Nesvizh Castle Included Into Unesco’s World Heritage List

The Nesvizh Castle, which used to be the official residence of the Radzivills, has been included into the UNESCO World Heritage List, the Foreign Ministry of Belarus informed.

The decision was taken on July 15 in Durban (South Africa) at the 29th session of the annual meeting of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, comprised of representatives from 21 of the States Parties to the 1972 World Heritage Convention.

As of July 1, 2005 the World Heritage list includes 788 objects, including the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, Notre-Dame de Paris. Two objects included into that list are located in Belarus: the Castle of Mir, and Belavezhskaya Pushcha National Park.

The Nesvizh residence of Radzivills is located 112 km westward from Minsk.

The city was first mentioned in historical chronicles in 1446. In 1513 the city of Nesvizh became the official residence of the Radzivills – the biggest and the most powerful kin in Belarus.

The residence included a castle, a cathedral with a marketplace. There is the reinforced castle wall around the city, which was the masterpiece of the European military science of that time.

Reconstructed in the 18th century, the Radzivills Castle is the only surviving original tycoon residence in this part of the European continent.

The gem of the Nesvizh castle is a crypt-based vault of the Radzivill dukes. Today it features 72 open caskets with remains of the renowned kin of tycoons. The earliest grave dates back to 1616.

The kin of the Radzivills owned some 23 castles, 426 big and small towns, 2,032 estates with 10,053 villages. The Radzivills were owners of palaces based in the most prominent cities (Warsaw and Grodno, Vilnius, Novogrudok). In the 19-20 centuries the Radzivills had property in Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Paris.

print version