Belarus

Eastern Europe

A landlocked Eastern European republic of forests, lakes and Soviet-era cityscapes between Poland and Russia. Its draws are the primeval Belovezhskaya Pushcha forest with the largest herd of European bison in the world, and the UNESCO castle-museums of Mir and Nesvizh. Belarus is under a US State Department Level 4 Do Not Travel advisory; the sites listed here are real and operating, and each carries that advisory.

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What you can do in Belarus

Museums & Galleries

MirMay Jun Jul Aug SepMir Castle is the most complete castle-museum in Belarus and the easy anchor for a day in the country's medieval past. Begun in the 1520s by the Ilinich family and finished by the Radziwills, the red-brick fortress layers Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque work into one striking silhouette of towers and a moat, and it earned a place on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2000. Inside, the museum runs to some three dozen restored expositions across the towers and residential ranges, with period halls, arms, portraits and tapestries, plus the vaulted cellars, the battle galleries and the Svyatopolk-Mirsky family chapel-tomb in the park outside. It is a proper museum with more than two hundred thousand visitors a year, not a ruin, and the landscaped park and pond around it make the setting. Mir pairs naturally with the grander Radziwill palace at Nesvizh, a second UNESCO site about thirty kilometres away, so most visitors see the two castles together on one loop out of Minsk. For a traveler this is the clearest, most rewarding window onto Belarusian and old Grand Duchy history.

Wildlife Safaris

Belovezhskaya PushchaJan Feb Mar Oct Nov DecBelovezhskaya Pushcha is the place to see the European bison, the continent's heaviest land animal, back from the edge of extinction in the forest where it was saved. The Belarusian side of this ancient woodland holds the largest herd in the world, several hundred animals, and the national park runs guided drives and walks to the enclosures and out into the forest where bison, konik horses, red deer and elk range. This is old-growth on a scale that has almost vanished from Europe, hornbeam and oak and spruce that have never been cleared, and the trees themselves are part of the draw. The park is a working conservation institution rather than a wilderness free-for-all, so you move on set routes and booked excursions by minibus, bicycle or on foot, with rangers who know where the animals are. It also keeps a nature museum and, incongruously, a residence billed as the home of the Belarusian Grandfather Frost that draws family visitors in winter. For a traveler, the reason to come is simple and specific: wild European bison, in numbers, in the forest that is their last true stronghold.

Best months at a glance

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Museums
Wildlife Safaris