Historical and archaeological Museum “Berestye”

“Berestye” is a branch of Brest local history Museum, which contains unique exhibits of historical and cultural value of the Republic of Belarus. It is situated close to the river Western Bug and the river Mukhavets, on the territory of Brest Fortress of Volyn fortifications.

The Museum was opened in 1982 on the place of archaeological excavations in Brest region. Since 1962, the head of excavations has become doctor of historical Sciences Peter Fedorovich Lysenko. The Museum exposition includes 43 thousand exhibits, many of which are available for viewing by tourists.

The Council of Ministers of the Byelorussian SSR made the right decision and declared the territory of Brest Fortress a National Park in due time. It has cultural and archaeological importance for our country.

The exposition of the Museum “Berestye”

The main exposition is the remains of an ancient settlement belonged to ancient Brest. A trading quarter stood here in the 13th century. In the course of long archaeological researches, a team of scientists excavated the remains of dwelling buildings and outhouses, narrow streets paved with wood.  The depth of the excavations is 4 meters, the total area is 1118 square meters.

Visitors can see in the Museum 28 log buildings which are one-storey blockhouses made of logs of trees. In due time, the parts of streets and buildings were preserved by means of special synthetic solutions, so that people could now watch them in the “Berestye”.

The exposition with the houses and streets is divided into parts and represented in 14 halls-niches. Each of them is designed accordingly and contains some information fr om ancient times. Here are exhibits dedicated to the foundation and development of ancient Berestye, urban buildings, handicraft buildings, wh ere you can see means for working with non-ferrous metals and iron.

There is an exposition not far from the construction itself. It is devoted to the life of the ancient Slavs.  These are articles of furniture which were used by people who lived in Brest region at that time.

Metal, glass, wooden, clay things, homespun clothes, bones and items made of bone, a lot of adornments, tableware and other accessories were found in the course of the excavations.  

In the Museum you can see tanning and bone-carving workshops, looms and potter’s machines of that time, woodworking machines. There are items in one of the hall-niches. They were used by the ancient Slavs in farming, animal breeding, hunting and fishing. Trade items and cultural exhibits are placed separately. Archaeologists managed to almost identically recover dwellings of the ancient inhabitants of Berestye that allows learning more about the people’s life of ancient years.

These items are kept in a specially equipped exhibition hall, the total area of which is 2400 square meters. The modern exhibition hall was built of concrete, aluminium and glass. Necessary conditions were created here in order to nothing will happen to the exposition.