Landmarks

Land of Open Shutters

In the Podlasie region, in the Narew valley south of Białystok, three villages — Trześcianka, Soce and Puchły — form the Land of Open Shutters: a cultural trail of timber architecture decorated with white and coloured shutters, woodcarving ornaments and paper cut-outs. You will not find architecture like this anywhere else in Poland, and since the villages are inhabited mainly by the elderly, this landscape is worth seeing while it lasts.

The exodus and patterns from afar

The tradition of decorating houses goes back to the First World War and the bieżeństwo — the mass flight of villagers before the advancing German army in search of refuge in the east. Some residents returned only under the Second Polish Republic, bringing back patterns drawn from Russian folk architecture. The local population of Belarusian origin follows the Orthodox faith and still cultivates folklore, visible in the buildings, rituals and dialect.

The churches of the trio

Colourful wooden Orthodox churches from the 19th and early 20th centuries stand along the trail. The largest village, Trześcianka, has preserved its layout from the 16th-century reform of Queen Bona — narrow, long plots — and the green church of St Michael the Archangel of 1867 with a three-row iconostasis. In Puchły the navy-blue Church of the Protection of the Mother of God of 1913–1918 draws visitors, linked to the cult of a miraculous icon and the legend of an old man healed after it was found in a lime tree. In Soce, the most open-air-museum-like village of the trio, you will see the chapel of the Prophet Elijah from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and stone votive crosses from 1895.

Practicalities

The villages are only a few kilometres apart; a wooden footbridge in Puchły leads down to the Narew. In Trześcianka and Soce you will also find wooden billboard paintings by Arkadiusz Andrejkow from 2023 — painted memories on old barns.