Mir Castle Complex Museum

The Mir Castle Complex Museum was founded on 1 April 2011. It is a museum of the Republican Subordination. Mir Castle, located in the township of Mir, is a unique monument of the Belarusian national culture. In 2000, Mir Castle was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List according to the following criteria: Mir Castle is an outstanding example of a central European castle, reflecting the changes of cultural styles (Gothic, Baroque, and Renaissance); a visual design and exterior pattern of a long history of political and cultural oppositions and interactions. The architectural complex consists of the Castle of the 16th — 20th , earth mounds of the 17th - 17th centuries, a landscape and regular park, an artificial lake, an outhouse, the Chapel-Crypt of the Svyatopolk-Mirsky Dukes with the watchman’s house and gates, a roadside chapel on the area of about 25 hectares. In 1947, the State took the Castle under its protection as an architectural monument of the 16th — 20th centuries. In 1987, Mir Castle became a branch of the National Art Museum of the Republic of Belarus (at that time, the State Art Museum of the BSSR).

In 1992, the first museum exposition consisting of 6 tiers was opened in the South-West Tower. On 16 January 2010, the permanent exposition of the Northern building with the reconstructed interior part of the palace was opened. The visitors of the museum can see 39 full expositions of Mir Castle and the Chapel-Crypt of the Svyatopolk-Mirsky Dukes, the last owners of the Castle. The peculiarity of the museum is not only in the preserved original details of the architectural monument but in the restored interiors of the main halls: “The Dining Room” (“Stolovaya Izba”), “The Portrait Hall”, “The Inner Porch” (“Seni”) and others, where the visitors discover material culture for the period of the beginning of the 17th and the middle of the 18th centuries. The expositions of the museum contain unique articles of furniture, arms, tapestry, etc. Every year well-known musical, medieval and art festivals are held on the territory of the Mir Castle Complex Museum. Today, Mir Castle is a unit with a diversified infrastructure: two conference halls corresponding to all the modern requirements for holding an event at a high level, a hotel and a restaurant. From year to year, the number of people that would like to touch the peculiar architectural melody of Mir Castle increases. Nowadays, the Castle is annually visited by more than 220,000 people.