Amerikanka

The prison firstly operated as the internal prison of the Soviet secret police, the Cheka. It was constructed in the 1920s as part of a complex of buildings used by the Cheka. The informal name Amerikanka is believed to be referring to the prison's form as a Panopticon, based on the design of prisons in the United States.[1][2]

The building was later used by the Cheka's successor organizations, the NKVD and the KGB.

In 1946, after end of World War II and the restoration of Soviet control over Belarus, the building was reconstructed.[3]

Following the crackdown of the protests of the democratic opposition after the allegedly falsified presidential election in 2010, several KGB officers were put on the sanctions list of the European Union.[4][5] The sanctions were lifted in 2016 following an improvement of the Belarus–European Union relations.

• Colonel Alexandr Vladimirovich Orlov, head of the Amerikanka: according to the EU, he was personally responsible for "cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment of detainees" in the weeks and months after the crackdown on the protests in Minsk on 19 December 2010, on the eve of the 2010 presidential election. He has been on the EU sanctions list between 2011 and 2016
• Colonel Oleg Anatolyevich Chernyshev; he allegedly personally participated in tortures of opposition activists in the Amerikanka in Minsk after the crackdown on the post-election protest demonstration in Minsk on 19 December 2010
• Lieutenant-Colonel Dmitri Vyacheslavovich Sukhov, an operative of the military counter-intelligence of the KGB; accused of falsifying evidence and using threats in order to extort confessions from detained opposition activists in the Amerikanka in Minsk after the crackdown on the post-election protest demonstration in Minsk on 19 December 2010

• Pishchalauski Castle
• Okrestina