Vytautas’s Tower survived where almost nothing else from the Lithuanian era in southern Ukraine did — not through preservation for history’s sake, but through a …
Vytautas’s Tower: A Lithuanian Watchtower Saved by Being Turned Into a Water Tank
Castles and fortresses
Vysichka Castle: A Tower the Village Council Tried to Demolish in 1991
In 1991, already in independent Ukraine, the Hlybochok village council decided to demolish the four-story tower of Vysichka Castle, ruling it structurally unsafe. Only the …
Budaniv Castle: A Fortress That’s Run a Psychiatric Hospital for Over 50 Years
Budaniv Castle has housed a psychiatric hospital and psychoneurological clinic for more than fifty years — which is exactly why tourists are rarely brought here, …
The Voronin Castle in Bilokrynytsia: An Estate That Changed Hands Because of Someone Else’s Uprising
The castle in Bilokrynytsia came to Count Oleksandr Voronin not through inheritance or construction, but through a public auction in 1866 — after the previous …
Zolotyi Potik Castle — One of the Best-Preserved in the Ternopil Region, and Almost No One Knows It
The castle stands in the center of the small town of Zolotyi Potik. Residents’ houses sit almost right up against its walls. No ticket booth, …
Tustan — a Rock Fortress Found Nowhere Else in Europe
Somewhere between Drohobych and Skole, among the forested slopes of the Skole Beskids, columns of sandstone suddenly rise from the ground. Up to 285 ft …
Novozaslavsky Castle — eleven rooms with Venetian glass, and the Sangushko “little Versailles”
1637. The earliest surviving description of Novozaslavsky Castle: a palace of eleven rooms and six chambers. The chambers — with windows set in lead and …
Yahilnytsia Castle — Khmelnytsky failed; Buturlin took it through treachery; then a tobacco factory
Bohdan Khmelnytsky’s Cossack army could not take Yahilnytsia Castle. Only in 1655 did a joint Ukrainian-Muscovite force under the command of Buturlin finally overcome the …
Vyshnivets Palace — Balzac’s “little Versailles” and 21,000 books shipped to France
1848. The French novelist Honoré de Balzac visited Vyshnivets and noted: “a little Versailles.” 1852. The owners shipped everything to France: 600 portraits, 21,000 books, …
Chernelytsia Castle — two coats of arms on one gate, and the Rubens collection that left with the owner
On the gatehouse tower of Chernelytsia Castle — two coats of arms. On the outside: “Pogon” — the arms of the Chartorysky princes who built …
Zinkiv Castle — 12,000 Tatars could not take it; the locals used it for a prison
1524. A force of 12,000 Turkish and Tatar warriors burned the town of Zinkiv to the ground. Ash — and nothing more. The castle on …