Benitsa. Gentry manor.

The village of Benitsa, which is located in the Molodechno district, has had many famous owners in its history. They were both Ostroukhs and Volovichi. In the 17th and 19th centuries, the place was owned by the Kotells, Abramovich and Shvykovsky. At that time, a gentry manor was built. In 1701, Michal Kazimir Kotell financed a Catholic church in the town.

After the construction of the church, the Kotells made the estate in Benitsa their main ancestral estate. The famous architect Carlo Spampani (1750-1783) was invited from Italy, who carried out numerous orders from the nobility and magnates in Belarus, including Radziwill and Khreptovich. Spampani built a palace, a greenhouse, a garden, a park with a system of lakes and canals and outbuildings in Benitsa. Also, a lamus was erected in the Rococo style according to the design of the architect Giuseppe de Sacco (1735-1798). The palace had an art gallery, a library and an archive. 

After the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Benica became part of the Russian Empire. During the war of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte stayed here when he fled Russia. Composer and politician Michal Kleofas Oginsky, writer and public figure Thomas Zan, writer Jan Khodko, artist and composer Napoleon Orda, who left an image of the estate, composer Stanislav Monyushko, poet Vladislav Syrokomlya, poet and public figure Frantisek Bogushevich and many others came here at different times.

The palace was a wooden one-storey building on a high foundation. The courtyard and main facades were decorated with porticos with triangular pediments. The building was covered with a hip roof. Among the rooms were a ballroom, a dining room and others. The hall where Napoleon lived was transformed into a memorial room.

The former palace was demolished in the 1980s. Several stone outbuildings and a lake with a canal have survived to our time.