A grand Soviet-planned capital on the Svislach
Minsk was almost entirely destroyed during the Second World War and rebuilt as a showcase of Soviet planning, with broad avenues and monumental Stalinist architecture along Independence Avenue. The small Upper Town and the Trinity Suburb preserve a sense of the older city by the Svislach river. The Belarusian Great Patriotic War Museum covers the war years in depth, and the National Library is a striking modern building shaped like a rhombicuboctahedron.