Haĺšany Castle

Halshany, Belarus, Belarus

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Halshany Castle (also spelled Holszany or Golshany Castle) is a ruined Renaissance-Baroque residence in the agrotown of Halshany in the Ashmyany District of the Grodno Region of Belarus, historically the seat of the powerful Sapieha magnate family and earlier of the Olshansky (Holszanski) princely family.

The current structure, built around 1610 by Paweł Stefan Sapieha, replaced an older castle of the Olshanskys and was designed as a nearly square red-brick complex with three-tiered, six-sided towers at the corners, an entrance gate (brama) in the northeast corner, and a chapel set into the central part of the palace, giving it a layout similar to the nearby Mir Castle and making it one of the most elegant private castles of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Known locally as the “Black Castle” despite its red brick, the palace was also called the “Stone Flower” because of its richly decorated facade, and beneath the main building were extensive vaulted basements and lower floors, with parts of the original ground level later buried about two meters under the modern ground.