Metravel city quest
City Luninets: free walking route “Cycling quest from Luninets: Kozhan-Gorodok and Lakhva” along the sights. 8 points. Approximately 5 h. Quests and legends
The most interesting things in the Luninets district cannot all fit inside the town. East of Luninets, along the railway towards Mikashevichy, lie two old Polesie towns: Kozhan-Gorodok, with its marvellous wooden church, argumentative memorial stone and Mickiewicz's oaks — and Lakhva, where one of the first uprisings against the Nazis in occupied Europe took place in September 1942.
This is a cycling route with eight stops. It is about 15 kilometres from Luninets station to Kozhan-Gorodok, then another 10 or so to Lakhva. The roads of Polesie are as flat as a table — easy pedalling.
Before you start: 1) Check your bicycle and take water — there will be a rest stop with a snack bar and village shops in Kozhan-Gorodok, but only fields between the villages. 2) Keep to the right-hand edge of the main road and switch on your rear light. 3) You can cycle back from Lakhva — or ride to Lakhva station and take a regional train to Luninets. Check the timetable at rw.by in advance and confirm the bicycle carriage rules.
Read the stories at each stop, look around — and may the headwind be warm. Let's go!
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
Fifteen kilometres behind you — and you are riding into Kozhan-Gorodok, an ancient small town on the Tsna River, four kilometres from where it flows into the Pripyat. One theory traces the name to local leatherworkers: their dressed leather and shoes were famous far beyond Polesie.
Opening hours: nearby village shop: Mon–Sat 08:00–20:00
The town's greatest wonder is right in front of you. Saint Nicholas Church was built from timber in 1814–1818: five log structures arranged in a cross, the Empire style so rarely found in wooden architecture, and carved wooden columns and sculpture inside.
A couple of steps from the church fence lies an inscribed boulder — a memorial to Kozhan-Gorodok. Written chronicles record the town from 1493, and even that date makes it older than many famous cities.
Giants stand on the southern edge of the town — the Ancient Kozhan-Gorodok Oaks, a botanical natural monument of national importance. They have been protected by the state since 1963 and have been growing here for three hundred years: their trunks are a metre and a half thick, their crowns as tall as a four-storey house.
On the way to the ancient settlement comes the quietest stop in the Kozhan-Gorodok part of the route. Before the war, half the town was Jewish: shops, crafts, a synagogue, a bustling market.
On the northeastern edge of town, hidden among greenery above the Tsna floodplain, is a real time machine: an ancient fortified settlement. An oval area about 75 by 65 metres, with a rampart softened by time around its edges.
Now comes the route's most powerful stop. In spring 1942, the Nazis forced the Jews of Lakhva — almost half the town's population — into a ghetto: a few streets behind barbed wire.
The final stop is in central Lakhva. The Church of the Nativity of the Virgin was built from timber in 1880: classic wooden architecture of Polesie, a younger sister to the church in Kozhan-Gorodok.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.