Brest is Belarus’ third oldest city after Polotsk (862) and Turov (980). It was first mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years in 1019 as a large, well-fortified settlement.
In 1863 the famous ethnographer Pavel Shpilevsky wrote down one of the legends explaining the origin of the first name of the city. It tells about a rich merchant who set out on a journey to Lithuania with a group of other merchants. The caravan made its way across impassable terrain, through thorny bushes and dense forests. Suddenly, the caravan got in bog and the horses could not make a move. The merchants were determined to make their way through the bog, so they chopped birch trees and covered the black bog with white birch trees. The caravan crossed the bog and stopped to have some rest at a small stream that flowed into a river further on and thus formed an island densely overgrown with trees. The merchants thanked their pagan god Beles for the safe passage through the swamp and built a temple on the island in his honor. The caravan continued its journey... They reached the Lithuanian lands, sold their goods and made a lot of money. When they were on their way back, they halted at the Beles temple, erected several makeshift huts and decided to stay in this place forever. They did not forget the difficult path through the bog and called the new settlement Berestye ...
However, it is also possible that the name Berestye came from the words ‘beresta’ (the outer layer of the birch bark) or from ‘berest’ (a type of elm tree) that was in abundance in that area.