Land of Open Shutters

Kraina Otwartych Okiennic is a marked route through a group of villages south of Bialystok - Trzescianka, Soce, Puchly and others - where the wooden houses carry an unusually developed decorative carpentry: carved and fretted window surrounds, shutters, gable boards, verandas and eaves, painted in blues, greens and whites, largely made between the late nineteenth century and the 1930s by local carpenters working in a manner that combined Russian, Belarusian and Polish influences. This is Orthodox Podlasie - the villages have onion-domed wooden churches, the population is largely Belarusian-speaking Orthodox, and the local culture is one of the reasons the decoration developed differently from western Poland. The route is short, the villages are strung along a road, and it works as a slow drive or a bicycle ride. Some houses are restored and some are collapsing; the route exists partly to slow the second process.

What you'll find

• Carved window surrounds - fretted frames, shutters and gable boards in blue and green.
• Wooden Orthodox churches - onion domes in villages along the route.
• Late nineteenth-century carpentry - a hybrid of Russian, Belarusian and Polish forms.
• Villages strung on a road - Trzescianka, Soce and Puchly among them.

When to go

May to September. Half a day.

Good to know

The houses are private homes - photography from the road, and courtesy. Some are in poor condition. There is almost no infrastructure: few shops, fewer cafes. A car or bicycle is effectively necessary.

Nearby

Bielsk Podlaski is south; Bialowieza is east.