In the first and second parts of the article, you read about Nesvizh and Mir, now I will tell you about Ruzhany - an urban-type settlement in the Brest region, with a population of about 3500 people. It is located 140 km from Brest and 240 km from Minsk. For the first time Ruzhany was mentioned in 1490. In 1552, the Tyshkevichs began to own Ruzhany.
Ruzhany
Tyszkiewicz - a family of the Principality of Lithuania, bore the title of counts. After the Tyszkiewicz Ruzhany passed to the Brukhalsky family. Brukhalsky, in 1598 sold the estate to the Chancellor of the Principality of Lithuania - Lev Sapega. For Sapieha Ruzhany became his personal residence. During the reign of the Sapegas, Ruzhany began to develop rapidly - over 400 households, two factories, a church and a church, a Basilian school and two monasteries appeared.
What to visit in Ruzhany
The visiting card of Ruzhan is the Sapieha Castle (Ruzhany Castle). The Ruzhany castle was built by Lev Sapieha, mentions of the construction date back to 1602, but the construction itself began a little earlier. Sapieha built his residence on the site of the Tyszkiewicz castle. The residence was supposed to become an impregnable castle, which would be fortified with three towers. The building was two-story, and there were impressive cellars under the castle. They kept weapons, food, gold, important state documents, the treasury of the principality, the archives of the family.
Lev Sapega made Ruzhany Castle the center of the political life of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Here the destinies of people, countries were decided, conspiracies were prepared. In 1603, a Polish - Lithuanian campaign against the Moscow Principality was being prepared in the castle, then False Dmitry arrived in Ruzhany.
Over the years, the castle has learned both moments of ruin and moments of glory. A descendant of Lev Sapieha, Alexander, rebuilt the castle with such success that they began to call it “Belarusian Versailles”. After the reign of the Sapieha family, in 1786, the castle was rented out. It housed a weaving workshop and worked there for over 100 years. In 1944 the castle was finally destroyed. It took huge funds to restore the castle, and for many years it was abandoned and forgotten. Only in 2008 a large-scale restoration began, now only a part of the castle has been restored - two outbuildings and an entrance gate. A museum is open in one of the wings.
Like any castle with a long history, Ruzhansky also has its own legends. It's even good that we managed to see the castle before its complete restoration - as if we managed to touch a little the secrets of the people who lived there.
Trinity Church of the Dominicans is a Catholic church built by order of Lev Sapieha in 1596. Then the church was wooden. Later, in 1615-1617, a new, stone one was built in its place. From 1768 to 1787, two annexes were made: the chapel of the Holy Cross on the left, the chapel of St. Barbara on the right. Several times the church was reconstructed and rebuilt after a fire. In the final version, the architecture of the church is distinguished by "restraint and asceticism, which are inherent in Catholicism."
Peter and Paul Church (Church of Saints Peter and Paul). The first mention of the church dates back to 1568, it says that a wooden church was built in honor of Saints Peter and Paul. But in 1675 a stone Uniate (Greek - Catholic) church was built in its place. The Peter and Paul Church suffered more than once during subsequent wars. In 1762, with the money of Christina Massalskaya from the Sapieha family, the temple was restored. In 1839 it was handed over to the Orthodox again. Today the church operates and a Sunday school has been opened since 1992.
In the center of Ruzhany there is a wonderful park, in which there is a monument to the heroes of the Great Patriotic War, a stone with the emblem and a stone laid in memory of the villages burned by the Nazis. Also in Ruzhany there is the Church of St. Casimir (1792) and the building of the synagogue.
