XIV cent.), Lida (XIV cent.), Novogroudok (XIV-XVI cent.), Grodno (ÕIV-XVIII cent.), Mir and Nesvizh (XVI-XVIII cent.). XVI-ÕVII centuries gave a life to a special type of church transformed into fortresses and house-fortress. Among them are Murovanka, Synkovitchy and Hityunishky accordingly. They were flanked by battle towers in their corners. All the neighboring population gathered in them in case of military danger.

In XVI-XVIII Baroque style got a vigorous development in Belarus due to the various catholic orders. The Cathedrals in Nyesvizh, Grodno, Glubokoye, Sofia Cathedral in Polotsk (founded in XI century as Orthodox sacred place and converted into the Unia temple in the middle of XVIII) are pearls of Baroque architecture.

The end of the XVIII century saw the advent of Classicism, the architecture followed the art canons of antiquity. Catholic temples were mostly closed and rebuilt into Orthodox churches in the pseudo-Russian style. However, even those artificially implanted plastic architectural forms, when embodied in local materials, natural rock and wood, acquired their artistic originality. A range of palaces, manour estates, church,civil and industrial premises.

Prominent sons of Belarus among which are philosophers, enlighteners, men of literature and art, composers, public, political and religious figures have contributed a lot into the world development of culture throughout the history.

Search for further information on the topic in the chapter dedicated to the historical sights of the country.