Mogilev is a city in eastern Belarus. It is known from 1267, when it was mentioned for the first time. From the 14th century, the city was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later of Poland-Lithuania. In the centuries up to the 17th century, Mogilev grew as a city on the east-west and north-south trade routes. The Polish king had granted the city Magdeburg rights in 1577. The following centuries caused upheavals in Mogilev, which surrendered to Russian forces in 1654 and was ravaged during the Great Nordic War in the early 1700s, when Charles XII’s Swedish troops set fire to the city in 1708.

After the partition of Poland in 1772, Mogilev became part of the Russian Empire, and it was temporarily occupied by Napoleon during the French campaign against Russia in 1812. During World War I in the years 1915-1917, the command of the Russian army was moved to the city. After the Russian Revolution, Mogilev became part of the Belarusian Soviet Republic. In 1938, Mogilev was made the capital of Belarus, as Minsk was too far to the west and thus easily accessible from Germany. In 1941, German troops occupied Mogilev, and the occupation lasted until 1944, when the city was liberated by the Red Army. After the war, the city was rebuilt as an industrial city and transport hub.

Today there is a lot to see and do in Mogilev, where you can make some lovely walks along the Dnieper, which runs through the city center with large parks and open nature along the banks. North of the river is the center of Mogilev, where you can start at Ploshad Slavy square with the city’s large and impressive monument to the establishment of the Soviet state. The monument was erected in 1982 on the beautiful square, where you can also see Mogilev’s old town hall, which was built as the city’s tallest building in the years 1679-1681. A hundred years later, in 1780, Empress Catherine the Great and Austrian Emperor Joseph II admired the view of Mogilev from the town hall tower.

If you continue through the city along the May 1 Boulevard, you pass many well-known buildings and institutions such as the Mogilev Philharmonic and the regional drama theatre. An example of the city’s modern center can be seen in the area around Komsomol Square, and if you continue north, you come to Lenin Square, a magnificent architectural work from the 1930s. Here is Dom Sovetov, which was planned as Belarus’s government building from 1935, so there was an alternative to Minsk if Germany conquered the capital. Dom Sovetov was designed almost as a copy of Dom Sovetov in Minsk, and the government moved here in 1938. After the war, the reconstruction of the city was managed from here, and today the large house is the seat of the regional government.