Ozery

An agro-town in the Grodno district of the Grodno region, is the center of the Ozersky village council. It is located on the banks of the lakes Rybnitsa and Beloe, which gave the name to the village. reveal all text

Ozyory was first mentioned in 1398 as a possession of Prince Vytautas. In the XV-XVII centuries - the Grand Duke's possession.
In 1518, Sigismund I leased Lakes to the headman of Grodno, Yuri Radziwill.
In 1676, a Catholic parish was founded in Lakes, in 1679 a wooden church of the Mother of God of the Rosary was built, probably on the site of an older one that burned down during the Russian-Polish war.
In 1779, this temple was renovated at the expense of King Stanisław August. As a result of the third division of the Commonwealth (1795), Ozyory became part of the Russian Empire, in the Grodno district.
At the end of the 18th century, the estate was acquired by the famous scientist, adventurer and philanthropist Mikhail Valitsky. He founded a cloth factory (1807) and a paper factory (1809) in the Lakes.
After the suppression of the uprising of 1863-1864, the owner of the estate, Count Leopold Valitsky, was exiled to Siberia for participating in the uprising and deprived of the estate, it passed into the state treasury. In 1878 Lakes had 1013 inhabitants, among them 508 Jews. At the beginning of the 20th century (according to other sources in 1866), a stone Orthodox Church of the Holy Spirit was built.
In 1939, Lakes became part of the BSSR, since 1940 - the center of the village council. During the Great Patriotic War, the Nazis created a ghetto in the Lakes, where 1370 Jews were herded. Not later than March 5, 1943, the Germans and policemen killed all his prisoners.
During World War II, two main wooden sights of the village were destroyed - the Catholic Church of the Mother of God of the Rosary (1679) and the synagogue (end of the 18th century). On the site of the burnt church in 1994, a stone Catholic church of Christ the King was built.

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