Pruzhany. Museum-estate "Pruzhansky palatsik"

The stone manor house impresses and delights with its appearance, consisting of several parts, varying in height and volume. The house has two floors from the west, a square tower adjoins it from the east, and a one-story extension with a semicircular veranda from the west. The eastern part of the building includes a two-storey building in the shape of the letter "L" with a risalite protruding from the south side and having a gable at the top. All the buildings are decorated with pitched roofs. The facade is also impressive: the terrace on two columns overlooks the park, and the windows have semi-arched outlines.

One of the most interesting exhibits is located outside the museum — this is the Butkovsky stone idol. This ancient stone statue simultaneously resembles a human figure and a stone cross. It turns out that the prehistoric stone idol was found in 1986 during excavations of an 11th-century burial mound near the village of Butki in the Pruzhany district.

At the end of the first quarter of the 19th century, written sources recorded the name of the new owner of the estate, Bernard Shvykovsky. The Shvykovsky dynasty ruled the estate for the next three generations. In 1843, the large estate was divided into equal parts between the sons of Peter Shvykovsky, and from that moment the story of the 'Pruzhansky Palatsik' begins.

The interior of a noble manor has been recreated inside the museum. Although the original items from the Shvykovsky estate have not been preserved, all the elements of the exhibition belong to that era. The owner of the estate, Valenty Shvykovsky, participated in the liberation uprising of 1863, after which his estate was confiscated and his property described in detail. This inventory is now being used by museum workers. The walls of the salon are decorated with portraits of two representatives of the Belarusian gentry who reached the highest position in the state and became kings of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth: Jan III Sobieski and Stanislav August Poniatowski, the last king of Poland and the Grand Duke of Lithuania.

'Pruzhansky Palatsik' has always attracted cinematographers. The first shots of the film "Brest Fortress" were shot on the terrace of the palace, and the shooting of the film "Talash" based on the novel by Yakub Kolas "Drygva" took place in the hunting room.

The park, which covers eight hectares, is also a picturesque place and is rich in various types of trees such as alder, ash, oak and hornbeam.

'Pruzhansky Palatsik' is a monument of historicism, embodied in the neo-Renaissance style, especially its interesting variety - the early Renaissance rural villa.

Rethinking the architectural forms of the past was a characteristic feature of the advanced architectural thought of Western European countries from the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century. This is due to the spread of the ideas of romanticism and sentimentalism in art. In landscape gardening, the strict regular style gives way to a more free landscape style, which strives for a harmonious fusion with the surrounding nature.