1. About us
2. Excursions
3. Grodno
4. Novogrudok - First Capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Novogrudok - First Capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

Welcome to Novogrudok!

The tour round Novogrudok is mostly a walking one. An incredible thing is that you can walk either up or down the town because all old streets rise up to the historic center where all the main sights are situated including the ruins of the Novogrudok castle or descend from it. A famous Polish-Belarusian writer Adam Mitskevich compared his native surroundings to Switzerland. Anyway there are  enough sights in the town to occupy your attention for a couple of hours.

Sighteseeing tour of Novogrudok includes:

Conserved ruins of the Novogrudok castle - one of the largest defensive constructions of the Central and Eastern Europe of the XVI century. 

Catholic cathedral of the Trasfiguration of the Christ 

Catholic Cathedral of the Transfiguration of the Lord (also called Farny, i.e. the main one) was being built from 1714 to 1723 on the site of the wooden one founded in 1395 from which it inherited a part of the foundation and fragments of the walls. In the old building of the cathedral a historical marriage between Polish king Yagaylo and a Lithuanian princess Sophia Golshanskaya took place in the year of 1422. There is a memorial plate coommerating the event on one of the walls. In 1799,  a famous Polish-Belarusian writer Adam Mickiewicz was baptized in the new one.  In 1943, during the Second World war 11 nuns were executed under the walls of this cathedra by the Gestapo, who in 2000 were declared martyrs and canonized. 

Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Boris and Gleb

It was built on the site of an ancient temple of the XII century, the fragments of its foundation were discovered under the altar during excavations in the 1960s. Walls of the present church were erected in 1519 in the motives of the late Gothic. Later the church went into the hands of representatives of different confessions and was rebuilt in Baroque and then in, pseudo-Russian style. Murals of the Cathedral glorifies the greatness of Polish kings. 

Catholic Cathedral of St. Michael, the Archangel

The cathedral was rebuilt from the remains of St. Yatsek church (1624) in 1805 in the baroque style. It was christened to the glory of Michael the Archangel, who is considered the benefactor of the Novogrudok lands. At the same time a catholic monastery was built next to the cathedral, where one of the first schools in Belarus was opened. The school became famous because from 1807 to 1815 it had been visited by the future famous Polish-Belarusian writer Adam Mitskevich, whose family lived in Novogrudok. Other famous person who once visited the school was a Belarusian writer Yan Chechot. The cathedral is undoubtedly is a remarkable architectural monument of the 18th century not only of Novogrudok but of the whole Belarus.

Ancient burial mound the  "Mound of Mindovg". According the legend the first Lithuanian prince Mindovg, the founder of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was buried here.

A monument to Adam Mitskevich – the great Polish-Belarusian writer, born in the village of Zaos’ey, to where his parents went to celebrate the Catholic Christmas on 24, December, 1798. Most of his life he spent in Novogrudok and glorified thee town and its beautiful surroundings.

Mound of immortality was put in honor of Adam Mitsevich in 1924.The residents of Novogrudok, Lithuania and Poland threw some earth onto the place. Since that time the mound has been growing in Novogrudok.

Apart from these famous sights you will be fascinated by a number of buildings of the end of the 19th, beginning of the 20th century: railway station, shopping arcades, private buildings.

Museums:

House-museum of Adam Mitskevich

The exhibits of the museum tell about the life of the world famous Polish-Belarusian writer Adam Mickiewicz. The poet was born in a village of Zaosye not far from Novogrudok to where  his parents went to their relatives to celebrate Catholic Christmas and  where his mother gave him a birth. In a month the family returned to Novogrudok where they rented a flat. On February 12, 1795  the little boy was baptized in the Novogrudok Farny Catholic church of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Later he visited a school in the Domican monastery. Adam Mickiewicz left Novogrudok at the age of 25 and never returned to his Motherland. Among the exhibits there are two copies of the poet’s first books, 9 books in the original, text books published for the schools of that period, furniture and plates and dishes of the XIXth century, exhibits dedicated to his studies in Vilno as well as to his life in St. Petersburg.

• Address: 1, Lenin Str., 231400 Novogrudok, Novogrudok dustrct of the Grodno region,Republic of Belarus,
• Phone: +375 (1597)232-67
• Website: http://mickiewicz.museum.by/en

Novogrudok Local Lore museum

There are 9 halls with over 15, 000 exhibits. These are mostly the findings discovered during the excavations on the Zamkovaya Mountain. The most valuable archeological exhibit of the museum is the petrified hedgehog, whose age is about 80 million years. This unique finding confirms the supposition that the territory of Novogrudok was once the bottom of a prehistoric ocean. The ethnographical department contains a rich collection of national dresses, shirts, and towels decorated with embroidery, headresses, tapestries, items of jewelry, household utensils as well as tools for weaving and spinning, items of ceramics and so on.

• Address: 2, Grodnenskaya Str., 231400 Novogrudok, Novogrudok dustrct of the Grodno region,Republic of Belarus
• Phone: +375 (1597) 214 70
• Website:http://navagrudak.museum.by/

Museum of the Jewish Resistance in Novogrudok

The exhibits of the museum are dedicated to the resistance of the Jews of Novogrudok during the Holocaust. It was opened on July 24, 2007 and tells about  the tragedy that took the lives of 5, 100 Novogrudok Jews, and about the unprecedented resistance to the Nazis of those who remained alive after four destruction actions. On September 26, 1943, the prisoners of Novogrudok ghetto made an organized escape through a tunnel, the construction of which took 4 months. This act of resistance to death is the most massive and successful in the series of numerous attempts in the territory of occupied Europe. The museum complex includes the court building; houses in which there were workshops; a well and residential premises. The exposition is located in the former barracks, includes the reconstruction of two living quarters, the entrance to the tunnel and tells about the two main facts of the Jewish resistance in Novogrudok - escaping through the tunnel and the Jewish guerrilla unit under the command of Tuva Belskiy.

• Address: 64-66, Minskaya Str., Novogrudok, Grodno region, Republic of Belarus
• Phone: +375 (1597) 214 70

Read about the town history: