Excursion to Ashmjany and Valozhyn Districts. Вандроўка па Ашмянскім і Валожынскім раёнах.
City dwellers in Belarus restore old country houses or build new weekend cottages for several reasons: to seek relief from the pressures of urban life; to renew their bonds with the land; to have the sense of achievement which comes from restoring and building with one’s own hands and tending one’s own garden and crops.
In August a group of us happily accepted Sjarhjej and Iryna’s invitation to visit them for a day at their weekend house in the hamlet of Zas’tsjen’nje in the uplands of Ashmjany District northwest of Mjensk.
Belarus in Faces (part CLXXXIX), Sjarhjej and Iryna, Zas’tsjen’nje 2015. Беларусь у тварах (частка CLXXXIX), спадар Сяргей і спадарыня Ірына, Засьценьне 2015 г.
The house, which Sjarhjej and Iryna are restoring with the help of their neighbor, master carpenter Pavjel, is part of a former manor. The lower wall is a fine example of stonework with gallettes, characteristic of 19th-century masonry in the Belarusian lands. Гэтая хата – былы застенак. Гл. файны прыклад падмурку з разынкамі.
