Must see attractions in Minsk

Housed in a garish new building, Minsk's best museum houses an excellent display detailing Belarus' suffering and heroism during the Nazi occupation. With…

Vul Kastrychnitskaya – still known by its Soviet name, ulitsa Oktyabrskaya – has blossomed into Minsk's unofficial arts district. Brazilian street artists…

The capital's main thoroughfare impresses with its sheer size. Formerly pr Francyska Skaryny, it runs from what travel writer Colin Thubron dubbed the …

Several dozen traditional wood houses, a school, a church and an old windmill have been transplanted to this open-air folk museum in Azyartso, 15km…

This excellent museum in one of Minsk's iconic buildings (built in 1939) includes definitive works by Soviet social realists and Russian masters,…

This well-established gallery and cultural centre heralded a shift in the artistic landscape when it relocated to vul Kastrychnitskaya in 2018. It is…

In the heart of the Old Town just off central vul Lenina is charming pl Svabody, lorded over by the white medieval Ratusha (town hall). Off the northern…

This extremely moving sight, rather hidden away in a sunken gully amid trees off vul Melnikayte, commemorates the savage murder of 5000 Jews from Minsk at…

For a taste of post-Soviet Belarus, head north of the centre to the new national library, a ghastly piece of Lukashenko-approved hubris. You'll need your…

Independence Sq, formerly pl Lenina, is dominated by the 1930s constructivist Belarusian Government Building (behind the iconic Lenin statue). The red…

The red-brick Catholic Church of SS Simon & Elena, built in 1910, is worth popping into for a peek at its unique, wave-like, arched ceiling. Its tall,…

Off the northern edge of pl Svabody is the baroque, twin-towered Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, built in 1642. It was once part of a Polish…

Just across the bridge over the Svislach River, on the west bank, is the former residence of Lee Harvey Oswald. The assassin of former US president John F…

This enormous addition to Minsk's totalitarian architecture is the country's new presidential palace in all but name. Architecturally uninspiring, the…

Two freshly modernised museums in one here. The national history museum proper occupies the upper floors with exhibits of ethnographic and archaeological…

Trinity Hill is a pleasant – if tiny – recreation of Minsk's pre-war buildings on a pretty bend of the river just a little north of the centre. It has a…

An entire block of central pr Nezalezhnastsi is occupied by this yellow neoclassical building with an ominous, temple-like Corinthian portal – the KGB…

This red-brick church was built in 1898, closed by the Bolsheviks, reopened by the Nazis, closed again by the Soviets and now it's open once more. It's…

Off the vul Lenina overpass is the attractively restored 17th-century SS Peter & Paul Church. The city's oldest church, it was built in 1612, looted by…

Striking pl Peremohi is marked by an obelisk and an eternal flame (accessible from the underground passageway). Cyclists use this oval as a makeshift…