Bershty

Bershty lies among the forests east of Grodno. First recorded in 1460 as an estate of the Lithuanian grand dukes, it served as a stopping place for rulers travelling and hunting in the surrounding woods. Casimir IV and Alexander visited in the later fifteenth century, and an assembly of the Grand Duchy met here in 1496. King Władysław IV stayed to hunt in 1633. The poet Maciej Sarbiewski celebrated the forests of Bershty and royal hunting in his Latin poem Silvi ludia, giving this woodland estate a place in the literature of the Commonwealth.