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Vetka: traditional arts and crafts are still popular in the district
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Chechersk: view of the City Hall
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The Gomel Oblast, located in the southeast of Belarus, borders to the Bryansk Oblast of Russia, and the Kiev, Chernigov and Zhitomir Oblasts of Ukraine. The oblast covers 40,400 square kilometers, and a green blanket of forests accounts for about a third of its total area. The rivers Dnieper, Sozh, Berezina and Pripyat that cross the region are among the key navigable waterways of the country.
As a result of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986, a large part of the oblast was contaminated with radionuclides. And people from numerous villages had to be resettled. Despite the tragedy the Gomel oblast remains a real treasury of Belarus’ natural and cultural values.
The nature reserve Pripyatsky and radiation-ecological reserve Polessky are located in the oblast. The oblast boasts an incredible number of monuments – there are 2,540 cultural property sites, including 1,360 historic monuments, 140 architectural monuments, and 1,040 archaeological sites. Many of them leave an imprint on the hearts of those who are interested in culture, art and history of Belarus, and who look for new impressions and adventures.
The main tourist route of the oblast is the “Golden Ring of the Gomel Oblast”, which runs through nine cities and towns: Gomel, Mozyr, Vetka, Loyev, Rechitsa, Turov, Chechersk, the village of Yurovichi, in the Kalinkovichi District, and the village of Krasny Bereg of the Zhlobin District. The “Golden Ring of the Gomel Region” starts in Gomel, where visitors get to know the magnificent architectural compound of the Rumiantsev-Paskevich Palace, built in the 17th-18th centuries.
The oblast center is followed by Vetka, or, to be more precise, the well-known arts and crafts museum. The unique and original collection with a wide variety of exhibits ranging from ancient icons to modern embroidered towels attracts swarms of tourists. The Vetka museum possesses “Anfologion”, the first Kiev book printed in 1619, and even the Kiev museum does not have a copy of its own.
In Chechersk there are two major tourist attractions – the St.Transfiguration Church and the city hall, both built in the 18th century. The Chechersk city hall is probably the most unusual building of the kind in Belarus, as it depends on what spot you pick to look at it whether it will show its classic, or gothic, or oriental side.
Turov had around 75 churches in ancient times, as chronicles tell us, so that the city was called the second Jerusalem for a good reason. The castle mount, the site where Turov came into existence, and the state park “Pripyatsky” are very popular for tourists. The Boris and Gleb cemetery, just a stone’s throw away from the mount, used to be the cathedral of Turov’s bishops back in the 11th-12th centuries.
The locals have noticed a stone cross rising from the ground recently, but no one knows what this portent means. There is a version that the cross is one of the three crosses that had been sent to Turov from Kiev up the Dnieper and Pripyat right after Russia had been baptized. The other two crosses have been preserved until now and can be seen in the All Saints Church. The unsinkable stone crosses are said to have arrived against the current, another mystery in the history of the ancient city of Turov.
The next stop is the “Belarusian Switzerland” – the city of Mozyr, with a church and monastery of the order of Bernardines that date back to the 17th century.
The oldest site of the ancient man in Belarus, the village of Yurovichi, in the Kalinkovichi District, is the next stop. There are no such hills elsewhere in Belarus, as from their tops you can see the city of Mozyr, 20 kilometers away, on a clear day.
The key tourist attractions of Loyev are the museum “Battle for the Dnieper” and the mansion of the merchant Naum Dolgin, built in 1874.
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Welcome to the Gomel Region!
Materials provided by the Gomel Region administration
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