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tThis dramatic photo of Kam'yanetz was taken
by Leoneed Anosov (of Kam'yanetz) during the balloon festival of May 1999 from
a balloon piloted by Valentin Tiselskiy of Fedosiya Crimea. The balloon is
northwest of the town, over the Polish suburb with the camera facing southeast.
The evening sun is throwing the shadow of the ridge on which the Polish suburb
lies across the river against the escarpment of the medieval town. Here the
Smotrich river is flowing from right to left and it makes a double bend of the
lower left side of the photo and then returns flowing from left to right in the
deep cleft above the town, where the town itself is throwing a shadow onto the
area of the new town. The river crosses the photo and then makes two more sharp
bends around the Russian suburb near the photo's right edge and then disappears
into the upper center. The castle is off the photo's right center but the
Armenian bastion is visible as the white semicircular wall not far from the
center of the right side. The tallest tower in the town center is the medieval
town hall. To its right is the minaret of the Church of Peter and Paul with the
golden statue of the Virgin Mary at its top.Down in the river valley we see the
top of the Polish river gate appearing just out of the shadow. The road from
there leads gradually up the ridge to the left and passes into the city at the
very left edge of the photo, where the sun is shining on a long section of the
medieval fortress wall. Just behind that wall is another church named for St
Peter. Almost directly behind the city hall we see the tall tower of one of the
Armenian churches and just to the left a smaller tower of a chapel remaining
from another Armenian church. Between these and the city hall is the tower of
the Dominican monastery. Along the ridge to its right is the remains of a
Franscian monastery. During World War II Kam'yanetz was practically destroyed.
Now it is being restored as much as possible to show its appearance in the 17th
century and before.
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