Gorki

It is hard to tell why the town is called that way. Some say that it is associated with hills on which the town stands. Once it was called Gory-Gorki.

It is hard to tell for sure but these hills played a role in the history and location of the town. Today, three significant highways lie through the town: roads P70, P15, P123 and there is a railway station.

Now it is rather a big town with 34 thousand inhabitants, developed industry and agriculture. The Belarusian State Academy of Agriculture is the brightest, distinctive feature of the modern town of Gorki. This establishment exists since 1840. At that time, it was an agricultural school; Emperor Nicholas I ordered to open it. Later on, it became an institute, college, academy, always maintaining its reputation and retaining traditions of the intellectual capital of the country.

Wars

Places with such geographical features were always at the center of events during hard times. But Gorki was also a trading town. Fairs took place in the town, there were 3 markets, merchants and craftsmen from different countries came to the town.

Combats and Victims of War:

• During the Northern War between Sweden and Russia – the Russian troops under the command of Menshikov and Sheremetyev were in Gorki and there was a tent of Emperor Peter I on one of the famous hills;
• During the Patriotic War of 1812 in Gorki more than 2 thousand residents were killed;
• The rebellion of 1863 left a mark in the history of Gorki;
• During the occupation period in World War II, there was underground resistance in Gorki. In 1941, the Nazis killed more than 2,500 prisoners of the ghetto.
• In 1944, the town was liberated by the 2^nd Belarusian Front.

Present Days

But people have a desire to live. Combats ended and people raised their heads, healed their wounds and went to plow fields, raise and teach children, rebuild their houses.

In modern Gorki, there are many students and curious minds as well as serious scholars. Preserved documents, museum exhibits, sights will tell you about the past (the town itself like an open-air museum, clean and interesting). Here is a list of sights in the town:

• 3 administrative buildings (monuments of architecture). They are the remains of ordinary urban buildings of brick. They belong to the end of XIX- beginning of the XX century; they are examples of the eclectic style. Indeed, these buildings adorn the streets of the modern town;
• Church of the Ascension of the XIX century, it exists since 1863. It belongs to the Retrospective-Russian style;
• Bust of I.I. Yakubovsky, twice made a hero of the Soviet Union, marshal of the USSR;
• monument to Lenin;
• monument to the liberators;
• monument to a rural worker;
• grave of the victims of fascism.

Gorki represents the people's desire to live in peace. They tend to work and teach the youth. They remember the past, cherish the present and build the future without wars.