Few of us know that the ruins which are considered to be a cultural heritage are hidden near the city of Minsk. If you want to get acquainted with old estates and homesteads, then you should visit the Elskies gentry estate “Ignatichi” in the village of Kalinino. Long time ago the village itself had been called “Ignatichi”, but the Soviet authority decided to change it and the village was named Kalinino. There are almost no historical datum about the estate but its fate is in truth unique.

A high plate, where you can read that the estate is of historical and cultural value, stands at the very entrance to the territory where once the Elskie gentry estate was located.

A sandy path leads inward of the park, which has a brick pedestal on one of its sides. Once there were two of them and the sculptures were on them.

The estate was located in the heart of the park. Wilhelm Elskiy was its last owner. He was fond of planting flowers, that’s why earlier the estate was decorated with flowers all around the house outside and inside. There were more than 480 kinds of roses in his flower collection. He brought a lot of plants from Africa and South America. You can imagine what a wonderful smell reigned on the park’s territory!

The house itself wasn’t big. Its main decoration was the sloping roof with an acoustic window.  But the roof was badly destroyed in the fire. The Soviet authorities decided that there was no point in restoring the initial look and an ordinary roof was set up on the house.

The forged patterns have preserved since the gentry time which still decorate the house.

A relief cartouche hasn’t practically preserved above the house entrance door. Historians believe that could be a family symbol, but there are no true evidences. There are two branches, which are stretched over the door in it . Some researchers affirm that it is a symbol of roses’ brunches, which the gentleman grew; others confirm that these are two crossed arrows, which were a symbol of the Elskie family arms. But one way or another every tourist, who comes to look at the estate, is surely to find something for himself in it, something that will help him to imagine what the estate looked like in the days of the Elskies.   

In 1914 Wilhelm Elskie started to reconstruct the castle. There were a fireplace, decorated with blue of pink tile, statuette and medallions in each of the rooms. Wilhelm Elskiy possessed a great collection of canvases of well-known at that time painters. But the dekulakization period began, and Wilhelm had to give his estate to the Soviets. He was allowed to live in it till 1917. Wilhelm didn’t give up: he wanted to keep the estate, offered to arrange a museum there. But the Soviets decided all in a different way: the building was standing empty, and the Elskie family’s unique things were sold out, and now according to what historians say, they are displayed in various museum of the world.

The house’s territory was decorated with a park of unseen beauty, where rare kind of trees were planted along with rare kind of flowers. Today lupine has preserved, that was grown by Wilhelm Elskiy, and four rare trees immediately single out among the other trees.

Nowadays, a deserted house of the homestead and the park, which gifts a pleasant fragrance to the visitors in spring and summer, have left of the estate. Strolling through the beautiful paths of the park, you can look into the history of the Elskie family, and dream about the life at that time.