KAM'YANETS-PODIL'SKII

Micha Jelisavcic
George Page
John Sloan

Acknowledgment

We wish to thank Mrs Larissa Riazantseva, our dedicated travel specialist at Ukrintour for making all the arrangements that enabled us to have a fine tour of Ukraine including the visit to Kam'yantes and Khotin. We recommend that anyone contemplating travel in Ukraine contact her at UKRINTOUR. And we thank Mr Bogdan Kravchuk and his son, Maxim, for taking three days to show us many fascinating but unknown and hard to reach places in these cities, not to mention the great restaurants they selected. They made the visit memorable and very educational. Mr Kravchuk is the director of Avitsenna Transit and operator of the hotel in Kam'yanets at which we stayed. (69/68 Gagarina St. - tele 03849 3 94 02). Please go to Khotin for text and photographs of that fortress. References: Oleg Vinukov, Kamyenets-Podolsky - Kam'yenets-Podol'skii, Kiev, 1988; Turistksaya skhema Kamyenyets-Podol'skii, Moscow, 1984; Kamyanets'-Podil's'kii, Kiev, 1990; Tadeusz Polak, Zamki na Kresach, Warsaw, 1997.

History

Archeological digs have shown that his location was occupied since Paleolithic times. One of the oldest inhabited sites in Ukraine, dated from 30,000 years ago, is at Luky-Vrublevetsky, not far from here. There are many remains of the Trypillian culture in the region. Evidence of occupation by the south-west group of eastern Slavs is dated from the First Century AD. Some historians believe the locale was occupied during Roman times by Dacians. But archeological investigations have found undoubted remains of city foundations dating to the 11th-13th centuries. The first written mention of the city is from 1060-62 in the Armenian Chronicles. In 1196 the old Russian chronicles state that the city and region were part of the Galician-Volynian Principality. During the following two centuries the region was highly developed economically and was an important western outpost of the Kyivian Principality. It was an important commercial center on the route from Kyiv to the Balkans.
The ancient fortress city is now in the Khmel'nitskaya Oblast of Ukraine. It is 102 km southwest of Khmel'nitski. See topographic map. showing Kam'yanets and Khotin. At various times it was held by Russia, Poland, Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire. It is at 48 degrees 40 min N., 26 degrees, 30 min E. The fortress city is protected on three sides by an oxbow bend of the Smotrich River, a left hand tributary of the Dniester. The most ancient fortifications were built across the narrow mouth of this ridge, and anchored on the river at each end. The growing trade routes from Western Europe led to Kamenets, the "rock", on the outer periphery of Rus'. It was a place where artisans made various handicrafts, traded goods, and where escapies from serfdom could find haven as refugees. In the course of five centuries beginning with the Tatar-Mongols, followed by the Lithuanian princes, the Polish kings and the Turkish sultans, its peoples were subjected to social and spiritual repressions which led to uprisings and wars. Kamenets, despite its strong defenses, was destroyed by the Mongols of Batu in 1240-1. Archeologists have found the remains of wooden buildings of that period which were destroyed by fire. It remained for a time a part of the Galician-Volynian Principality. Following the Tatar-Mongol raids in the middle of the XIII century, the Lithuanian prince, Ol'gerd, defeated the Tatars at the battle of Sinyukha (Blue Waters) in 1362. Ol'gerd gave Kamenets to his nephew, Koriatovich. He then built a fortress in the Russian style of wooden timbers and a stone church, the Nikolayevskays, the only edifice from the end of the XIV century that has not been altered from its original appearance. It was completed in 1398 by Sinan Kotlubei. In 1393 the local population took part in an uprising against the Lithuanian lords, but it was retaken by Vitovt. The Lithuanians held the city from 1374 to 1430. At the end of the XIVth century it became the political and administrative center of the Podiliya region. It was held by Poland from 1434 to 1793, except for the short period of Turkish rule (1672-1699).
The population was formed from three independent communities. The Rus' (Ukrainian), the Lithuanian-Polish and the Armenians, who were invited here as soldiers and merchants, when they were fleeing their homes in Anatolia. Each community had its own municipal self-government and occupied its own section of the city. The Armenians lived along the terraces on the southern side while the Catholics lived mostly on the north-western side. As a result there were some 30 religious buildings to cater to the varied communities, but only thirteen survive today. The merchants then sold honey and wine, domestic animals and horses, and animals trapped in the forests. Potash, linens, house furnishings, and cloth were other items of trade. In 1374 Kamenets received the Magdeburg law and was well known throughout Europe for its craft work. In 1375 Pope Gregory XI issued a bull instituting a Podil'sk Bishopric with its center at Kamyanets. Several Catholic orders including the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Trinitarians and Jesuits established missionary monasteries here. The oldest was the Dominican, of which much of the main buildings survive today. The Armenians established their market square in the 14th century and the square still remains today. In 1575 over 300 Armenian families remained in Kam'yantes. A thirty year long war between the Lithuanians and Polish nobility was fought over Podil'sk lands. In 1430 the city and surrounding region was captured by the Poles who made it the chief town of Podolia and was the center of a frontier military district (voyevodship) in 1463. It was proclaimed a 'royal' city. Under Polish rule the city continued to grow as a center of international trade and artisanry.
The town was the see of both Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox bishops and held an unusual number of Catholic monasteries, Greek and Catholic seminaries and Jewish colleges. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St Peter and Paul was built in 1361 and surely is the only Catholic church with a minaret (36.5 meters tall). This was added by the Turks during their occupation of the city in 1672-99. No doubt also this is the only minaret in the world with a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary on the top. This was added by the grateful city population in 1756. These unusual circumstances are the result of the town being held by Poles, then the Ottomans (1672-99) and then the Poles again. The Greek Orthodox cathedral of John the Baptist dates from the 16th century. There was also a Greek monastery of the Trinity and a Catholic Armenian church founded in 1398. During the 15th and 16th centuries the town suffered greatly from repeated campaigns by the Crimean Tatars, Moldavians and Turks. The population opposed the Polish occupation and took part in the anti-Polish war of 1648-54 led by B. Khmelnytsky. The Poles defeated the Turks here in 1633, but in 1672 the Cossack Hetman Doroshenko captured the city with the aid of the Ottoman Sultan Mahommed IV. It remained in Turkish hands until it was returned to Poland by the Peace of Karlowitz in 1699. The population joined the Haydamaky movement to fight Poland in the 18th century. The city became part of Russia along with Podolia in 1795. It was a gubernia capital from 1797. As the city grew a printing house was founded as well as public library and book store.
The population in 1863 was 20,699 and in 1900 39,113. At that time 50% of the population was Jewish and 30% Polish. There were even then suburbs across the river on all sides, whose populations were Polish or Russian and a caravanasary suburb ( Karvasaryui). It was the capital of the Ukrainian National Republic for nearly eight months in 1919. The city suffered great destruction during World War II, with loss of 85,000 people. Now the entire medieval section is an architectural preserve and the great majority of the population lives on the other side of the river. Only about 5,000 people are left in the old city. We have an enlargement of a section of the topographic map to show more detail of the city and we highlighted the river to show its multiple bends. We have extracted a part of the tourist map of the modern town to show the location of the old city. And we print part of the bird's eye view of the old city from a tourist map published in Moscow. We have made a diagram plan of the old city for reference. You might print it out and we have linked many of the photographs to it.

The first city defenses were constructed along the gentle slope of the north-west side of the city. In addition to city defenses a strongly fortified castle was constructed on a stone outcrop next to the Old City to block the isthmus between the two sections of the river. The first medieval fortress was built in the 11th-12th centuries. This fortress evolved during the 13th to 18th centuries. But there are some elements dating from the earliest Slavic occupation. The Polish king made it a bastion on the outlying periphery of his dominions. In the early 16th century the fortress was re-designed by the Italian military engineer, Camilius, initially with seven towers. In the 17th century modern bastion structures (New Fortress) were added outside the old castle walls. The Old Fortress covers almost 5 hectares. The city fortifications were also rebuilt, giving them the shape of a many sided bastion whose ramparts were two meters thick and with eleven towers. Two of these, the Russian and Polish towers, were gate towers down below the level of the city next to the river, one upstream and one downstream. The builders erected dams with a system of hydraulics to raise and lower the level of the Smotrich river through locks operated from inside the ramparts. First the Ruthenian (Russian) gate lock was closed and then the Polish, to raise the river and create a deep moat and blocked the two lower roads. They were the most complex engineering works of the time in Eastern Europe. But only parts of these fortifications remain today. The third road came along the ridge and was blocked next to the castle by the Polny drawbridge, the St Anna's gate tower on the far side of the Castle (Turkish) bridge and then the City Gate defenses backed by the high Armenian bastion (16th century). Other sections of walls and towers protected the more vulnerable sections of the ridge line. These included the Stephan Bathory Tower and gate on the southern edge, the Turkish bastion beside it and a defensive wall at that location. To the east and south-east there were the Riznytska, Slyusarska, andKushnirska towers connected by a high rampart. Along the southwest side there were three successive high defensive walls along the terraces outside the Armenian quarter. Some of the civil and church buildings also were built to serve defensive purposes. The fortress was then impregnable. It was held by a garrison of cavalry and infantry numbering during war up to two thousand. At the end of the 16th century a stone donjon was built. Two new bastions and a stronger gate were added in the 16th century to counter the growing role of artillery. Later, still more defenses including a Hornwerk were added. This included several low earthen-walled platforms for artillery. Here is a plan diagram of the fortress for printing or reference.

The castle was held successfully against Ottoman Turkish and Cossack sieges in the early 17th century. One besieging Ottoman Sultan, Osman, asked who built the fortress. The reply was "God built it", so he remarked, "Let God own it" and departed with his army. But in 1672 the Turks took the castle from an insufficient garrison. Many of the inhabitants were sold into slavery. Trade and industry suffered during the short Ottoman occupation. The Turks added to the fortifications with the assistance of French Engineers. They also built the stone bridge that connects the fortress with the town at a much higher level than the river below. (See photos) It was retaken by Jan Sobieski and retained by Poland at the Treaty of Karlova in 1699. By the 19th century the fortress had lost its significance in an era of large field armies well equipped with modern artillery. Its very insignificance from a contemporary military point of view enabled the fortress to escape destruction during the World Wars. Thus its medieval architecture was preserved until it could be declared an Historical and Cultural Museum.

Illustrations

Near Kamianets, on the Dniester River is the massive fortress, Khotin. To view this historic place please go to Khotin. To return to the Xenophon home page please go here. Return to the Russ city main page. Return to Rushistory page.