Фота: maldzis.world
At 1 p.m. on October 17, 2026, an updated monument to Tadeusz Kościuszko will be unveiled at Stadtpark in Solothurn, Switzerland. The ceremony will be held in Belarusian.
The monument was installed in October 2017 on the initiative of Ales Sapeha, founder and then head of the Belarusian Association in Switzerland, to mark the 200th anniversary of Kościuszko’s death.
The MALDZIS initiative, together with the Maria Magdalena Radziwill Foundation, headed by Sapeha, has now created a foundation for the monument from a Belarusian boulder and a new memorial plaque. The project was funded privately by Maksim Bahratsou, Filip Daineka and a patron who wished to remain anonymous.
The stone was processed and the plaque was made in Minsk. At the beginning of 2026, the boulder and plaque, as well as paving stones for landscaping the area around the monument, were transported from Belarus to Poland and later to Switzerland. The monument was mounted on the boulder and the surrounding area was landscaped with Belarusian paving stones by the Swiss side in July.
This spring, Ales Sapeha said: “When we installed the monument in 2017, we thought we were creating a Belarusian point on the map of Switzerland. Now, when a stone from Belarus appears under the monument, the connection between our countries will also become physical.”
Tadeusz Kościuszko was born in 1746 at the Mereczowszczyzna estate in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania — now the Ivatsevichy District of Belarus. He took part in the American Revolution, was granted honorary French citizenship and led the 1794 uprising against Russian occupation. Kościuszko died in Solothurn on October 15, 1817.