After Lviv, Kamianets-Podilsky is one of my favorite cities, so I enjoy every visit.
The residents are not certain when their city was founded, although everyone agrees that it is one of a handful of ancient cities of Podillia. According to one story, Kamianets was an ancient Roman outpost. Ptolemy’s map from the 3rd century B.C. indicates that it was a populated area called Petrodava (according to another version, Clepidava) from the Greek petra or Latin lapis, meaning rock, and the Dacian dava, or city. This place marked the northern border of the Holy Roman Empire.
The foundation and strategic planning of the fortress correspond to ancient Roman principles of urban planning. The sources of fresh water in the center of the city, known as the Hunnic Wells, and legends about the deployment of Attila the Hun’s troops in the city confirm Kamianets’s ancient past. The earliest chronicle references to the city date to 1060-62; hence the assumption that the city emerged in the era of Kyivan Rus’. Another popular “tourist” version about Kamianets being founded during the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is rooted in a legend about the Koriatovych princes who, while hunting deer one day, stumbled onto a scenic locality by the Smotrych River. Later they founded a city there, which is supposedly why there are so many statues of deer in the city parks, while the street leading to the old city has for several centuries borne the princely name of Koriatovych.
Scholars, however, have proved that the city dates to the Kyivan Rus’ period. Restorers have unearthed fragments of the structures of houses and fortifications from the 11th - 13th centuries.
The first Kamianets fortifications were built only where it was easy to reach the island, through the narrow isthmus in the west and across the gentle canyon slope in the northwest. These fortifications appeared in the 11th-13th centuries and served as the foundations of the Old Castle and the Polish Gate complex. These structures help trace the evolution of defense architecture in Ukraine. The defensive hydro engineering structures of the Polish and the Ruthenian gates, located on both sides of the rocky isthmus, rank with the finest medieval defense systems in Eastern Europe.
Their main components were fortified entrance gates and locks crossing the river. When the enemy attacked, first the locks of the Ruthenian Gate were closed, then those of the Polish Gate. The canyon was flooded, thus preventing the enemy from storming the island from the two lower approaches. The third road traversing the narrow isthmus through Castle Bridge was defended by castle fortifications with a drawbridge, St. Anna’s Tower above the gate on the Castle Bridge, and a system of fortifications consisting of the City Gate and the 16th-century Armenian Bastion located on terraces convenient for firing.
Numerous travelers were not the only people who were impressed by the solidity of the Kamianets fortifications. Legend has it that the Turkish khan Osman, on seeing Kamianets in 1621, asked, “Who built such a powerful city?” and was told, “God Himself.” The khan said, “Then let God capture this city” and ordered his troops to retreat from the Kamianets walls. Throughout its centuries-long history the city-fortress was captured only twice: in 1393 by Grand Duke of Lithuania Vytautas, owing to discord within the garrison, and in 1672 by Turkish troops that outnumbered the defenders by more than 60 times.
Kamianets-Podilsky is unthinkable without its famous Old Castle, a unique defense structure spanning the 11th to the 17th century, which was built on a rocky cape near the narrow isthmus marking the ancient main road to the Old City. The stone fortifications of the 11th century, based on earlier ones, bore little resemblance to the modern forbidding bulwark of 11 towers linked by high walls. Fragments of ancient Rus’ fortifications have been discovered in various parts of the castle: a section of a wall with loopholes in the Day Tower and what is left of a small oval-shaped tower in the middle of the castle’s courtyard, near Laska Tower.
The castle underwent its first considerable expansion in the late 14th and mid-15th centuries, launched by the Cracow voivode Spytko Meltsztynski, who ruled Kamianets for four years (1395-99) and died in a battle with the Tatars. In the mid-15th century the castle was re-planned. The old towers were modernized and the construction of 10 new ones began (two of them have not survived the ravages of time).
The second reconstruction took place in the mid-16th century under the supervision of the military engineer and architect Iov Pretfes, who also built the New Western and the New Eastern towers (over an ancient drinking well that is still there), along with the Polna Gate and bridge, the remains of which were recently discovered by restorers.
In the early 17th century, with the advent of long-range artillery, a military specialist by the name of Teofil Schomberg built stone and earth bastions opposite the eastern facade of the castle. These fortifications became known as the New Fortress.
Modernization notwithstanding, Kamianets Castle was captured by Turkish troops under the command of Sultan Mohammed IV. The reason for the Poles’ defeat lies not in the unreliability of the fortifications but in the historical conditions that determined the development of the Rzeczpospolita, which at the time was simply unprepared to resist the mighty Turkish army.
In the 18th-19th centuries two bastions were added to the north and south sections of the fortress, and barracks were built in the courtyard. Despite the numerous reconstructions, the castle emerges as a single architectural ensemble.
Kamianets-Podilsky may be called the “city of wishes.” The Triumphal Gate leading to the Roman Catholic Cathedral of SS. Peter and Paul is locally known as the Arch of Wishes. Visitors are advised to make a wish (“something you want most of all”) when they pass through the gate. The Triumphal Gate was built in 1781 in commemoration of the visit to the city by King Stanislaus Augustus, as attested to by the inscription over the arch. This late Baroque creation was most likely designed by Jan De Witt, a military engineer, architect, and commandant of Kamianets Fortress.
The church was founded in 1450. Under Turkish rule it was converted into a mosque. After the Poles took over, it was restored in 1699. The minaret, erected by the Turks when they ruled Kamianets, is the only surviving example of Turkish Islamic architecture in the city. In 1756 it was topped by a three-meter-high statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary cast in Gdansk. In 1820, after its base was struck by lightning, the statue noticeably listed in an easterly direction, but was repaired after three years.
I also visited the museums located on the premises of City Hall, Ukraine’s oldest, which dates to the second half of the 14th century. It is an interesting example of various styles superimposed on the original Gothic structure. One of the construction periods (mid-18th century) is also associated with De Witt.
Today Kamianets-Podilsky hosts medieval tournaments and balloon festivals. This city-fortress is said to be the world’s best spot for gliding. It was here that three linked balloons flew under Running Doe Bridge, setting a world record.
If you haven’t been to this charming museum of a city, you should consider visiting next year, between April 28 and May 2. Serhii Babii, first deputy mayor of Kamianets-Podilsky, says that a great technology show called “Stone Age Park” is scheduled for this period and will feature gliders, knights, car races, and many other interesting events.
