Mogilev. Pechersk Forest Park.

The history of Pechersk begins many centuries ago. Already at the beginning of the XVI century, the lands of the Pechersk Forest Park belonged to the Kiev Pechersk Lavra. At the same time, the monks built the Pechersk Courtyard. It was located on the very outskirts of the current forest park, just behind a ravine with century–old oaks - behind the so-called Bishop's moat. Towards the end of the XVI century, an inn was also built here, and then a mill – with the permission of the King of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania Stefan Batory himself.

Then, with the advent of the new century, a real struggle between Orthodox, Uniate and Catholic clergy unfolds for the territory of Pechersk. It all started in 1600, when Uniate Metropolitan Hypatius Patey forcibly took Pechersk and transferred it to the Vilna Uniate Seminary.

An attempt to return the land through the court is being made by the Orthodox Archimandrite Pletenetsky, but unsuccessfully. For some time the Uniates occupied this territory, until in 1644, during the stay in Mogilev of the rector of the Kiev Pechersk Monastery, the famous educator Archimandrite Peter Graves, the estate passed into the possession of the Mogilev Orthodox bishops. It becomes their residence.

But the eastern part of the Pechersk lands was privately owned for a long time and after 1682 passed to the local Carmelites. They ran a household here, arranged their way of life. Then, in the 80s of the XVIII century, the Pechersk court of the Carmelite fathers passed to the Belarusian bishop Stanislav Bogush-Sestrantsevich. The metropolitan was not only a deeply religious man, but also a playwright, linguist and historian. It was he who created the first Belarusian calendar. In addition, the name of Bogush-Sestrantsevich is also associated with the name of Vincent Dunin-Marcinkevich – the founder of Belarusian literature, the metropolitan was a brother-in-law and guardian. 

It is known that the deceased soldiers of the Napoleonic army were buried on the territory of Pechersk: in 1812, the estate of Metropolitan Sestrentsevich was used by French and Polish troops as an infirmary and a place of mass burial of military personnel. As for the further fate of the Sestrentsevich estate, it first passed under a military hospital in 1820, forty years later – under an almshouse, and after that – under the buildings of a psychiatric hospital.

Another part of the territory of the current forest park belonged to the noble Gortynsky family – in 1882, the Gortynsky estate in Pechersk was mentioned by Dembovetsky in the "Experience of describing the Mogilev province". The owner of the estate, Mogilev Vice–governor Konstantin Nikolaevich Gortynsky, owned a significant part of the forest in the area of modern Oaks. He was engaged in forestry, had his own backyard park, where he grew exotic plant species. The Gortynsky estate was also called a cottage. In Mogilev toponymy, this name was transformed into a Country village.

Also, somewhere in Pechersk, the first head of the government of the BSSR, the Belarusian writer, poet and playwright, journalist and editor Dmitry Zhilunovich (Tishka Gartny) is buried. A cross with his name was erected by public activists on the outskirts of the Pechersk Forest Park.