Gomel is Belarus's second city and one of its most elegant: its calling card is the magnificent Rumyantsev-Paskevich palace ensemble, one of the most beautiful in the country, perched on the high bank of the Sozh River and surrounded by a huge park with fountains, ponds, gazebos and avenues of centuries-old trees. Bringing together a neoclassical palace, a cathedral, a chapel-mausoleum, an observation tower and a tropical winter garden in a single walk, all on the banks of a great river, is what makes Gomel such a surprising stop.
The city began as a stronghold of Rus' and grew under the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, but its present appearance is owed above all to the Russian Empire: Empress Catherine the Great gave Gomel to Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev for his victories against the Turks, and he and his successors, especially Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich, built and enlarged the palace and park that are now the heart of the city. That Russian aristocratic origin explains the stately feel of the centre.
Gomel is also the capital of a region marked by the Chernobyl tragedy: the Ukrainian nuclear power plant, a few dozen kilometres to the south, contaminated much of the province in its 1986 accident, and this remains part of life in south-eastern Belarus. This guide covers the essentials of the city (the palace, the park, the churches, the river) without losing sight of either that wound or the political context of Belarus, a country governed today in an authoritarian way and under international sanctions.
Gomel is first mentioned in 1142 as a stronghold of Rus', within the orbit of the principalities of Chernigov and Kiev. It later passed to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and with the First Partition of Poland (1772) to the Russian Empire. Empress Catherine the Great gave it to Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev, who began building the palace in 1777; in 1834 the residence passed to Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich, who enlarged it. In Soviet times it grew as an industrial city. In 1986 the Chernobyl disaster contaminated much of the region. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Eastern Belarus on the Sozh and Dnieper rivers: Gomel, the country's second city and the one hit hardest by Chernobyl, and Mogilev, the old city on the banks of the Dnieper.
Read the history of The east (Gomel, Mogilev) →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Gomel steps into history in 1142, when the chronicles first mention it as a fortified stronghold of Rus, the civilisation of the East Slavs. It stands on the high bank of the Sozh River, at a strategic crossing point between the lands that are now Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. The town fell within the orbit of the principalities of Chernigov and Kyiv, and rival princes fought over it during the internal wars of Rus.
As Rus declined and new powers advanced, Gomel became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the 14th century. This huge state brought together much of present-day Belarus and Ukraine. After Lithuania's union with Poland, Gomel belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Rzeczpospolita) and sat on its eastern border, exposed to the recurring wars between the Commonwealth and the growing Muscovite state.
Over those centuries Gomel kept changing hands and lords, and it went through the sieges, fires and rebuildings that come with being a frontier town. It was not yet the elegant city it is today, just a mid-sized military and trading post. But it already played the role of a hinge between East and West that would shape its whole history and eventually bring it into the orbit of the Russian Empire.
The big turning point in Gomel's history came with the partitions of Poland. With the first partition in 1772 the city passed to the Russian Empire, and Empress Catherine the Great chose to reward one of her great commanders with it: Field Marshal Pyotr Rumyantsev-Zadunaisky, hero of the victorious wars against the Ottoman Empire. Catherine gave him Gomel and its lands, and the city went from frontier stronghold to the residence of an imperial magnate.
In 1777 Rumyantsev began building a palace in the latest fashion. The Neoclassical (early Classicist) building stood on the high terrace above the Sozh, was completed around 1796 and was surrounded by gardens. It became the core of the great palace complex that defines the city today. His son, Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, a celebrated statesman and patron of the arts, carried on beautifying Gomel and commissioned the Neoclassical Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, another key piece of the ensemble.
Under the Rumyantsevs, Gomel was transformed. It stopped being a military stronghold and became an elegant aristocratic seat, with its palace, its church, its parks and a town growing around them. That aristocratic air, imported from the heart of the Russian Empire, can still be felt in the historic centre, and it makes Gomel one of the most stately cities in Belarus.
In 1834 the Gomel residence changed hands. It was bought by Field Marshal Ivan Paskevich, one of the most powerful military men in Tsar Nicholas I's Russia. He was famous for his campaigns in the Caucasus, Persia and Turkey, and for crushing the Polish uprising of 1831 and the Hungarian revolution of 1849. Showered with titles and wealth, Paskevich made Gomel his main residence and launched a thorough renovation and enlargement of the palace and its park.
Under the Paskeviches the complex reached its peak. The interiors were enlarged and redecorated, and the park gained new plantings, gazebos, grottoes and ponds. New buildings went up too, among them the winter garden, set up in a former sugar factory, and, at the end of the century, the striking family chapel-mausoleum, decorated with coloured majolica, where the Paskeviches are buried. The observation tower that now crowns the park is also a converted chimney from that industrial complex.
The family kept the palace until the 1917 revolution, when the new Soviet government nationalised it and turned it into a museum. So the ensemble that had been home to two great field marshals of the Russian Empire, Rumyantsev and Paskevich, survived with its collections as public heritage. Today it is Gomel's great cultural treasure and a window onto the life of the imperial high aristocracy.
After the 1917 revolution and the creation of the Soviet Union, Gomel became part of the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and grew into a major industrial and railway hub in the south-east. Factories opened, the population rose and the city was modernised in Soviet style, with new districts and avenues, while its historic heart around the palace survived.
The Second World War hit Gomel hard, as it did all of Belarus. Nazi Germany occupied the city from 1941 to 1943. It suffered the terror of the occupation, the murder of its Jewish community in the Holocaust and heavy destruction before the Red Army liberated it in November 1943, during one of the great Soviet offensives. The post-war years brought reconstruction and fresh industrial growth, which made Gomel the country's second city.
Fortunately, the palace complex survived the wars and upheavals of the century, and its collections stayed together as a museum. That continuity let Gomel hold on to its great historic landmark through a 20th century that was especially violent for the region, and it reached independence in 1991 with its most valuable heritage intact.
The recent history of Gomel and its whole region is marked by a disaster that didn't happen in Belarus, yet hit Belarus harder than any other country: the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 26 April 1986. The plant was in neighbouring Ukraine, very close to the border, and the wind carried much of the radioactive fallout into southern Belarus. Around 70% of the contamination is estimated to have fallen on Belarusian territory, and the Gomel region was one of the worst affected.
The consequences were enormous. Rural areas in the south of the province were badly contaminated and whole villages had to be evacuated. Many of them became part of closed reserves such as the Polesie State Radioecological Reserve, the Belarusian 'exclusion zone'. The disaster deepened the economic crisis and caused health problems and widespread fear. Rural areas in the south-east slowly emptied, a process that went on for years. The city of Gomel itself, however, remained habitable, and today people visit it as normal.
With independence in 1991, Gomel confirmed its role as the main city of the south-east, with its university, its industry and, above all, its heritage gem: the restored Rumyantsev-Paskevich ensemble, the city's pride. Visiting Gomel today means enjoying one of the finest palaces and parks in Belarus. It also means keeping in mind the wound Chernobyl left on the region and the country's current political situation: Belarus is governed by an authoritarian regime and is under international sanctions.
