Polotsk was the original capital of the medieval Belarusian state that existed in the 10th-12th centuries, first recorded in the 9th century and developed as a fortified center on the Daugava River, now in now eastern Belarus. It’s a compact town with lots of history, and worth a stop on the way to Vitebsk or the parks of northeast Belarus. The rivers of eastern Belarus formed a political and treading link between the Baltic and Black seas, at a time when the river was the safest and fastest way to go. The Daugava River flows northwest into Latvia through Daugavpils and Riga, on the Baltic, and east to Vitebsk. Southeast of Polotsk, the Dnieper River flows south to Kiev and the Black Sea.
St. Sophia Cathedral. As a capital city, Polotsk had an orthodox cathedral constructed in the mid-11th century that was comparable to those in other major medieval cities such as Novgorod and Kiev. It was built at the west end of the existing city (1 Ulitsa Zamkavaya) overlooking the river. At first sight it appears to be a typical early 18th-century (restored) Polish baroque cathedral, which it is. However, if you go into the basement you can see the original 11th-century Byzantine style brick and mortar columns, that were excavated in the 1980s.
There is also an original section on the east side of the building. This would have been a huge building for the time, and the seven-towered medieval cathedral stood until its destruction in the Livonian Wars in the early 1700s. A large boulder still stands on the lawn overlooking the river, carved with a 12th-century inscription (Dear Lord, please help Boris, your slave) by King Boris. Also just west of the cathedral, across a footbridge, is the traditional wooden house community of Zapolotye, that is worth a walk round.
After visiting the cathedral, a good route is to walk east along Ulitsa Nizny Pakrouskaya where there are a range of museums, including the local history museum (http://local.polotsk.museum.by/en) and a branch of the national museum (http://polotsk.museum.by/en), and further east, the Epiphany Monastery, originally founded in the late 16th century and like so many buildings in town, burned and later reconstructed in the late 18th century. Polotsk was a major religious center and was the birthplace of Simeon of Polotsk, an important medieval scholar.
WW2 Polotsk. Polotsk was located at a critical river crossing point both in the 1941 German invasion and in the Summer 1944 Russian recapture. At Ulitsa Nizhny Pakrouskaya 39-41, there is a monument dedicated to the last stand made by 23 Soviet soldiers during a German offensive in July 1944. It’s located in a nice park and you can easily access the riverside below.
The main square contains Polotsk’s WW2 memorial (see the Red Army unit names on the rear side of the memorial to practice your Cyrillic reading), together with the restored early 1800s Tsarist-era Napoleonic War memorial.
Other than that, it’s a pleasant town to take in the river and the surrounding traditional houses.
Logistics. Polotsk has a couple of decent hotel options for an overnight stay. The Hotel Dvina is a good central choice, with clean and simple rooms and a postwar Classical ambiance. The food options in town are mainly cafes serving Belarusian standards or pizza, and some decent ones include Cafe Damian (Nizhny-Pakrouskaya 41b), Gurman (Francyska Skaryny 11) and Lepim Sami ( Francyska Skaryny 23). Quick Coffe (Francyska Skaryny 13) is a good spot for caffeination.
Depending on your schedule, there is a good 06:30 departure from Minsk railway station (Belarusian Railways schedules: https://poezd.rw.by/wps/portal/home/rp/schedule), as well as multiple minibuses (marshrutkas). The bus and rail stations are next to each other at Ulitsa Oktyabrskaya, just east of the intersection with Ulitsa Gogolya, from which you can walk for 10 minutes to reach the town center. Travel time to Minsk is almost 4 hours and about 2 hours to Vitebsk.
