Metravel city quest

Grodno quest: two stars above the Neman

City Grodno: free walking route “quest: two stars above the Neman” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 2 h. Quests and legends - straight from your

Catholic and Orthodox churches stand side by side above the Neman, and Grodno celebrates Christmas twice: Catholics on 25 December, Orthodox Christians on 7 January. Both dates are public holidays in Belarus, so between the two stars the town enjoys almost two weeks of celebration: carols, fairs, night services, candles in windows, and the smell of fresh baking on Sovetskaya Street.

This route follows the winter festivities of past and present. You will see the riverside slope where Bernardine monks have prayed since the late fifteenth century; a palace preserving old batleikas, Belarusian puppet Nativity theatres; the town's main cathedral, where Midnight Mass is celebrated; the post office from which letters go to Father Frost; the square of a writer who described Christmas Eve better than many; an Orthodox cathedral where the feast comes on 7 January; a puppet theatre; and a wooden house where the family who recorded a Christmas legend once lived.

This is a walking route of about three kilometres in a straight line, with nine stops and a café for a break halfway along. December to mid-January is the best time, when the lights are on. The tasks work throughout the year: all the answers are on façades and monuments, and there is no need to enter churches, where services take place.

We begin at the Bernardine Church on the high bank of the Neman, with the whole old town visible from there.

What is on the route

The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.

  1. The Bernardines — a manger above the Neman — Bernardine Church on the slope above the Neman, Parizhskoy Kommuny Street

    Before you is the Bernardine Church, a pale Baroque church on the very edge of the high bank, with a bell tower visible both from the bridge and from the far side of the Neman. The former monastery building stretches alongside it, and the slope opens onto views of the river and the entire opposite bank.

  2. The palace of batleikas — Museum of the History of Religion, 16 Zamkovaya Street

    Zamkovaya Street brings you to a long, pale palace with a triangular pediment and an entrance arch: the former Khreptovich Palace, a monument of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Today it houses the Grodno State Museum of the History of Religion, Belarus's only museum of this kind.

    Opening hours: daily 11:00–19:00, ticket office until 18:30; closes one hour earlier on the day before a public holiday · Ticket: adults 12 BYN, university students 8.20 BYN, schoolchildren 6 BYN

  3. Farny Church — Midnight Mass — Cathedral Church of St. Francis Xavier, Sovetskaya Square

    Crossing Sovetskaya Square brings you to Farny Church, the Cathedral Church of St. Francis Xavier: a twin-towered Baroque church built by the Jesuits at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

  4. The main post office — a letter to Father Frost — Main post office, 29 Karl Marx Street

    From Farny Church, Karl Marx Street brings you to the main post office: a sober building with a tall wall of glass blocks above the entrance. Inside, the former telephone room, where people once waited for long-distance calls, has housed a museum of postal history since 25 February 2019.

  5. “Ягода” café — a halfway break (optional) — “Ягода” café, 1 Molodyozhnaya Street

    A couple of steps from the post office, at the corner of Molodyozhnaya Street in the “Славия” hotel building, is the “Ягода” café — a good place to warm up halfway along the route. Online maps give it around 4.7 from a couple of hundred ratings.

    Opening hours: usually daily 10:00–21:00

  6. Eliza Orzeszkowa — candles in the windows — Square at the corner of Ozheshko and Telegrafnaya streets

    Ozheshko Street brings you uphill to the square at the corner of Telegrafnaya Street. A bust of Eliza Orzeszkowa, old Grodno's most famous woman writer, stands on a tall granite pedestal: a serious face, a high collar, and a short inscription bearing her name on the base.

  7. Holy Intercession Cathedral — the second Christmas — Holy Intercession Cathedral, 23 Ozheshko Street — sculpture before the entrance

    Farther along Ozheshko Street rises Holy Intercession Cathedral, a richly decorated Russian-style church with a tent-roofed bell tower above the entrance and a scattering of onion domes.

  8. The Tyzenhauz Theatre — heirs to the batleika — Grodno Regional Puppet Theatre, 1 Dzerzhinskogo Street

    A short walk from the cathedral leads to a pale building with an entrance portico: the Grodno Regional Puppet Theatre. It was built in the last quarter of the eighteenth century at the behest of Grodno's starosta, Antoni Tyzenhauz, and is now Belarus's oldest theatre building.

  9. The Bogdanovich house — bells beneath the hill — Maxim Bogdanovich House Museum, 10, 1 Maya Street

    The final stop is a wooden house on a corner in the neighbourhood Grodno calls Old Novy Svet: dark boarded walls, carved window surrounds, a glazed veranda at the corner and a steep roof. The Bogdanovich family lived here in 1892–1896, and the future classic of Belarusian poetry, Maxim Bogdanovich, spent his earliest childhood years here.

    Opening hours: usually Tue–Sun 10:00–18:00, closed Mon · Ticket: adults 5 BYN, college and university students 4 BYN, schoolchildren aged 7 and over 3 BYN

Where to go next

This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.

Quests in nearby cities

Travels: Grodno

Traveller articles about this city will help round out the walk.

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