Izabielin

We chose Izabelin (formerly the village of Petukhova) as the venue for the Shtetlfolkfest event, our small town festival with a fair and traditional entertainment, for several reasons. First of all, the facilities of the future tourist cluster, which belong to our Belarusian partners “Padarosk Estate”, are located nearby and in the town itself. Also, our Polish partners from Bialystok are close enough to get here. And finally, the history of this town has everything to start an active cultural activity here and attract tourists, artists, craftsmen and other interested people.

However, Izabielin (renamed from Petukhova after the daughter of the then owner) today does not have a developed tourist infrastructure. Not a single hotel or at least hostel, no café, no decent information center where you can learn about everything you are interested in and find a good local guide. Therefore, we suggest using our For tourists section and staying in Padarosk – there are also things to see there (see the materials of this section), or look for overnight accommodation in Vaukavysk. But we really liked the Padarosk “Zyalyony Dub” farmstead, where you can order delicious homemade food.

Places of interest Izabielin has now are…

Christian, Jewish and German cemeteries. The last two are not in the best condition, because no one has been beautifying them for several years.

Catholic church of Peter and Paul, next to which we saw a wonderful fairground for the festival. It is true that it is decorated with a Soviet shop that has been closed for a long time, but the place in front of the very gate of the church is cozy. Moreover, local historians tell the story of how the fair date was set here and the first fair was held. Exactly on St Peter and Paul’s Day. They say, there was a Jew who traded so well at this fair with a significant profit that later he came to ask the priest to organize fairs on St Peter and Paul’s Day at least a couple of times a year.

Old houses with roof tiles made by Runge German immigrants.

Synagogue, which during the 1990s was converted for a short time into a beer bar “Neptune”. When processing the materials collected, we made a mistake in writing the word and got a “sinagogue”. We never had such an incident with any other synagogue later, so we decided that it was not our mistake, but a mistake of fate.

Now the building of the former synagogue is the property of our partners. It is here, according to our plans, that a local tourist information center or a towns research and development center will be opened (we hope soon).

The latest news and archives of Izabielin are here

More about Padarosk can be found here

Video playlist about the history of Padarosk.

 

 

Photo notes