The Estate of the Plyater family in Gorodets

Gorodets is a small village located in the Vitebsk region. This village became famous and popular due to a beautiful monument of architecture – an estate of the XVIII century, belonged to the Plyater family. This estate had been reconstructed and is in perfect condition now. While traveling in the Vitebsk region you should definitely see it.

Gorodets became famous in the XVIII century due to the beautiful palace of Plyaters, perfectly preserved present days. In addition, the first hydroelectric power plant was built on the Mnyuta river. One of the representatives of the Plyater family is connected with its construction, who owned the village at that time.

The estate complex, built in the XVIII century, is a bright example of Classicism.

The estate house itself was located deep in the park, near the terraced slope. The estate represents a house with a very interesting architectural shape: side parts of the building are one-storey and the middle part is two-storey. The four-column portico highlights the two-storey part of the building. The interior layout was typical, built in the classical style: on the ground floor there was a spacious lobby as well as the main hall, which led to the wide terrace.

There was a beautiful park covering ten hectares. It had a very peculiar entrance alley: lilac grew along the alley, there were narrow alleys of lindens. The lawn was decorated with border beds of bright flowers. At the entrance, there were four pylons, which were built of red bricks and decorated with rubble stone. Alleys visually increased the space, creating the illusion of spaciousness. You won’t find a similar layout in any other park of Belarus. Unfortunately, the original landscape solution is not preserved present days.

The front part of the park was more traditional and round. The symmetry of the circle was highlighted by two representative blue spruce trees. Only one majestic tree survived: it is twenty meters high.

General features of the park composition can be seen in Gorodets today. There is a beautifully restored building of the palace plus you can see a rubble stone outbuilding, chapel, brewery, smithy, pigsty and other outbuildings. Unfortunately, only the estate house was restored in a proper way and the rest of the buildings look good but is gradually deteriorating. By the way, some of them perform its primary purpose.