How old is Minsk?

Two years ago citizens of Minsk were celebrating the 930th anniversary of byelorussian capital. Now we have some new information about the age of our city. A friend of «Vecherny Minsk» Vladimir Romanenko has recently told us that being in Saint-Petersburg he visited a famous Saltikovka library. There he found a book «The family tree of Rurikovitchi in 900-1250» written by F.Broemella, published in 1876 in Basil.

Some chapters of the book tell about the history of byelorussian cities. In particular there’s a fact that Minsk was founded in 1021. And we used to consider that the year of Minsk’s foundation is 1067. If the new information is confirmed by historians Minsk is significantly older than we supposed before.

By the way the book has information about the age of other cities and towns of Belarus such as Vitebsk and Novogrudok. They also are older than we used to think before.

By Evgeniy Turaikevich

Translated by Olga Detiuk.
I’ll be very glad if you send your comments on my translation to my
e-mail address: olga_minsk@yahoo.com
My URL is www.belarus.net/Index/Team/FLC/Detiuk/index.htm