Audio tour Hello, Bialystok!

Hello, we are in Bialystok. The name of the city comes from the Belaya River, on the banks of which it is located and is translated as “white slope.” Legend claims that the city was founded in 1320 by Gediminas, who once stopped at this place while hunting and ordered his subjects to build a hunting lodge. The location was good, and soon the princely house was overgrown with other houses. And then this settlement grew into a city. But in written sources it was first noted in 1437, when the territory around the Belaya River was granted by the Polish king Casimir Jagiellonczyk to Racko Tabutovich. The land where Bialystok is located belonged to the Mazovian princes and the Teutonic Order; And from the 14th century it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (in memory of this, until 1991 the city was ecclesiastically subordinate to the Vilnius diocese). The heyday of Bialystok is associated with the name of its owner, Hetman Klementy Branicki, who established a brilliant court in the city and invited artists and scientists. Today the city of Bialystok is the administrative center of Podlaskie Voivodeship and the largest city in northeastern Poland.