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Former starosty building, photo: Polonika, https://polonika.pl/polonik-tygodnia/135628093, photo (external licence), all rights reserved
Fotografia przedstawiająca County seat and official colony in Braslaw
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ID: POL-000397-P

County seat and official colony in Braslaw

Brasław | Belarus
biał. Brasłau (Браслаў)
ID: POL-000397-P

County seat and official colony in Braslaw

Brasław | Belarus
biał. Brasłau (Браслаў)

During the interwar period, the Polish state invested heavily in public construction in the eastern provinces. Modern barracks, schools, offices and flats for officials were built. Some of these were the works of famous architects. Such investments include the clerks' colony and the seat of the district starost's office in Braslaw in the former Vilnius Voivodeship (now Belarus).

Investments in the eastern lands of the Second Republic
. After the end of the Polish-Bolshevik war, one of the biggest problems of the young Polish administration in the eastern provinces was the lack of adequate premises for barracks, police stations, offices, schools and housing for officials. These lands had been heavily damaged during the First World War. In the territories previously belonging to the Russian Empire, there was no tradition of building solid premises for offices and schools in smaller towns. The Second Polish Republic, with its ambition to carry out a far-reaching modernisation of the eastern provinces, started from scratch in this area.

In the 1920s, several model clerical colonies and public administration buildings were built. Investments of this type were made both in provincial cities (Brest-on-the-Bug and Novogrudok) and in district towns. One of the most interesting assumptions that has survived to the present day is the clerical colony and the building of the district starost's office in Braslaw in the former Vilnius Voivodeship.


Official colony and district office in Braslav
The clerk's colony in Braslav was designed in the mid-1920s by Stefan Batory University professor Juliusz Kłos, better known in the interwar period as the author of guides to Vilnius. The clerk's colony presents a typical garden-settlement complex and is located on the shores of Lake Drywiaty in the western part of the city. It was a collection of a dozen or so houses of various sizes (from multi-family houses to the starosta's residence) built in the manor house style, of which Kłos was a great advocate.

Official colony in Braslav
Not far from the clerk's colony rises the monumental headquarters of the pre-war district administration. The building resembles a classicist palace from the early 19th century, although, like the settlement designed by Kłos, it dates from the late 1920s. The author of the project was Jarosław Girin, an architect connected with Vilnius and Podlasie before the war, and after the war working mainly in Warsaw.

The seat of the pre-war district office
. These interesting monuments survived the Second World War and the Soviet period in good condition. The seat of the district administration is used today in accordance with its original purpose - it houses the Braslav District Executive Committee, the equivalent of the Polish district administration. Typical of today's Belarus, the streets intersecting nearby are named Soviet and Red Army, and a monument to Lenin still stands next to the building.

Related persons:
Time of origin:
1920s.
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Related projects

1
Budynek dawnego starostwa, fot. Polonika, https://polonika.pl/polonik-tygodnia/135628093, fot. (licencja zewnętrzna)
Archiwum Polonik tygodnia Show
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