Photos of the Day for February 16, 2016

Belarus in winter:  Stalovichy 2016. 

Беларусь узімку:  Сталовічы 2016 г.

 

Stalovichy, now a village of about 640 people, lies eight miles (12 kilometers) north of the district center Baranavichy in western Belarus.

Before the Russian empire seized the western Belarusian lands in the third partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795), Stalovichy was the seat in the Belarusian lands of the Knights Hospitaller (Sovereign Order of Malta).  The first photo shows the 1740s “Vilnius Baroque-style” enlargement and incorporation of the Order’s 1639 stone chapel of St. John the Baptist. In 1863 the Moscow Patriarchate seized the church and converted it for Orthodox use as the church of the Dormition.  Reflecting a newer wave of Russification, the church now bears the name of St. Alexander Nevski.

Photos two and three show the neo-Gothic Roman Catholic church of the Sacred Heart, built 1907-1911 to replace the church lost to the Moscow Patriarchate.

 

Churches of Belarus (part CXXXIV):  Orthodox church of St. Alexander Nevski. 

Цэрквы Беларусі (частка CXXXIV):  царква Сьв. Аляксанлра Неўскага.

 

 

 

Churches of Belarus (part CXXXV):  Roman Catholic church of the Sacred Heart. 

Касьцёлы Беларусі (частка CXXXV):  касьцёл Найсьвяцейшага Сэрца Пана Езуса.

 

 

 

 

 

Old mill (around 1900). 

Стары млын (кадя пачатку ХХ-га ст.)

 

 

 

 

Traditional wooden house decoration. 

Драўлянае ўпрыгожаньне хаты.

 

 

 

 

Traditional wooden window lintel (lishtva – ліштва). 

Традыцыйная ліштва.