Mogilev

Mogilev stands on the Dnieper in the east of the country and was for a period the largest city in what is now Belarus, a trading town on the river route with a merchant class that built substantially. Its town hall, first raised in 1679 and destroyed in the twentieth century, was rebuilt in 2008 with a tower that can be climbed for a view over the city and the river, and a mechanical trumpeter appears at the top on the hour. St Stanislaus cathedral of the 1730s keeps an unusual programme of eighteenth-century frescoes. Leninskaya Street is pedestrianised through the old centre with restored buildings and a bronze figure of a station master.

History

Mogilev is first mentioned in 1267, belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the 14th century and to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1569, and in the 16th and 17th centuries it flourished as a crossing of the east-west and north-south trade routes. Stephen Báthory granted it Magdeburg rights in 1577; it suffered in the war of 1654-1667, was set on fire by Peter the Great's forces in 1708, and after the First Partition of Poland in 1772 became the centre of the Mogilev Governorate of the Russian Empire (Wikipedia, Mogilev).

The main sights

• The town hall tower - the rebuilt tower and its viewing platform.
• St Stanislaus cathedral - the baroque church with its fresco cycle.
• Leninskaya Street - the pedestrianised old centre.
• The Dnieper - the river below the city bluff.

When to go

May to September for walking the centre and climbing the tower; museums close on Mondays and tower hours are seasonal. The city hosts a street theatre festival in spring.

Before you go

The town hall is a modern reconstruction, not a surviving building. Much of the historic centre was lost in the twentieth century and rebuilt. Museum labelling is in Belarusian and Russian. The city is workaday outside the pedestrian street.

Nearby

Zhilichi palace lies southwest; Vetka is south in Gomel region.

Key facts