In Obal, the ruins of the Grabnicki Palace will be preserved

Main facade of the Grabnicki Palace in Obal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The process of physical salvation of the object, which stood neglected for decades, did not begin today. Conservation work has been slowly progressing for several years. For 2024–2025, 12,000 rubles were allocated from the budget. With this small amount, trees and shrubs that had grown inside the building and were tearing apart the walls with their roots were removed, and the most unstable elements and damaged beams were dismantled.

The Telegram channel "Spadchyna" drew attention to a new, more large-scale stage of conservation. According to the official application, the Center for Ensuring the Activities of Budget Organizations of Shumilino District allocated 50,000 rubles from the local budget for conservation.

Павялічыць

Brick debris inside the manor. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

This is exclusively about saving the surviving walls from final collapse. In July, builders must dismantle the most unstable fragments of brickwork and remnants of vaults, after which about 16 tons of debris will be removed from the territory. Wooden shields covered with profiled metal sheets will be placed over the walls, which should protect the brickwork from the destructive effects of precipitation.

According to the Polish researcher Roman Aftanazy, the palace in Obal was founded by Jozef Grabnicki, chamberlain to King Stanisław August.

The noble family itself owned these lands since 1615, when Hanna Grabnicka acquired them from the Vetrynskis. The era of the Grabnickis ended in 1886 with the sale of the estate to von Dannenberg, and the last owner was Julius von Amburger, who mostly lived in St. Petersburg, using the palace as a summer residence.

Павялічыць

Park facade of the palace with a monumental portico on a basement arcade. Photo: shumilino.by

The brick two-story building was originally covered with a shingle roof. The main facade still features a massive portico on four columns, with a semicircular window in the pediment and a balcony with a beautiful cast-iron railing. On the river side, the steep terrain forced the architect to create a high basement floor with an arcade, from which a garden began, gently sloping down to the water. The internal layout was classical, with rooms arranged in two parallel rows along the building's axis, featuring a wide vestibule and a large salon with access to the terrace.

The Grabnicki Palace began to turn into a ruin after the revolution. As architecture researchers Halina Zakharkina and Anatoly Davidovich note, referring to the act of the Polotsk District Commission for the Protection of Monuments from 1920, the building already had significant damage then. The commission recorded broken doors and windows, torn expensive wallpapers, barbarically smashed artistic stoves and Empire-style fireplaces.

Павялічыць

Obal estate in the 1930s. Photo: shumilino.by

The further fate of the building was typical for such objects: first, it housed a school for peasant youth, during the German occupation — a hospital, after the war — an orphanage, and finally — a dormitory for the Obal Ceramic Factory.

After the factory dormitory was relocated, the building remained completely defenseless. To save at least the stone lions near the entrance, they were moved to the factory premises in the mid-1980s. In the second half of the 1990s, the abandoned palace burned down: fire destroyed the roof and wooden ceilings. After this, local residents took matters into their own hands, systematically dismantling the walls of durable pre-revolutionary bricks for their economic needs.

Павялічыць

Cleared territory inside the manor house. Photo: shumilino.by

During the recent clearing of the ruins, it was found that builders in the 18th-19th centuries used high-quality durable bricks for the outer walls, but for economy, they used cheap, underfired bricks for the inner walls. Without a roof, under the influence of rain and snow, this economy backfired — the walls literally began to turn into clay. Workers tried to select and sort high-quality bricks from the dismantled fragments to use them in further work.

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