Tsentralny

Minsk


It's known as a place where you can drown your sorrows with BYN1.80 vodka shots – and therein lies its beauty. While models and hipsters crash the Old Town, real people with real problems hit the ground floor of this department store on Minsk's main drag. Order from the cashier and take a window seat.

A half-litre of draught beer costs a silly BYN1.70.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby Minsk attractions

1. Kastrychnitskaya Pl

0.13 MILES

The city's main square is referred to universally by its Russian name, Oktyabrskaya Ploshchad (October Sq). Here you'll find the impressive, severe Palats…

2. Tsentralny Skver

0.13 MILES

Across the street from Kastrychnitskaya pl, Tsentralny skver (officially known as Alyaksandraŭsky skver) is a leafy park on the site of a 19th-century…

3. Belarusian State Art Museum

0.19 MILES

This excellent museum in one of Minsk's iconic buildings (built in 1939) includes definitive works by Soviet social realists and Russian masters,…

4. Ratusha

0.23 MILES

Minsk's ratusha has been rebuilt in the place where it was originally constructed in the 1800s and now lords it over pl Svabody, its pointed steeple…

5. Bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky

0.25 MILES

Between pr Nezalezhnastsi and vul Karla Marksa is a long narrow park with a bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the KGB's predecessor (the Cheka)…

6. Pl Svabody

0.25 MILES

In the heart of the Old Town just off central vul Lenina is charming pl Svabody, lorded over by the white medieval Ratusha (town hall). Off the northern…

7. KGB Headquarters

0.28 MILES

An entire block of central pr Nezalezhnastsi is occupied by this yellow neoclassical building with an ominous, temple-like Corinthian portal – the KGB…

8. Cathedral of the Holy Spirit

0.32 MILES

Off the northern edge of pl Svabody is the baroque, twin-towered Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Spirit, built in 1642. It was once part of a Polish…