Metravel city quest
City Minsk: free walking route “Loshitsa Park Quest: The White Lady” along the sights. 7 points. Approximately 1 h 30 min. Quests and legends - straight from
Minsk loves its secrets, but it has hidden the most beautiful and saddest of them on its southern edge — in Loshitsa. The manor was first mentioned in 1557, and over four centuries it belonged to the Tolochinskys, the Drutsky-Gorskys and the Prushinskys. But it was the last owners who made it famous — Yevstafiy Lyubansky and his young wife Yadviga. Yevstafiy rebuilt the house, laid out a landscape park and brought curiosities from all over the world: a Manchurian apricot, a Japanese magnolia, Siberian firs.
Then tragedy struck. According to legend, in the summer of 1905, at a ball held in her honour, her husband caught Yadviga with another man. That same night she left the house and drowned in the Svisloch — right where the Loshitsa stream flows into the river. Since then people say that when the apricot blooms, the White Lady wanders the park's alleys in pale clothes. She is the most famous ghost in Minsk.
Today you are running your own investigation. Step by step you will collect clues — on walls, on plaques, on old trees — and decide for yourself where the truth is and where the legend. The first clue waits at the main house.
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
Here it is — the main house, the heart of the whole story. The wooden single-storey wing has stood here since the 18th century, and in 1895 Yevstafiy added a new brick part with a veranda on a high foundation: it offered a view over the park and the river.
Opening hours: Wed–Sun 11:00–19:00 (last entry 18:30), closed Mon–Tue
Follow the main alley to the ruins of the chapel — this is the second stop of the investigation. The Prushinskys built the brick chapel-tomb in the Vilnius Baroque style in 1788, under a tented roof with a helmet-shaped dome.
An optional stop — for pleasure, not for puzzles. The best discoveries on a trip often happen over a cup of coffee.
Opening hours: daily 11:00–19:00
Next to the house stands a two-storey wooden outbuilding — it was built in the 1890s for the servants and for the supplies for the master's table, and its cellar rests on a stone foundation dating back to the 16th century.
Opening hours: Wed–Sun 11:00–19:00 (last entry 18:30), closed Mon–Tue
Go down from the manor to the Svisloch and walk along the bank upstream, to the north-east — about half a kilometre, ten minutes on foot. On the way, do not turn off to the restored house by the Loshitsa stream, where a café stands today: that is the small 19th-century mill.
Go to the place where the Loshitsa stream flows into the Svisloch. The legend names it as the last place in Yadviga's life: it was here, by the water, that her body was found.
Return to the manor house — the last clue of your investigation is here. A kobus magnolia once grew in the park, which local legend ties to Yevstafiy and Yadviga Lyubansky.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.
Traveller articles about this city will help round out the walk.