Holy Trinity Church in Telekhany

There is an urban settlement Telekhany in Ivatsevichi district of Brest region. It has been known since 1554. At that time, Telekhany was owned by the princes Dolskys, and then was passed to the Vishnevetskys.

What do you think why the urban settlement was called Telekhany? According to legend, Khan Attila was buried under Bald Mountain during the Tatar invasion.

Quite significant changes occurred in the village during the reign of Prince Michail Oginsky thanks to whom Telekhany became a port city on the Black and the Baltic seas. Hetman Oginsky created the Telekhany Canal, an artificial water-way fr om the Niemen to the Dnieper. The Canal stopped functioning in the 1960-ies. Today the Oginsky Canal is a popular tourist destination of Ivatsevichi district.  

Besides the Canal, Prince Michail initiated the development of faience production. He opened a factory wh ere they created high-quality ceramic products: tableware, vases and various souvenirs.

Oginsky also gave Telekhany a wooden Church of the Holy Trinity which is a decoration of the urban settlement.   The Church was built by locals in 1934 for Michail Oginsky’s money and is an architectural monument of the third category, a significant object of national wooden architecture. Monuments of the third category includes objects with complex decorations, non-repeating items, with a drum or a unique straight roof. Today Holy Trinity Church is a multi-storey building painted in light yellow and framed with decorative trim. However, the appearance of the Church was quite different some time ago. The Church was burned down in 1915 and only 10 years later on its place was raised a new temple in honor of the Holy Trinity with a quite complicated spatial composition, pentahedral protuberance, faceted hipped roof and belfry crowned with a cross. The Church is situated in a picturesque place, a green alley, along which there are growing trees and shrubs, leads to the main facade. You will be able to see the icon of the Mother of God “Hodegetria” (means “Putevoditelnitsa” or “Way-Guide”) in the Church. The icon is one of the main shrines of the Russian Church. 

You can visit Holy Trinity Church either individually or within a guided tour in Telekhany. The tourist route “The history and present of hydrologic objects” starts in Telekhany and passes through picturesque places of the seventh and eighth sluices of the Oginsky canal. By the way, the seventh sluice is the only preserved wooden hydrotechnical construction of the Canal. Then you will be offered to walk to Vulkov Lake, surrounded by black alders and other trees typical for Polesye nature. Within the tour, you will also be able to see the largest lake of Ivatsevichi district, Vygonoshchanskoye Lake, rich in fish.

The tourist program “The memory of Bobrovichi land” includes a two-day tour from the town of Kossovo through such villages as Ivatsevichy, Telekhany, Vygonoshchany and Bobrovichi. The first attraction that you will visit is the Trinity Church in Telekhany.