Description of the attraction
The name Bilyard was given to the building because of its unusual shape. The house is located inside a wall that has four corners, each of which has round turrets. This composition evokes strong associations with the billiard table, which Peter II Njegos loved and was fond of. It was he who first brought a real billiard table to Montenegro. Such a game was a novelty for local residents, which influenced the choice of a similar name for the residence.
In the Bilyard building he painted "The Mountain Crown". Today it is also surrounded by a quadrangular stone wall with towers. In the courtyard there is a relief of Montenegro, a unique and only map that is a copy of the original, which was made with exact observance of the dimensions and proportions of the relief. It was made by Austrian cartographers with pinpoint precision from cement. The size of the layout is 20 by 20 meters. This map reflects miniature houses, all roads, rivers, bays, mountains and the sea.
Inside the house itself, portraits of people respected by Njegos are hung on the walls. There you can see such Russian emperors as Nicholas I and Peter the Great. The first floor is an exhibition of contemporary art and the second is the Njegos Museum.
After passing the halls of the first floor, you can climb the stairs to the second, where various exhibits connected in some way with the Montenegrin ruler are located. These include the library, home furnishings and the legendary billiard table. The bedroom, armory, study, billiard room, reception room, etc. are open for inspection.
The pool table room also contains a Viennese chair. Its legs were specially lengthened to make it convenient for Peter II Petrovich Njegos, as he was tall. From the windows of the house you can see the square on which the palace of King Nikola is located.
Bilyard was built in 1838 near the Cetinje Monastery. Its purpose was the residence for Njegos, where he spent quite a lot of time, wrote philosophical works and poetry, and received foreign guests. In honor of the memory of their most beloved ruler, the Montenegrins created a memorial museum here in 1951.
Employees spent incredible efforts to recreate the previous appearance and interior of Bilyarda, but due to the fact that practically no data has been preserved, the entire exposition represents an assumption of how everything was arranged in the 19th century.
