Brest (Брест) is a major transport hub on the border with Poland,
tourists traveling in this direction by rail or road are likely to
travel through the city. If we consider the attractiveness of Brest
separately, then certainly many history lovers come here to see the
legendary Brest Fortress. If you have extra time, you can walk
around the central part of the city, visit museums, and even go to
the nature in the equally famous Belovezhskaya Pushcha.
The
fourth in terms of population, over 300 thousand people. There is a
large road and rail crossing on the border with Poland, on the
Polish side of the border opposite Brest is the city of Terespol.
Brest Fortress Old Brest Fortress became a symbol of heroic resistance of Soviet soldiers against Nazi German army.
Berestye Berestye is an abandoned medieval Slavic settlement that gave rise to a city of modern day Brest, Belarus. It is one of the best preserved archeological sites in the country.The city is divided into two parts by the Mukhavets River (four
road and two railway bridges are thrown across the river). To the
north of the river there are quarters of the historical center
(built up with one-two-story houses of the late 19th - early 20th
centuries), vast quarters built up with private houses, the Vostok
microdistrict built up with multi-storey residential buildings, as
well as industrial development areas. To the south of Mukhavets, new
areas of mass development of Kovalevo and Vulka are actively
developing.
In 2000-2017, the total area of the city's
housing stock increased by more than 1.6 times, from 5,134.6
thousand m² to 8,452.7 thousand m², housing provision - from 17.8 m²
per person to 24.3 m². If in 2000 the city occupied one of the last
places in the country in terms of housing provision (among large
cities), then by the end of 2017 it took the 3rd place, slightly
behind only Bobruisk and Baranovichi. Housing prices in Brest are
among the highest among major cities in the republic. According to
the results of the 1st quarter of 2019, the price of 1 m² of
apartments sold in the city averaged $701 (higher only in Minsk
($1286) and Soligorsk ($704)). In 2014, prices for residential real
estate in Brest for some time exceeded $1,000 per 1 m².
The
main street of the city is Masherova Avenue (turns into Moskovskaya
Street). The main pedestrian street of Brest is Sovetskaya Street,
which cuts through the city center and is crossed by boulevards.
Gogol Street has been partially turned into an Alley of Forged
Lanterns. The reconstruction of a number of main central streets
(Sovetskaya, Kosmonavtov and Shevchenko Boulevards, Masherov Avenue,
etc.) is underway or planned in the near future. The total length of
streets, roads and driveways of the city in the middle of 2005 is
231.2 km.
For more than 10 years, every evening on Sovetskaya
Street, the Brest Lamplighter has been lighting old kerosene
lanterns.
The main tourist attraction of Brest is
traditionally considered the memorial complex "Brest Hero Fortress",
as well as the archaeological museum "Berestye" and the Museum of
Saved Values. In Brest, several buildings that are architectural
monuments have survived: the massive St. Nicholas Garrison Cathedral
(1856-1879), the railway station (1886, heavily rebuilt), the St.
Nicholas Brotherhood Church (1904-1906), the St. Simeon Cathedral
(1865- 1868), the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (1856),
etc. Of particular interest, as monuments of the Medieval city, are
also the ruins of the Bernardine monastery (XVII-XVIII centuries),
the Jesuit Collegium and the Peter and Paul Basilian Church (end of
the XVIII century), in the building of which there was subsequently
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk signed.
The "Defensive barracks" Zh-Z
"(Iyulskaya st., 10a) is located, which is a historical and cultural
value.
Among the monuments in the city, the Brest Millennium
Monument, opened in 2009, stands out.
The Greenberg Pharmacy
Museum is open to visitors, where an exposition on the topic of the
history of pharmacy is collected. In 2007, the museum of the Brest
militia appeared.
Nearby, in the village of Chernavchitsy on
the highway Brest - Kamenets - one of the oldest monuments of
medieval Belarusian architecture - the Trinity Church (end of the
15th - 1580s). In the city of Kamenets, there is a defensive
watchtower of the 13th century. Near the north-west of the city, in
the village of Skokie, there is the estate of the Nemtsevichs, built
in 1770 in the Baroque style.
To the north of Brest is the
National Park "Belovezhskaya Pushcha".
The oldest and largest
cemetery in the city, the Trishinsky cemetery, is included in the
State List of Historical and Cultural Values of the Republic of
Belarus.
By plane
There is an airport in the city, but there are no
regular passenger flights in any direction.
By train
On
trains going to Europe, towards Poland and Germany.
From
Russia direct trains depart from the Belorussky railway station in
Moscow, as well as from Saratov and Novosibirsk,
Domestic trains
from Minsk, Vitebsk, Gomel, Mogilev, Baranovichi and the city of
Kostyukovichi (Kommunary station).
By car
Brest is located on
the route of the E30 motorway (Moscow-Berlin). In Belarus, this road
is called M1.
By bus
Buses run from many Belarusian and
foreign cities to Brest. The new Brest bus station is located next
to the railway station.
On the ship
Despite the fact that
the Mukhavets River is navigable, there are currently no regular
water routes from other cities in the region to Brest. Nevertheless,
in the summer season the motor ship "Grodno" runs along the river.
At the moment, his route lies within the city and is an overview one
(starts and ends at one point).
Transport around the city
Brest has a well-developed network of public transport (buses,
trolleybuses, route taxis). In fixed-route taxis, the fare is
transferred to the driver after boarding. In buses and trolleybuses,
travel tickets and coupons are valid, which are checked from time to
time by teams of controllers.
The ancient name of Brest is Berestye. According to the most famous
version, the name of the city comes from the word "birch bark" (the
outer layer of birch bark), and the modern form Brest, probably already
artificially - from the word "birch bark" (a type of elm, Ulmus).
In 1863, the traveler Pavel Shpilevsky wrote down a legend about the
origin of the name Brest, connected with a trip to the Grand Duchy of
Lithuania of one rich merchant with his comrades. Unexpectedly, the
wagon train was blocked by a swamp, around which many birches grew. The
travelers cut down trees and were able to pass the swamp along the birch
flooring. They went out to the island, which was formed by a large river
and a small river flowing into it. For the fact that everything went
well, the merchant decided to thank the pagan god Veles and built a
temple on the island. After some time, returning from Lithuania, where
there was a successful trade, the merchant and his comrades again
stopped at the Veles temple, built huts and founded a city, which they
called Berestye.
In the annals of the 12th-13th centuries, the
name Beresty is also found, in the historical documents of the 16th
century - Berest (this name was used by residents of the city's environs
until recently). In the XVII - early XX century, the city was called
Brest-Litovsky, and then Brest-Litovsk, which indicated its location in
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and also made it possible to distinguish
it from the Polish city of Brest-Kuyavsky, during the period of being
part of Poland (1921-1939) the city was called Brest-nad-Bug (Polish
Brześć nad Bugiem)[29] to distinguish it from another Polish city;
Brześć Kujawski, whose name is now translated into Russian as
Brześc-Kujawski, previously it was called Brest-Kujawski. Since
September 1939, after joining the BSSR - Brest.
In the West
Polissian dialects, the name of the city is used in the form Baryst,
Berest.
The ancient origin of the city was confirmed as a result of
archaeological excavations on the cape formed by the Western Bug River
and the left branch of the Mukhavets River. Scientists have discovered
the settlement of ancient Brest (now the territory of the Volyn
fortification of the Brest Fortress). It consisted of the Brest citadel,
triangular in plan, with an area of about 1 ha, fortified on the floor
side with a moat, an earthen rampart and a palisade, and a roundabout
city (posada), which was located opposite the citadel on the island.
Streets paved with wood, the remains of more than 200 residential and
utility buildings, one-story log cabins made of coniferous logs, were
excavated on the citadel. During the excavations, tools, household
utensils, various decorations and items made of metal, glass, stone,
wood and leather were found. The finds testify to the development of
crafts, trade and cultural ties with the cities of Ancient Rus' and with
neighboring countries. Archaeological studies allow us to conclude that
Brest arose on the territory of the settlement of the Dregovichi - an
East Slavic tribal association, the Beresteiskoe settlement existed in
the 11th-13th centuries, the detinets was founded at the turn of the
10th-11th centuries. Now the Berestye archaeological museum has been
created on its territory.
In the list of the mid-17th century, as
part of the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon, edited by Joseph Trizna, there is a
complex of Turov statutes, which includes a charter on the establishment
of the Turov bishopric, according to which the Great Prince of Kiev
Vasily (Vladimir Svyatoslavich) in the summer of 6513 (1005) gave Turov
bishopric along with other cities and Berestei.
In the XI
century, Berestye was a trading center and a fortress on the border with
Polish and Lithuanian possessions. The place where the ancient Berestye
was located was at the intersection of two ancient trade routes. One of
them went along the Western Bug from Galician Rus and Volyn to Poland,
the Baltic states and Western Europe, the other - along Mukhavets,
Swamp, Pina, Pripyat, Dnieper and connected Berestye with Kiev, the
Black Sea region, and the Middle East. In connection with the border
location, the city often acted as an object of internecine struggle and
military clashes, passed from hand to hand, was plundered and destroyed
more than once. In 1016, he was conquered by the Polish prince Boleslav
the Brave. The Grand Duke of Kiev Yaroslav the Wise undertook campaigns
against Berestye in 1017, 1022 and 1031, and in 1044 he returned it to
the Kyiv principality. Since the second half of the 12th century,
Berestye has been part of the Vladimir-Volyn principality (since 1199
the Galicia-Volyn principality), in the annals it is mentioned under
1153 as the possession of Prince Vladimir Andreevich, in 1173 - Prince
Vladimir Mstislavich. In the early feudal period, it was one of the
largest cities in the Berestey land, which, however, despite many
attempts by the local nobility, did not stand out as an independent
principality - the city developed only as a trade and craft center.
In the 12th century in Berestye, which once again turned out to be
conquered by the Poles, King Casimir the Just built a wooden castle (it
was rebuilt in the second half of the 13th century), a fortification for
trade caravans. In Berestye they took myt (duty) for the transport of
goods.
In 1210, the city was captured by Konrad of Mazovia and
Leszek Krakow, but in 1213 the army of Daniel of Galicia returns it. In
the 1240s, the Beresteiskaya land, which was still a subject of rivalry
between the Galician-Volyn and Polish princes, was under the threat of
subjugation by the Mongol-Tatars. In January 1241, a battle between the
Birch Regiment and a detachment of troops of Batu Khan took place near
the city, as a result of which the defenders of the city and many
residents were killed by the Mongols, the bodies of the dead lay
unburied for 4 months until the Romanovichs returned in the spring of
1241. The chronicle says: “Danilov and his brother came to Berest. And I
can’t go into the field, for the sake of the stench and the multitude of
the beaten. In the second half of the 13th century, Berestye was owned
by the Volyn prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, under whom a stone donjon
tower was built on the territory of the castle in 1276-1288, and a stone
church of St. Peter was erected. The tower subsequently helped the
townspeople withstand brutal sieges. In 1319, the Grand Duke of
Lithuania Gedimin “without much resistance” annexed the Berestey land to
the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but already in 1320, Prince Andrei I of
Vladimir-Volyn returned Berestye back to his principality. However, in
1321, Gediminas defeated the Russian army on the Irpin River, killed the
last Russian prince of Vladimir-Volyn from the Romanovich family, Andrei
I, took the cities of Vladimir, Lutsk, went to Berestye for the winter,
and finally annexed it to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1379 Berestye
was burnt down by the Teutonic knights.
At the end of the 14th
century, Berestye, mentioned in the “Lithuanian cities” section of the
chronicle “List of Russian cities far and near”, was a trade and craft
center of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the population was about 2
thousand inhabitants. Local merchants exported furs, leather, timber,
hemp, grain to Western Europe, imported salt, cloth, silk, paper, and
much more. Merchants from Vilna, Kyiv, Chernigov, Moscow passed through
Berestye. In 1380, a guest yard was built in the city, fairs were
organized, crafts were actively developed: pottery, blacksmithing,
leather, jewelry, shoemaking, sewing, carpentry. In 1390 the city
received Magdeburg rights. Of the cities of present-day Belarus, he
received it first. The management of the city began to be carried out by
a council, consisting of lavniki, radtsev, two burmisters (Catholic and
Orthodox), who alternately presided over it. The head of the city
council, as well as the court, was a voit appointed by the Grand Duke of
Lithuania. The power of the city extended to the territory adjacent to
it. In 1390, according to the charter for the Magdeburg right, the city
was granted about 1,500 hectares of arable land, in 1408 - the village
of Kozlovichi.
Further economic development of Berestye was
delayed by the Great War of 1409-1411 of the Kingdom of Poland and the
Grand Duchy of Lithuania against the Teutonic Order. At a secret meeting
in the city in December 1409, the Polish king Jagiello and the Grand
Duke of Lithuania Vytautas developed a plan for a general battle with
the crusaders. In the Battle of Grunwald on July 15, 1410, the Teutonic
Order was defeated; Beresteyskaya banner fought as part of the united
armies. By the privilege of 1441, Berestye was officially assigned to
the main cities of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1463 Berestye was
burnt down by an army of Crimean Tatars led by Mengli Giray. In
1413-1510, the city was part of the Troki Voivodeship.
By the end of the 15th century, there were already more than 5
thousand inhabitants in Berestye, 928 built-up plots. The city has been
exempted from paying taxes more than once. In 1500, the city was sacked
by the troops of the Crimean Khan Mengli I Gerai. Since 1520, Berestye
has been the center of the povet (county) of the Podlasie Voivodeship.
In 1566 the city became the center of the Beresteysky Voivodeship. In
1554, according to the privilege of Sigismund II Augustus, Berest was
allowed to use an official seal with the image of a hipped tower at the
confluence of two rivers. According to the data of 1566, the city
consisted of 3 main parts: the castle, erected on the former citadel of
ancient Berestye, the "place" - the main urban area located on the
island formed by the Western Bug and the branches of the Mukhavets and
connected to the castle by a bridge, and "Zamukhavechya" - on the right
bank of the Mukhavets. The city had 6-7 thousand inhabitants. In the
central (castle) part of it there were the buildings of the magistrate
and the court, the market square, the houses of wealthy citizens,
churches and monasteries. The streets were paved with wood; in 1588,
cobblestone pavements appeared.
In the 16th century, Berestye was
an important trade and craft center of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
Brest merchants maintained close trade relations with important trading
centers of Eastern Europe: Slutsk, Minsk, Mogilev, Polish Warsaw,
Poznan, Torun, Lomza, Lublin, cities of the Russian state. The annual
trade turnover of the city in the first half of the 16th century reached
750 thousand rubles, and the Brest customs took the second place in the
income of the state treasury. In the 1550s, Nikolai Radziwill Cherny,
the elder of Berestei, founded a printing house in the city, the first
on the territory of present-day Belarus. In 1563, the "Brest Bible" was
printed in it, which is an outstanding monument of book printing. In the
second half of the 16th - the first half of the 17th centuries,
religious brotherhoods, which were organized at Catholic monasteries and
Orthodox churches, were of great importance in the socio-political life
of the townspeople. They sought to preserve the folk culture and
language, opened printing houses and fraternal schools. In 1596, at the
church council in Brest, the Union of Brest was adopted - the
unification of the Catholic and Orthodox churches on the territory of
the Commonwealth.
In 1614, a college of Jesuits was founded in
Brest[39]. By the second half of the 17th century, the city center was
formed on the island (now the citadel of the Brest Fortress). There was
a market square with a town hall and shops, stone buildings of the
monasteries of the Jesuits, Basilians, Bernardines, the Uniate church,
the synagogue. In 1659, the Brest Mint was founded, where in 1664-1666
small copper coins - solids - were minted with the image of the "chase"
- the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In the 17th century,
Brest-Litovsky became the meeting place for military confederations
(1605, 1612), the Seim of the Commonwealth (1653). Brest-Litovsky, by
that time one of the main cities of the Commonwealth, flourished. In the
middle of the century, there were about 11 thousand inhabitants in the
city, it was rich and was considered the “gateway” to the country, but
the “Catastrophe” happened when Brest underwent three terrible
devastating ruins in a short time. In 1648, the Cossacks of Bohdan
Khmelnitsky, led by Colonel Maxim Gladky, occupied Brest with the help
of local rebels. The Moscow ambassador Yegor Kunakov, who was passing
through Brest at the beginning of 1649, testified: “... Brest-Litovsky
was devastated to the ground. All the Poles, and the Jews, and women,
and their children were beaten without a trace, and the mansions, and
the stone houses were drilled and scattered, and the wooden ones were
burnt and razed to the field exactly. During the Russian-Polish war of
1654-1667 and the war unleashed by Sweden in 1655 against the
Commonwealth and in 1656 against Russia, Brest-Litovsky was repeatedly
in the zone of hostilities. On November 15, 1655, Russian troops under
the command of the Novgorod governor Prince S. Urusov defeated the army
of the hetman of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania P. Sapieha near
Brest-Litovsk, but they could not take the fortified city, which had a
large garrison. In 1657, the Swedes and the Hungarians captured the
Brest castle and devastated the city. In January 1660, the city was
captured by Russian troops under the command of Prince Ivan Khovansky,
who destroyed about 1,700 people hiding in the castle, leaving only 50
Starshin alive and sending them captive to Moscow, led by the castle
commandant. In 1661 it was again occupied by the Polish-Lithuanian
troops. As a result of Khovansky’s raid, the city of Brest-Litovsk, like
other cities captured during a long raid by Russian troops, was
“destroyed and burned down to the last building”, a “very small handful”
of the population remained, all members of the magistrate died, shop
documents burned down and master's books.
In the 17th century,
the fortifications of Brest-Litovsk consisted of a pentagonal castle
with bastions.
During the Northern War of 1700-1721, by agreement
with the Elector of Saxony and the King of Poland, August II the Strong,
the Russian army entered the territory of the Commonwealth in 1705.
Provision warehouses were created in the city to supply the Russian
army. In 1706, Swedish troops, pursuing the retreating army of Peter I,
occupied Brest-Litovsky and ravaged it. The second half of the 17th -
the first half of the 18th centuries in the history of the city is
characterized by a sharp economic decline caused by prolonged wars,
famines and epidemics. The number of its inhabitants decreased,
handicraft production and trade fell into decline. Only in the second
half of the 18th century did the revival of the economy begin.
Brest-Litovsky became the main river port on the Western Bug, through
which grain, hemp, timber, etc. were exported. In the 1770s, the
Lithuanian treasurer A. Tizengauz founded a cloth factory in
Brest-Litovsky, which had 7 looms.
At the end of the 18th
century, the city had 3.5 thousand inhabitants. In 1792, the residence
of the leaders of the Targowice Confederation was located here. In 1795,
Brest-Litovsk, as a result of the third partition of the Commonwealth,
was annexed to the Russian Empire. As a county town, at first it was
part of Slonim, from 1797 - Lithuanian, from 1801 - Grodno province. The
city was gradually built up, in 1797 it had 623 houses, of which 21 were
stone, cloth factories and a distillery. Fires caused great damage to
the city: in 1802, about 160 houses burned down, in 1822 - the
commercial part of the city (150 shops) and 70 residential buildings.
In the 18th century, the chief marshal of France M. Saxony, speaking
of Brest-Litovsk, noted: "Whoever owns this stronghold in wartime, he
has great benefits over the adjacent country."
With the fall of the Polish-Lithuanian state, the decline of
Brest-Litovsk begins: frequent fires, robberies of Polish troops, wars
completely ruined the city.
In 1807, engineer-general P.
Sukhtelen, by the Highest order, turns Brest-Litovsk into a stronghold
for the defense of the western border of the empire and draws up a
project for a new fortress, since before that the border was completely
open. But the war of 1812 prevented its implementation.
During
the Patriotic War of 1812, on the territory of the Brest land, the
French army faced serious resistance from the Third Western Russian Army
under the command of General A. Tormasov. On July 25, near
Brest-Litovsk, the advanced units of the Russian troops, led by Major
General A. Shcherbatov, defeated the enemy cavalry units and forced the
French troops to leave the city. Military operations in the vicinity of
the city continued to be conducted in October-November 1812.
At
the end of the war, the Russian military decided to build a fortress in
Brest-Litovsk as an element of the fortification system being created in
the west of the country. The Brest-Litovsk fortress was built according
to the project approved in 1830 on the territory of the city. As a
result, the former city, which had existed for more than 500 years, was
practically destroyed.
In 1819, the last Orthodox Simeonovskaya
church burned down, and in 1823 the Simeonovsky monastery was abolished,
and only in the dining room of the monastery a parish church was built
for a small number of Orthodox townspeople, which was demolished in 1834
during the construction of the fortress, and the city was left without
an Orthodox church.
In 1835, the urban development was moved to
the east by 2 km, boundary signs were installed between the lands of the
city and the fortress - rubble pillars (one of them was preserved at the
corner of Lenin and Gogol streets). On April 26, 1842, the grand opening
of the new fortress took place. The Brest-Litovsk fortress was reflected
in the coat of arms of Brest-Litovsk approved in 1845: on the cape at
the confluence of two rivers, a circle of silver shields, a fortress
standard rises above it, in the upper part of the coat of arms there is
a bison - the coat of arms of the Grodno province, in which moment
included Brest-Litovsk.
In order to build a fortress, the Russian
authorities completely destroyed the old city located between the
Western Bug and the branches of Mukhavets, in which there were ancient
residential quarters with a town hall and a castle of the 17th century,
and in its place in the 1830-1840s, according to the project of K.
Opperman, fortifications were erected fortifications.
As part of
the Russian Empire, the city finally got a respite from endless wars and
raids. But the district Brest-Litovsk was only a pale copy of that
prosperous and significant city of the Commonwealth, which once existed
between the Mukhavets and the Bug. The economy developed slowly, the
city was actually an “attachment” to a strategic fortress, its life was
entirely dependent on the military. In 1825, about 11 thousand people
lived in the city, in 1845 - about 18 thousand people. There were 250
shops in Brest-Litovsk, auctions were held 3 times a week, and 2 fairs
annually. With the development of capitalism in the second half of the
19th and early 20th centuries, the city, which previously consisted of
three-quarters of wooden houses and barracks, began to be built up,
stone residential and public buildings, various enterprises and
workshops were erected, and its territory expanded. In the 1860s, 5
tobacco factories, 8 candle factories, leather, sewing, dyeing and other
workshops operated in Brest-Litovsk. In 1861 there were 178 shops, 60
taverns, 5 inns and 22 visiting houses, a tavern, a confectionery;
population - 20.9 thousand people.
The growth of the city at the
end of the 19th century was associated with a large-scale modernization
of the Brest-Litovsk fortress (1878-1888) and, in particular, with the
accelerated construction of railways that connected Brest-Litovsk with
the center and south-west of Russia. In 1869, the Brest-Litovsk - Warsaw
road was put into operation, in 1871 - Moscow - Brest-Litovsk, in 1873 -
Kiev - Brest-Litovsk, in 1886 - Brest-Litovsk - Gomel. In 1886, the
building of the railway station was built, which since 1888 has been lit
with electricity (160 light bulbs were installed in the halls, service
rooms and platforms).
In 1889, there were 2,663 buildings in the
city, 248 of which were made of stone. The catastrophic fire of 1895
destroyed most of the city's buildings, including residential buildings,
enterprises and workshops, shops, hospitals and schools, the railway
station, burned out the city center; the damage amounted to 5 million
rubles.
According to the first All-Russian census of 1897, the
population of the city was 46,568 people (25,509 men and 21,059 women),
of which 30,260 people were Jews and 12,141 were Orthodox. The following
were indicated as the native language: Jewish - 30,109, Russian -
10,217, Polish - 3,358, Belarusian - 1,231, Ukrainian - 704. However,
the city had neither running water nor sewerage; almost the entire
population used water from Mukhavets, in 1896 only 5 wells in the city
had drinking water. There was one hospital with 15 beds. Since 1865, a
four-class gymnasium has operated, at the end of the 1870s - city
four-class and parochial schools, a private boarding school for noble
maidens, since 1874 - a private library, since 1885 - a musical and
drama amateur society, in 1903-1904 two high schools were built.
With the beginning of the First World War, the role of the city as a
major transport and logistics hub increases. This is how Russian
artillery officer Iosif Ilyin describes him in his diary, returning to
the front at the end of 1914 after being cured.
29th of November.
Brest. There is a very big traffic jam here, and therefore we will
probably stand for two or three days until they deal with us ... Brest
is a small, almost exclusively Jewish town. Today is Saturday,
everything is closed, there are almost no cabs, because out of a hundred
and fifty - one hundred and thirty Jews ... The weather here is amazing,
eight or ten degrees of heat. It especially seems wild after deep snow,
fox hunting. It turns out that there is almost no winter here at all,
and no one even thinks about sleighs. A week before our arrival, a whole
tragedy broke out here, and Nikolai Nikolaevich urgently came here. It
is forbidden to write about this, and they try to keep it a secret.
Eighty thousand shells exploded, about five hundred people died, a whole
company of sappers with officers who had recently been buried.
Explosions went sequentially, starting from eight in the morning until
five in the evening. Almost all the windows in the city burst, and
fragments poured from the fortress; most fled in panic into the field
outside the city. Fortunately, all the warehouses and cellars with
pyroxylin survived and did not detonate, otherwise, as one officer told
me, there would be no trace of the city, inhabitants and fortress. At
the station just at that time, when the explosions began, there was a
whole train loaded with pyroxylin, and only thanks to the
resourcefulness of the station chief and the courage of the machinists,
he was taken out, otherwise the whole station would have gasped.
During the "great retreat" of the Russian troops on August 7, 1915, the
command of the Russian army decided to urgently evacuate the garrison of
the fortress, already well prepared for the defense by that time, due to
the fact that news had come of the fall of the fortresses in Kovno and
Novogeorgievsk, which turned out to be defenseless from the used gas by
the Germans. On August 12, by order of the commandant of the fortress,
artillery general V. Laiming, on the last day of the evacuation, already
under German artillery fire, fortifications, forts, powder magazines
were blown up, bridges, warehouses, and barracks were set on fire. The
city, located not far from the burning fortress and in the center of two
outer rings of exploding and burning defensive forts and fortifications,
was almost completely engulfed in fire and burned out by 70%.
The
High Command decided that the Brest-Litovsk fortress would not be on the
defensive. She had to be evacuated. The cars were given to the military
for the removal of property. Refugees were sent on foot, which was a
tragedy for many locals.
Russian troops left the fortress on the
night of August 12-13, 1915. The procedure for undermining the
fortifications from August 12 to 13 was determined by order of the chief
of staff of the 3rd Army. They destroyed everything they could. The
retreating Russian troops set fire to the city during August 7-8.
On August 7-8, the city was burned by special teams of militias and
Cossacks, who drove around the city, drove the locals who remained from
their houses and set them on fire. Trading rows, shops, tenement houses
- everything was on fire.
A participant in those events, the head
of the fortress engineers, Major General Ivan Liders, looked at the
burning city, standing on the highway near the Trishin farm:
“We
witnessed an unforgettable, soul-shattering picture of an enchanting
fire: not only the entire city, its environs, the buildings of the
engineering workshop at Fort III were on fire, but also the surrounding
villages in all the space available to the eye, and even individual
crosses sticking out in the cemetery were engulfed in flames and burned
in the form of torches,” he wrote in his memoirs.
And here is
what an officer of the German army, Captain Pelman, who observed the
city from a hill on the left bank of the Mukhavets, wrote:
“As if
rooted to the spot, we stopped, looking at this gigantic spectacle. As
far as the eye could see, we saw a continuous huge sea of fire rising to
the sky, over which, darkening the sun, a huge cloud of smoke rose,
announcing to the whole neighborhood: “Brest is dead.”
The fire
destroyed 70% of the housing stock of Brest-Litovsk. Of the total number
of 3,670 houses that existed before the war, 2,500 were destroyed with a
total of 15,000 dwellings.
The Germans entered the ashes and were
engaged in the removal of what had survived, and the dismantling of the
affected buildings into bricks. They took bricks, channel bars and took
them to Germany.
Leaving, the Russian troops blew up caponiers,
casemates and powder magazines in almost all forts.
From December
9 (22), 1917 to March 3, 1918, peace negotiations between Soviet Russia
and Germany took place in Brest-Litovsk, as a result of which, on March
3, 1918, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between Soviet Russia and the
Central Powers was signed in the White Palace of the Brest Fortress, and
also the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk between the Ukrainian People’s Republic
(UNR) and the Central Powers, according to the last agreement, Germany
and Austria-Hungary transferred territories south of the
Kamenetz-Pruzhany line to the Ukrainian People’s Republic, with
subsequent clarification of the border by a mixed German-Ukrainian
commission, taking into account the ethnic composition and wishes of the
local population, which led to the fact that Brest-Litovsk became part
of the Ukrainian People's Republic as the administrative center of the
Podlachie land.
In March 1918, the Kholmsky provincial starostvo
(province) was formed as part of the UNR, the administrative center of
which became Berestye.
At this time, local residents began to
return to Brest-Litovsk, who settled in neighboring settlements. Until
that moment, entry to Brest-Litovsk was prohibited.
During the
Soviet-Polish war, from February 9, 1919, Brest-Litovsk was already
under the control of the Polish Republic. On August 2, 1920, as a result
of a counteroffensive, units of the Red Army occupied it. And on August
18, after the defeat of the Red Army near Warsaw, the city was again
occupied by Polish formations. According to the results of the Riga
Treaty, he went to the Polish Republic. Refugees began to return to the
city en masse. It was the most difficult time, the conditions were
terrible, epidemics broke out. City baths were urgently restored, and
local residents needed to have a certificate that he visited the bath
twice a month. Those who did not obey were fined and ordered to wash by
force. City authorities removed construction debris, restored streets,
buildings, social facilities. Humanitarian missions helped with the
construction of barracks where refugees could be accommodated. There was
not enough housing for everyone, the inhabitants huddled in tents,
basements of destroyed buildings. The restoration of the city was
carried out all 20 years during the period of interwar Poland. By the
Second World War, Brest had not fully recovered.
Since 1923, the
city was called Brest-nad-Bug (to distinguish it from another Polish
city Brest-Kuyavsky), the center of the Polessky Voivodeship.
On September 14, 1939, during the invasion of Poland, the German 19th
motorized corps attacked the city and occupied it; On the morning of
September 17, the fortress was also occupied by the Germans. On
September 22, Brest was transferred, in accordance with the
Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union (also known as
the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), to the 29th Tank Brigade of the Red Army
during an "impromptu parade" and included in the USSR as the center of
the newly formed Brest region of the BSSR. The Soviet-German state
border ran along the Western Bug River.
On June 22, 1941, at the
beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the city and the fortress were
among the first to be attacked by German troops. The defense of the
Brest Fortress, in which at the time of the attack there were about 6-7
thousand Soviet military personnel, as well as members of the
commanders' families, became a symbol of steadfastness, courage and
military prowess. Instead of several hours allotted by the German
command to capture the fortress, the 45th division of the Wehrmacht had
to, suffering significant losses, fight here for a whole week, and
separate pockets of resistance lasted for a month. Subsequently, two
participants in the heroic defense - Lieutenant A. Kizhevatov
(posthumously) and Major P. Gavrilov were awarded the title of Hero of
the Soviet Union, many others from the legendary garrison were awarded
orders and medals.
The occupation authorities included Brest in
the Reichskommissariat Ukraine.
During the years of German
occupation, about 40 thousand inhabitants of the city were destroyed;
The Jews of Brest were herded into the Brest ghetto organized by the
Nazis and almost completely destroyed. The economy of Brest virtually
ceased to exist.
On July 28, 1944, during the Lublin-Brest
operation, the city was liberated by the troops of the 1st Belorussian
Front. In honor of this event, one of the streets of the city was named
(st. July 28). Also on July 28, City Day is celebrated.
According
to the results of the Yalta Conference, held in February 1945, the
border of Poland along the Bug and the presence of Brest as part of the
USSR was confirmed.
After the end of the Great Patriotic War, Brest began to develop
rapidly as an industrial center. The population of the city increased
rapidly. In February 1947, the first bus route "Railway Station -
Bagpipe - Southern Town" was opened.
From August 1955 to April
1959, the Brest regional organization of the Communist Party of Belarus
was headed by P. Masherov, the future first secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party (b) of Belarus.
Since 1967, the
construction of a new large residential microdistrict "Vostok" began. In
1981 trolleybus traffic was started. In 1986, a modern air terminal
complex was built.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of the
Republic of Belarus, in which Brest remained the regional center, the
flow of tourists to the city decreased. At the same time, the Brest
Fortress is the leader of Belarus in terms of attendance in 2012, and
the 2nd place after the Nesvizh Museum in 2013. In 2013, 390 thousand
people visited this historic place.
In the 2000s, the city's
streets were improved and large housing projects were built. Mass
housing construction continued.
In 2001, the Nativity of the
Theotokos Monastery was opened.
The 2010s were marked by the
development of road infrastructure. The left-bank (“river”) part of the
city is actively developing.
In 2011, the city was affected by
the events of the Revolution through social networks. From June 8,
silent rallies began to take place there. The police responded by
arresting the protesters, but their numbers still grew. However, the
authorities took measures (limited access to gathering points of
protesters, arrested them, etc.), so the number of Brest demonstrators
began to fall. After the actions on July 27, which took place in the
markets and squares, a break was made. In September, the actions resumed
again, but due to their small number they became ineffective and soon
ceased.
Also in 2011, a stop-gasoline action was held near Brest.
Protests in Belarus in 2017 again affected Brest. On February 19,
about 100 participants gathered, on February 26 - 300 participants, and
on March 5 from 1000 to 2000 people.
Brest was one of the centers
of the 2020 protests. On August 10, clashes between OMON officers and
protesters took place in the city, during which the OMON used stun
bombs, and the protesters set up barricades. In response, an
unconventional method of temporarily neutralizing them was used against
the security forces - spraying foam from spray cans on the transparent
elements of helmets and shields. On August 11, protester Gennady Shutov
was wounded in Brest. He was transferred in critical condition to the
hospital of the Ministry of Defense, where he died on August 19.
Jews settled in Brest-Litovsk even before the reign of Keistut
(1341-1382). Vitovt's letter of July 1, 1388 was originally given to the
Jews of Brest and only later turned into a privilege for all the Jews of
Lithuania.
In 1388, Grand Duke Vitovt granted the Brest Jewish
community privileges that provided Jews with freedom of religion and
certain rights in financial affairs and trade.
During the
XIV-XVII centuries Brest was the main center of the Jewish communities
of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In Yiddish, the city was called Brisk.
In 1411 Prince Vytautas allowed the Berestya Jews to build a
synagogue and even donated bricks and clay for free. The large stone
synagogue was famous throughout Europe for its architecture and
decoration (it was destroyed in 1842 during the construction of the
Brest-Litovsk fortress). The local Jewish community received
compensation which, together with private donations, enabled the
building of a new synagogue in 1862. The foundation and walls of the
former Great Synagogue are now the cinema "Belarus".
According to
the 1860 census, 19,343 people lived in Brest, including 10,320 Jews.
According to the 1897 census, there were 46,586 inhabitants in the city,
of which 30,608 were Jews (65.8%).
In 1802, a fire destroyed most
of the Jewish quarter. The fire of 1828 again destroyed many Jewish
buildings, among them five prayer houses.
In 1939, 21,518 Jews
lived in Brest (41.3% of the total population). In May 1937, a Jewish
pogrom took place in the city, during which 3 Jews were killed and more
than 50 were injured. The Jewish quarter was destroyed. The Polish
military garrison of the city did nothing to prevent the pogrom, which
lasted 16 hours. Also, the city authorities and the police did not come
to the defense of the Jews.
Already in the first days of the
Great Patriotic War, German troops occupied Brest and immediately
involved many Jews in forced labor.
During the German occupation
of the city during the Great Patriotic War, in June 1941 alone, the
Einsatzgruppe B unit, together with units of the Wehrmacht, shot from 4
to 5 thousand Jews. In December 1941, the Jewish population of Brest was
imprisoned in the Brest ghetto. In October 1942, about 17 thousand Jews
of Brest were taken to the Bronnaya Gora railway station and shot.
In 1970, according to estimates, about 2 thousand Jews lived in
Brest (less than 2% of the population).
The last Soviet census in
1989 registered 1,080 Jews in the city (0.4% of the total population).
Since the early 1990s, large numbers of Jews from Brest have emigrated
to Israel and other countries.
According to the 1999 Belarusian
census, 415 Jews lived in Brest. In 2009, the Jewish population of the
city was about 200 people.
Geographically, the center of the Brest region is located 320 km
southwest of Minsk, on the western outskirts of Polesye, which is a
swampy flat lowland, rather deforested due to human impact. The relief
of the territory on which Brest lies is flat (absolute heights from 123
m, the heights of the Western Bug edge, up to 130 m), slightly lowering
towards the floodplain of the Mukhavets. On the western outskirts of the
city, Mukhavets flows into the Western Bug, bifurcating into two
branches. On the territory of Brest, Mukhavets does not receive
tributaries. A small river Lesnaya flows along the northern outskirts of
Brest, the right tributary of the Western Bug.
Brest is located
in the time zone designated by the international standard as Eastern
European Summer Time (UTC+3).
The area of the city is 14,527
hectares, the share of green spaces is quite large. The city is
surrounded by a forest park area covering an area of 2,500 hectares. On
the territory of Brest there are a number of parks (including the park
named after May 1, the park of soldiers-internationalists, etc.) and
squares. Starting from October 15, 2012, the boundaries of the city and
the Brest region were changed by the decision of the Brest Regional
Council of Deputies dated September 11, 2012 No. 219, according to which
the land plots with a total area of 85 .8281 hectares (0.86 km²),
including 85.7071 hectares of land of the communal unitary agricultural
enterprise "Sovkhoz Brestsky" and 0.121 hectares of land of the communal
unitary enterprise "Brest City Department of Capital Construction", as a
result of which the territory of the city is currently the moment is
14,612 hectares or 146.12 square kilometres.
On the territory of
the city there is one natural monument of republican significance, a
unique tree: common spruce of a serpentine shape in the city park.
The landscapes surrounding the city are mainly anthropogenic -
agricultural land, summer cottages, there are separate forests (pine,
aspen, etc.).
Near Brest there is a landscape reserve of
republican significance "Pribuzhskoe Polesie", as well as 3 reserves of
local significance:
"Bugsky" (in the floodplain of the Western Bug
and Lesnaya rivers);
"Brestsky" (in the floodplain of the Mukhavets
River near the village of Vychulki);
"Barbastella" (near the village
of Kozlovichi), where the largest colony of bats in Belarus is guarded
on the territory of ancient forts.
Meteorological observations in Brest have been conducted since 1834.
The climate in the city area is temperate continental. Due to the
influence of sea air masses, mild winters and moderately warm summers
are characteristic. The cyclones that cause this move from the Atlantic
Ocean from west to east. The average temperature in January is −2.6 °C,
in July +19.3 °C. The annual rainfall is 609 mm. The average annual air
temperature in Brest is +8.2 °C, the average annual wind speed is 2.6
m/s, the average annual air humidity is 76%. The growing season lasts
214 days.
It rains on average 160 days a year and snows 68 days.
Fogs are observed for 33 days, thunderstorms - 27 days.