Nikolaevschina

Nikolaevschina is a village in Stolbtsy district of Minsk region. The village is located 14 km from Stolbtsy, it is the administrative center of Mikolaevshchina village council. The river Neman, one of the largest reviers in Belarus, flows in the west and south of the village.

The first information about the village Nikolaevschina in chronics appeared in 1555, when the estate was acquired by Prince Luka Svirsky. In 1596, the great Prince Nikolai Radziwill the Orphan, bought it and since it was the property of the famous Radzivils family. Thanks to the navigable river Neman by the end of XVI - beginning of XVII century Nikolaevschina turned into the town. In 1664, in a result of the Russian-Polish war, the Radziwill estate in Nikolaevschina was destroyed, houses were burned down and the pier was destroyed. After the second devision of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1793 Nikolaevschina became part of the Russian Empire, from 1918 - the part of the BNR, then of Poland and since 1939 - a part of the BSSR. In 1940, the village was damaged by a strong fire, but at the request of its native Yakub Kolos, the famous classic of Belarusian literature, was restored.

Any student of Belarus can tell what Nikolayevshchina is known for. First of all, it is the motherland of prominent Belarusian writers and public figures - Yakub Kolos and Yazep Lesik.
In 1972 Memorial complex «Mikalaeushina» was created at the territory of Stolbtsy district, it represents four estates: Akinchitsy, Lastok, Albut and Smolnya, associated with the name of Yakub Kolas. This is the houses where the poet was born, his family lived, childhood passed and the first poem was written. In the village Nikolaevschina the monument to Jakub Kolas was built.
Among the sights of Nikolaevschina the St. Nicholas Church is worth visiting, it was built in 1999 on the place of the church dismantled during the Soviet era.