Arches
Red brick.
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Golshany Castle is the ruined residence of the Sapieha magnate family in the village of Golshany in Belarus's Grodno Region, about 63 km northeast of Lida and 108 km northwest of Minsk in a straight line. It was the seat of one of the largest estates in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Paweł Stefan Sapieha built the present castle around 1610 to replace an older castle of the Holszański princes, whose descendants and heirs the Sapiehas were. It once rivalled Mir Castle as the most elegant private château of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It is known as the Black Castle although it is built of red brick; the name comes from a fictional building in a novel by the Belarusian writer Uladzimir Karatkievich, loosely based on this castle. The castle was never fully restored after the 18th century. The remains of a square tower and great broken arches in red and orange brick stand in a grassy meadow among tall trees, bare in winter and green in summer. Through the ruined arches open views over the surrounding fields. Visitors walk among the walls and arches and take photos from the meadow. The ruins are fragile, so please do not climb the walls. The UK Foreign Office advises against all travel to Belarus, so read the current advice before any planning.
Red brick.
Square and ruined.
Around the ruins.
Golshany, Grodno Region, Belarus
About an hour.
From a Karatkievich novel.