Mystical places in Belarus
3 legends
Regions and cities
Brest region1
Minsk region1
By kind of place
All places
The Black Lady of Nesvizh Castle
Belarus's best-known ghost is Barbara Radziwiłł, the Polish queen who died in 1551 at twenty-nine. The story goes that her husband Sigismund Augustus was so undone by her death that he had her spirit summoned; the rite went wrong, and she has walked the galleries of the family castle at Nesvizh ever since. The castle is real and on the UNESCO list, tours run daily, and the Black Lady is the one exhibit that does not appear in the museum inventory.
Białowieża Forest
Białowieża Forest (Belovezhskaya Pushcha) is the largest and oldest surviving expanse of primeval lowland mixed temperate forest in Europe, straddling the state border between Belarus (Brest and Grodno regions) and Poland (Podlaskie Voivodeship). Encompassing more than 150,000 hectares, this UNESCO World Heritage Site and biosphere reserve represents the last intact remnant of the prehistoric virgin woodlands that once blanketed the European Plain, home to the planet's largest free-roaming population of the European bison (wisent).
The Braslav Lakes and the Tsmok
Braslav Lakes National Park in the Vitebsk Region of Belarus is a scenic expanse of glacial lakes, rolling ridges, and island labyrinths steeped in ancient Baltic-Slavic folklore. The region's core mythological symbol is the Tsmok—the legendary Belarusian dragon and aquatic serpent said to inhabit the deep, cold waters of local lakes such as Drivyaty and Volos.