MIR CASTLE, BELARUS - 8TH JANUARY 2022

MIR CASTLE
MIR, GRONDO, BELARUS
8TH JANUARY 2022
TRAVEL - S12:E13
DJI AIR 2S
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Mir Castle Complex of XVI–XX centuries in a small town Mir is a historical and cultural value of national importance and UNESCO World Heritage.

For the first time Мir was mentioned in 1434 when it becomes a private estate of Senko Gedygoldovich. According to his will in 1451 Mir passes to Anna Butrimovna, his foster daughter. In 1476 Anna gives Mir as possession for life to Senko’s wife Milokhna, and after her death – to her cousin Yury Ilinich, who started building the castle.

The owner of Mir had strong reasons for erecting such a mighty fortification building. At the beginning of the 16th century Crimean Tatars attacked these lands more frequently. Unstable political situation was worsened by the hostility among the feudal groups inside the country.

In particular, the Iliniches were in confrontation with a very powerful and influential prince Mikhail Glinsky. Nevertheless there was one more important reason for building the castle. Yury Ilinich aspired to get a title of a count of the Holy Roman Empire and one of the necessary conditions for this was having a stone castle. This was the first case when such a mighty fortress was built on the territory of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by a private owner.

At the first stage of construction five towers were erected. They were connected with walls whose thickness at the foundation was up to three meters. All the towers were planned as independent centers of resistance. They were erected in such a way that it was convenient to deliver flanking fire along the walls and to hit an approaching target. Each tower was about 25 meters in height and had five fighting storeys with loopholes and a complex system of inner passages. The builders used three-layer laying – the inner and outer parts of the walls were made of brick and huge stones and the space between them was filled with small stones and broken bricks.

Although all the towers may seem to have the same construction, each of them has its own architectural peculiarities. The lower tetrahedral part of the towers becomes octahedral at different heights slightly losing in its size. The decoration of the towers’ fronts also varies.

During the Great Patriotic War from May to August 1942 the castle served as a ghetto where Hitler’s forces imprisoned around 800 local Jews. In summer the prisoners organized a resistance group. On August 9, 1942 over 250 Jews managed to escape. Three days later those who stayed in ghetto were shot by fascists in the forest not far from Mir.
After the liberation of Belarus in July 1944 dwellers of Mir whose houses had been ruined found refuge in the castle. The last family moved out from the castle in 1962.

The restoration works in Mir Castle began only in 1983. In 2000 it was listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. On December 16, 2010 an official opening of Mir Castle took place.

read more - https://mirzamak.by/en/istoriya/obshchaya-istoriya
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