Metravel city quest
City Baranavichy: free walking route “Baranovichi quest: a city at the meeting of two railways” along the sights. 9 points. Approximately 2 h 20 min. Quests
On 17 November 1871, or 29 November by the new calendar, the first trains ran along the newly completed Smolensk–Brest-Litovsk railway section. A small station appeared in open fields, named after the nearby village of Baranovichi, first mentioned in 1627. For several years it was merely a stop, without a city or even a settlement around it.
Everything changed thirteen years later. In 1884, the Vilna–Rovno railway passed nearby, crossing the first almost alongside it. A third line to Białystok followed in 1886. A second settlement grew around this new junction. For a while, the future city literally had two bodies: separate settlements around separate stations, each with its own streets and fate. Only by the 1890s did they draw together into one city. Long afterwards, residents still habitually said ‘I'll go over there’ or ‘I'll go over here’ to mean its two halves.
This double birth left traces everywhere. The city still lives around two stations and grew in two church neighbourhoods at once. When it needed a coat of arms, no symbol seemed more honest than a golden steam engine on a red field: a city born twice of the railway.
Today you will physically follow that story, from the old church neighbourhood through the geometric centre of the joined city to the second station, where everything began for Baranovichi again.
What to do: 1) Read the story and task at each stop. 2) Find the place on the map and walk to it. 3) Look around and answer the question.
This walking route starts at Holy Intercession Cathedral on Kuybysheva Street. Let's go!
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
The first church here was wooden, built in 1908, but it lasted only briefly: on 2 May 1921 it burned to the ground. Its stone replacement took ten years to build, from 1924 to 1931, to architect Nikolai Obolonsky's design.
Head south along Kuybysheva Street from the cathedral. In a few minutes you reach the neighbourhood's second church, this time Catholic.
Leave the church neighbourhood for Sovetskaya Street. On a small paved forecourt at number 82 stands a life-size horse sculpture.
This stop is optional, but the street you are entering deserves a pause. Around the turn of the 20th century, today's Sovetskaya Street was called Mariinskaya.
Opening hours: Daily 10:00–19:00 (last admission 18:30); closed for maintenance on the second Thursday of the month; free admission for everyone on the first Sunday of the month.
Sovetskaya brings you to Lenin Square, the heart of Baranovichi in a literal rather than figurative sense. At the meeting of Lenina, Sovetskaya and Komsomolskaya Streets, it is considered the city's geometric centre.
Continue east across the square towards Heinola Boulevard, named after the Finnish twin town. At its end, between the Oktyabr cinema and a fountain, a cast-metal sparrow sits on a low pedestal around a metre and a half high.
This stop is optional and brings the longest part of the journey. The second station, where Baranovichi's second half was born, lies around two kilometres east of Lenin Square.
Opening hours: 1 April–31 October 9:00–18:00 (ticket office until 17:30);1 November–31 March 9:00–17:00 (ticket office until 16:30); closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Here is the second station, the reason for today's long walk. Its initial name was straightforward: New Baranovichi.
A little further along the tracks, to the station's right, stands an old water tower. It is the last witness of an age when a station was an entire working establishment rather than just a stop.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.