Metravel city quest
City Gomel: free walking route “quest: the shadow of the last princess” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 1 h 40 min. Quests and legends - straight
Gomel readily tells stories of the palace above the Sozh, the Rumyantsev counts and Field Marshal Paskevich. For a long time, the town said little about the palace's last lady. Princess Irina Ivanovna Paskevich, née Vorontsova-Dashkova, lived here for more than forty years: her money built a grammar school, an eye clinic, a girls' shelter, a night shelter and the municipal water supply. After the revolution, she went to the revolutionary committee herself and handed over all her property to the new authorities against an inventory. Gomel's former owner spent her last years in poverty, lodging in other people's homes, almost forgotten. In the spring of 1925, she was buried beside the cathedral wall. Exactly where, no one knows today.
Since then, the town has had a legend of its own. The newspaper “SB” once wrote that a Venetian-glass mirror hangs in the palace tower and that Irina Paskevich can supposedly be seen in it. The journalist duly sat beside the mirror for an hour and saw nothing but reflections of the palace rooms. The article appeared on 1 April 2016 — so you can decide for yourself whether to believe it. But why try to catch the princess in a looking glass when the whole old centre is her reflection?
Today you will follow her footsteps without entering the palace: from the river and the cathedral wall, along Biletsky and Sovetskaya streets, to the street named after her and the school she built. Other dark pages of Gomel's history will unfold along the way: the ancient werewolves of the Sozh region, the great fire, the rebellion of 1919, and two noble families whose lines ended here. The route is about two kilometres long, without doubling back; every stop is on a lit street, so dusk is the best time to walk.
We begin at the pedestrian bridge over the Sozh, on the embankment beneath the high bank.
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
The pedestrian bridge over the Sozh is a long, pale ribbon stretching almost three hundred metres from the town embankment to the forest park on the opposite bank. From its middle in the evening, you can see the entire high bank: the cathedral dome, the palace tower and the old centre's rooftops above the steep slope.
The Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul stands above the embankment. Beside its wall is a stone bust of an elderly woman in a sober, high-collared dress, with a memorial plaque nearby.
On the high edge of Biletsky Street, nearer the Sozh, stands the two-storey building of the former religious school: a restrained neoclassical façade, with an ornamental attic wall and a little round window above the entrance. It is one of the centre's oldest stone houses and is included in Belarus's State List of Historical and Cultural Values.
At the corner of Pushkin and Biletsky streets, in a small square beside the Hunting Lodge, a bronze bust of Alexander Pushkin stands on a tall, pale pedestal. The poet never visited Gomel, but fate brought him together with the owners of its palace.
The “Чат” café occupies the merchant Groshikov's house — a two-storey building dating from the early twentieth century on Biletsky Street. Inside it is snug and cosy; the café's particular pride is its small upper floor, while coffee is served in cups with stickers and little figures on the lids.
Opening hours: Mon–Fri 9:00–22:00, Sat–Sun 10:00–22:00 (according to map listings; best to confirm)
Across the street stands a long, two-storey neoclassical building with triangular pediments above its upper-floor windows. According to local historical accounts, this is the former “Russian” tavern, built in 1822 — one of Gomel's oldest buildings, whose ground-floor façade has barely changed since it was built.
House No. 4 on Sovetskaya Street is the former rental building of the merchant Lavyanov, dating from the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Irininskaya Street is named after the princess; it used to be called Pervomayskaya. On a few low steps beside the registry office stands a bronze woman in a long dress — a two-metre figure by sculptor D. Popov, unveiled on City Day in September 2003.
At the corner of Kirov and Komsomolskaya streets stands a large U-shaped red-brick building with white stucco decoration, an entrance portico and arched upper-floor windows. This is the former Alexander Boys' Grammar School, one of old Gomel's most handsome buildings.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.