Metravel city quest
City Lake Svityaz (Novogrudok District): free walking route “Lake Svityaz quest: the sunken city” along the sights. 7 points. Approximately 2 h. Quests and
Amid ancient woodland on the Novogrudok Upland lies an almost perfectly round lake, as though someone pressed a giant bowl into the earth and filled it with the purest water. No river flows into Svityaz. Groundwater feeds it, and only a stream flows out towards the Svorotva River. Its level stays steady through drought and floods. Scientists explain the basin's shape through karst: rock washed away and sank into underground cavities, and water filled the hollow.
These parts have another explanation. Legend says the city of Svityaz once stood here, then sank whole beneath the water, streets, houses and churches together. Not through disaster but through prayer: its people chose that fate. What happened, who besieged it, where its women went and why fishermen still tell of a girl emerging on moonlit nights: you will discover all this along the way.
Two hundred years ago, a boy from nearby Zaosie estate who grew up in Novogrudok heard this legend. His name was Adam Mickiewicz, and he turned local traditions into ballads read worldwide. Today you will walk through the pages of one of Belarus's best-known legends, rather than simply along a shore.
The route is a leisurely walk beside the lake and along a forest path in the Svityazyansky reserve, about two and a half kilometres without retracing your steps. Remember one rule immediately: pick or break nothing here, neither a flower nor a branch. You will discover why along the route. For now, trust that there are two reasons, one several centuries older than the other.
We start at the recreation area's main entrance on the Novogrudok shore, by the parking area and path down to the beach.
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
Here is Svityaz. Pause beside the water and trace its shores with your eyes.
Follow the beach to its far northern end, where the busy stretch ends and quiet begins. Here our story continues.
Leave the beach along the northbound path beside the western shore. People fall behind and forest closes around you.
The path brings you to the northwestern bend, where water opens before you again. Approach the edge for the legend's most beautiful and strictest part.
Continue along the northern shore towards Svityaz sanatorium and watch the water. A few metres offshore, a female figure rises directly from the lake.
Walk a little further east from the sculpture along the water to the open northern shore. Here is the place to recall the man without whom Svityaz's legend might have remained a local tale.
The last stop is away from the water. Head north along the path past the sanatorium grounds.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.