Bolshaya Berestovitsa. The Kosakovsky Estate.

Throughout its history, the town of Bolshaya Berestovitsa belonged to various famous gentry families of Belarus: Khodkevichi, Pats, Masalsky and Kosakovsky.

On the shore of the lake, where the district hospital is now located, there was once the estate of the Khodkeviches and Kosakovskys. The Kosakovsky Palace was severely damaged during the war and hospital facilities were built in its place. The outbuildings of the former estate have also been rebuilt for hospital needs. The entrance gate of the former estate near the hospital has been preserved.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Kosakovskys built a large stone palace on the site of the ancient Khodkevich estate. In 1900, designed by architect Juliusz Vasyutinsky. It was a two-storey building in which the architectural dominants were 2 towers.

There were several dozen rooms in the palace, each of which was furnished with expensive furniture. There was an Empire-style wardrobe, which contained a raincoat, binoculars, chess and the uniform of the Emperor of France Napoleon Bonaparte. An iron-bound chest, once owned by Hetman Jan Karol Chodkiewicz, was considered a family heirloom. The art collection of paintings consisted of about 200 canvases, among which were such famous masters as Rembrandt and Van Dyck. The library contained several thousand books. The building housed the family archive, which contained documents from the time of Khodkevich and personal letters from Napoleon.

The last owner of the estate, Stanislav Kosakovsky, was fond of numismatics and was a professional philatelist. I have collected a collection of 24 thousand stamps.

The estate had a small park on the lake shore.The infield park had the features of English parks: spread over a large area, with sparse tree plantings. For convenient access to the city, there was a footbridge across the lake near the palace, which was used most often by servants and owners of the estate.

Unfortunately, the palace was seriously damaged during the Second World War, only the foundation remained of the structure, which was later used for the construction of other buildings. The park has also not been preserved as it was before: many exotic plants have died, but the preserved fragments will surely appeal to everyone. Many residents of Belarus have no idea what the palace was like, destroyed during the war years. However, today he is depicted on the wall of a building in Bolshaya Berestovitsa.