Minsk. Kalvariyskoye cemetery.

Not far from the historical center of Minsk, the ancient Calvary cemetery have been preserved. It is popularly called Calvaria, or the Calvarian suburb. The name Calvary is translated from Latin as the skull, or bald mountain, Calvary-Golgotha.

At the entrance to the cemetery, we first pass through the Stone Gate, which was built in 1830 at the expense of historian Yuri Kobylyansky. His wife Jozefa is buried under one of the pillars of the gate. The gate is built in the classical style and decorated.

The architectural dominant of Calvaria is the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, where the famous Belarusian, Polish and Lithuanian artist Jan Damel (1780-1840), a prominent representative of the Vilnius University Art School, is buried.

The church was built in 1839-1841 in the Neo-Gothic style. In Soviet times, when all the churches in Minsk were closed, this church was the only one that worked for believers. The church is single-nave with a rectangular apse.

There are more than 30 thousand graves in Calvaria. The old chapels have been preserved. National poet Nil Gilevich, historian Gennady Kiselyov, poet Ales Pismenkov and many other famous figures are buried in the Calvaria.