Nesvizh

Location: Situated in Minsk region.

Nesvizh is a real pearl of the Middle Aged Belarus, and it is impossible not to visit it when coming to the country.

Nesvizh birthday is considered to be in 1446, when the great prince of Lithuania Kazimir IV Yagellonchik gave Nesvizh to Mikolai Yan Nemirovich. In the end of 16th century a town hall with trade center was built, and now they still symbolize the freedoms granted to the city by the Magdeburg right for self-government. In 16-17th centuries the city started to belong to the prince Mikolay Kryshtof Radzivill ( (“Orphan”)), who changed the city plan completely and reconstructed it following the European example. At that very period the city experienced flourishing of its riches and culture.

In 1584 a palace was founded in Nezvizh at the place of the old wooden estate. The palace was a family house of the Radzivills – a magnate noble family -- and was reconstructed several times. In 1596 Radzivill “Sirotka” and his wife Elzhbeta Ephimiya financed construction of Benedictine monastery. Nesvizh also attracts by its Farny Cathedral of the Most Sacred God’s Body, constructed in 1593 as a cathedral of the Jesuit monastery (collegium), and is the first Baroque architecture memorial at the territory of Eastern Europe.

The Radzivills family’s burial-vault is situated in the cathedral (72 burials, some of them are preserved as mummies, (the last burial dates back to the year 2000 ), this burial vault is the only necropolis of the historical family in Eastern Europe.

Slutsk Brama (arch) (16th century), palace gates tower (16th century), plebaniya (a house by the church) (18th cent.) all these are the memorials testifying the great history of the town, ready to welcome its visitors with hospitality and open its secrets to them.