Legend of Meneske
Description of the lot
Condition 0 (Polished, Proof)
Metal Silver
Denomination 50
Year of issue 2023
Diameter 50 mm
Weight of the coin 67.2 g
Legend of Menesk (Legend ab Menesku)
Put into circulation: December 18, 2023
Design: O. Novosyolova (Belarus)
Minting: RSE "Kazakhstan Mint of the National Bank of the Republic of Kazakhstan", Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan
Silver, silver fineness: 925
Denomination: 50 rubles
Coin weight: 67.2 g
Purity silver weight: 62.2 g
Quality: "proof"
Diameter: 50 mm
Ministry: 1,200 pcs.
The coins have a non-standard shape (stylized as an ancient coin). The side surface of the coins is notched.
Obverse
in a circle at the top - a relief image of the State Emblem of the Republic of Belarus and the inscription: REPUBLIC OF BELARUS; in the center - an image of millstones, around which are objects and characters of legends; at the bottom - the denomination of 50 RUBLES (on silver) and 1 RUBLE (on copper-nickel), on the left - the alloy sample, on the right - the year of minting.
Reverse
in the center - a stylized image of a miller, a water mill and a wheel that sets the entire mill mechanism in motion. Inscriptions around the circle: at the top - THE LEGEND AB MENESCU.
Menesk, Mensk, Mensk. This is how our city was called in the distant past. There is a legend that its name comes from the name of the legendary strongman Menesk. Popular rumor has even preserved for our contemporaries the exact place where he lived. An old proverb that was common among villagers of the Minsk district in the early 19th century said: "I will not go to Minsk along the Vilensk road; but (if) I go along the Vilensk road, I will meet with Menesk." This is how our ancestors warned travelers, discouraging them from going to the city through the crossing at the confluence of the Svisloch and Perespa. Today, this is the area of the Komsomolskoye Lake dam. There is a monument to Menesk the founder - a stone mill wheel, which is turned by the waters of the city river. Almost a thousand years ago, the hero Menesk built a mill with seven millstones on the bank of the Svisloch at the confluence with Perespa. It was so powerful that it ground even stones into flour! At night, Menesk rode through nearby villages and recruited a squad of the most agile and strong young men. Few refused such a tempting and profitable offer, and soon the Meneskov warriors built a fortified city on a high hill by the Nemiga River for their families within sight of the mill. The new settlement was named Mensk, in honor of the strongman Menesk who brought them together.
Menesk's successful affairs were associated with his wife. After all, he took the daughter of the Water Spirit, the beautiful Svisloch, as his wife. She was famous throughout the area. Rumors of her beauty even reached the ears of the gods. Many tried to win her heart, even Perun himself, but nothing worked. To ward off the gods-suitors, Svisloch "baked" a wedding cake from a strong stone. She said that she would become a wife only to the one who could bite it. Many minor gods were left without teeth, but the cake was never bitten. Soon no one wanted to marry Svisloch. Here it turned out that the beauty had fallen into her own trap: she was bound by a vow she had made up, and no one would marry her. Then she told all this to her father Vodyanoy, and he suggested that she turn her gaze not to the gods, but to mortal people. She agreed. Legend has it that Menesk did not break his teeth on the pie, but ground it into flour in his mill. Perhaps the newlyweds ate it together on their wedding day.
So Svisloch became Menesk's wife, and things at the mill went even better with such a mistress.
What is interesting is that there is not only a good version of the legend about Menesk the founder. It was this version that served as the basis for the old saying. Perhaps two centuries ago this phrase was used to warn that robbers often operated on the Vilenskaya road (now Starovilenskaya street). After all, Menesk, as another legend says, was overcome by a thirst for gold soon after the wedding. He no longer had enough profit from the flour from the stone, and he and his squad took to the path of robbery. At first he robbed travelers on the road, and then began to ravage villages and towns. People began to grumble and went to ask for intercession from the mighty sorcerer. He burned the miracle mill and drove out the evil hero Menesk. The warriors did not follow the leader, but stayed and built a city for themselves nearby. They named it in memory of Menesk.
A mention of the hero's final resting place has also been preserved in folklore. After Menesk's earthly days were numbered, he was buried not far from the mill. Later, they began to bury his warriors there. Now it is Storozhevskoye Cemetery.