Homel: the princes' palace on the Sozh River

On the Sozh River in the deep southeast of Belarus, Homel holds a princely palace among the most elegant in the entire country.

The downtown, with the palace of the Rumyantsev-Paskevich princes on the Sozh River, is comfortably walkable.

The Rumyantsev-Paskevich Palace, an elegant neoclassical residence of two important Russian noble families, dominates a vast and well-maintained landscape park overlooking the Sozh River.

A few minutes away, the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, located within the palace grounds, houses the tomb of the Paskevich family in a particularly refined neoclassical architectural style.

Proceeding along the river, one walks through the expansive historic city park, among the most extensive, green, and well-maintained in all of southern Belarus.

As evening approaches, numerous restaurants in the center serve authentic traditional Belarusian cuisine in elegant nineteenth-century historic buildings.

The Rumyantsev-Paskevich Palace, built starting in 1777 by the celebrated Russian field marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev, later passed to the noble Paskevich family, who expanded it considerably during the nineteenth century until reaching its present form.

Homel, the second city of Belarus by population after the capital Minsk, remains an important industrial and cultural centre of the country's southern region, located very close to the Russian and Ukrainian borders.