The village Okinchitsy is not just a key milestone in the life and creative work of the Belarusian poet Yakub Kolas.  It is his cradle land, the small motherland that gave us the future classic long ago in 1882. Yet his family lived there only for four months and there is not that village as such – it has become the outskirt of the town Stolbtsy – but the memory of that historical event is still alive and is eternalized in the functioning branch of the museum in Okinchitsy.

"My native land, so dear to me …"

These immortal lines by Yakub Kolas are dedicated to the Stolbtsy district. Wherever he was, the poet always tremblingly and sadly recalled his native land, dedicated lots of verses and prose works to it.

The estate of Yakub Kolas in Okinchitsy presents a complex of restored in details historical structures. It consists of a manor house, a granary, a well and a cellar. The house itself is very tiny: an inner porch and a dwelling room. However, there are a lot of objects that are over a hundred years old!

As the family of Yakub Kolas lived there for a short time, the greater part of show-pieces presents everyday items of peasant life of the late XIX century. These are ancient furniture, baskets that were used for shopping, dishware, a spinning wheel and also a baby cradle. However, there are replicas of objects that belonged to the writer’s family. The estate has been accepting visitors for over thirty years since 1982.

By the way, the Yakub Kolas Museum is not only a single estate situated in the territory of the town Stolbtsy. It would be rather difficult to dispose the whole heritage of such a prominent and legendary historical personality within one small peasant house. That is why in the Stolbtsy district there are three other expositions dedicated to different periods of the writer’s life.

The memorial estate “Lastok” in the Nicolaevka district acquaints visitors with the authentic house where the poet spent his childhood and that has survived up to now with its original appearance. Here there is an exposition based on the poem “Simon-Music”, manuscripts and many others. In the memorial estate “Albut” the poet’s family lived since 1890 to 1904; it has become the prototype of “The New Land”. So it is not surprising that in Albut there is an exposition based on this work. The literary-memorial complex of Yakub Kolas “Smolnya” acquaints visitors with the restored interiors where the poet’s family lived.

The four expositions are inscribed on the State List of historical and cultural properties of the Republic Belarus.

Today the estate of Yakub Kolas in Stolbtsy is the main attraction of the town attracting there a huge number of tourists every year. Besides, not only specialists studying the poet’s life and creative heritage but also people who are interested in the rich history of our country and fate of legendary historical personalities.