March 16, 2008
Day Trips
Belgorod – Dniestrovsky Fortress
Belgorod – Dniestrovsky is a city located 80 km west of Odessa. This city dates back to the 6th century BC and is as old as Rome, Athens, Jerusalem or Beirut. The Greeks built the original city Tiras on the east shore of the Dniestr. The city was quite well developed having it’s own currency and actively trading with different peoples & other cities in the area. During it’s long history the city was conquered and occupied by Romans, Huns, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Tatars, Moldavians, Romanians, and Turks but it is now an Ukrainian city of approximately 55,000 residents. In Belgorod – Dniestrovsky one can find the well preserved ruins of the ancient city Tiras, a medieval Fortress (15th century) and other historical landmarks.
Aerial View of the Fortress and the Dniestr River
The main attraction is the large Belgorod - Dniestrovsky fortress (about 1. 5 miles in circumference) which is one of Ukraine’s most valuable historical and architectural monuments. Its original construction is closely linked to the history of the entire region adjoining the Dniester river and the northern part of the Black Sea coast.
The Great Gates to the Courtyard of the Fortress
Archeological studies have unearthed traces of human dwellings 2500 years old. It was founded by the Greeks and given the name "Tiras", and by the 3rd century BC it had developed into a significant trading and cultured city. In the 1st century BC it was destroyed by invading tribes and then restored again by the Romans who turned the city into a major handicraft and trade center of the northeast province of the Holy Roman Empire. In the 5th century AD the city was destroyed by the Huns who invaded from the East to control large areas of central and eastern Europe. In the 9th century it was rebuilt by Slavonic tribes and they gave it the name "Bely" (White) and the city was incorporated by the ancient Kievan - Rus state. Mongols destroyed the city in the 13th century. They were later driven out and Belgorod was incorporated in the Moldavian feudal state. People from Armenia also settled here and there is still an old Armenian church building here, dating back to 1446.
In the 14th & l5th centuries the territory between the Dniester and the Prut rivers was a part of the Moldavian principality and Belgorod became the capital of the Southern province of Moldavia (Bessarabia). In the first half of the 15th century the aggressive Ottoman Empire moved their army closer to the frontiers of the principality. Thus a fortress was built here for the defence of the principality.
The fortress was built by both Russian and Ukrainian builders whose expertise was in the construction of fortifications. The Citadel was the first portion erected, a small but strongly built structure composed of four towers connected by exterior walls up to 7 meters thick comprising a square that was formerly divided by stone partitions forming dwellings and storage spaces.
When the fortress was under siege by the Turks the Citadel was the last stronghold of the fortress defense to hold out. The partitions are not existing now, the inner lay-out can only be assumed by the remains.
There is a prison tower on the left of the entrance to the Citadel. The three-storied "stone sack" design capped with a vaulted semi-spheric overhead dome, that was both damp and dreary, as it was lit by only one narrow slot situated in the four meter thick wall. For centuries this jail was used to imprison captured military commanders, statesmen, and political enemies. Metal rings were fixed into the walls and an iron chain was strung along the stone floor to restrain the prisoners whose beds were nothing but heaps of straw. The prison tower is not only of historical importance but an architectural monument as well, representative of the type of beamless stone dome ceiling, one of the most sophisticated construction designs exhibiting the best craftsmanship to that date.
There is the Superintendent or Management tower on the right of the entrance to the Citadel. It housed the headquarters of the fortress garrison. The third tower located on the Dniester estuary side connected by a wall to the Prison tower was used as the Treasury but unfortunately only the lower portion of it has survived.
The fourth tower served as one of the two emergency exits where a wide stone stairway inside the structure was connected the three staircases within the Citadel. The gunports were arranged around the tower allowing the occupiers to control the approaches to the fortress from the estuary side and the southern part of the garrison courtyard as well.
The towers of the Citadel were originally covered with lead plates but upon capturing the fortress the Ottoman invaders of the 15th century removed the lead sheathing and melted it down in order to fabricate bullets and cannonballs.
There are huge cellars situated under the Citadel, used to store armory and ammunition in them. Underground galleries, hollowed out in the stone base, extend from beyond the foundation lines of the fortress. They were used in the days of the siege to communicate with the outer world and for scouts to be sent through to the enemy rear to obtain food and ammunition.
Entrances and exits to and from the fortress were kept secret and were thoroughly guarded at all times with only a few of the commanding officers of the garrison knowing of all of them.
In the northern wall of the Citadel, between the two towers overlooking the estuary, remains of ceramic water supply system and stone fresh water storage basin have been preserved. Fresh water wells were also dug on the grounds of the fortress in case of damage to the water supply system.
The Civil courtyard used to be one of the most heavily fortified structures as extensions of the Garrison and the Pristansky court yards were turned into an impregnable fortress. Dwelling houses for sheltering the city's population were built on the grounds of the Civil courtyard, the second circle of defensive walls were erected, a two kilometer by-pass moat was hollowed out of the solid stone mass creating a shortage of labor and building materials to perform such a huge undertaking. As urgent assistance was needed help arrived from Ukraine, in 1421 twelve thousand men were sent from Podolia . They arrived with four thousand horses and oxen plus vehicles loaded with timber and remained till finishing up the building of the fortress.
On or about August 1, 1484 a huge army attacked Belgorod composed of 300,000 Ottomans (Turks) allied with the 30,000 men sent by the Crimean khan. Twenty thousand men of the local population took shelter behind the Civil courtyard walls and along with the garrison rose to the defense of the fortress where they fought heroically till the fall of the fortress August 16 of the same year.
The captured city was renamed Akkerman which translated from Turkish means white fortress. About 40 meters from the Treasury tower is a separate stone and brick structure resembling a chimney, this is a minaret, remains of the mosque built by the Ottoman invaders at the end of the 15th century in the place of the destroyed Christian church. At the foot of the minaret there is the remains of a single apse Christian church, characteristic of the Byzantine cultural architecture. It was discovered by the expedition of the UkSSR Academy of Sciences Institute of Archeology some years ago. Remains of the church plate and fragments of a fresco here are identical to church plate and the frescoes of the Sofia church in Kiev.
Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin, who was staying in December of 1821 at the home of his Akkerman acquaintance, commander of the 32nd Chasseur regiment, Decembrist A. G. Nepenin, where he enjoyed a panoramic view of the city and the glassy surface of the Dniester estuary while writing his beautiful poetic message "To Ovidius" derived from the local legends of the famous exile's supposed stay in this part of the world.
Having passed from the Pushkin Tower along the western defensive wall tourists get to the angular bastion, an octahedral tower bearing the name of a great Roman poet Ovidius Naso.
For many years an opinion existed that the famous author of "Metamorphosis" and "Love Elegies", was deported by Augustus, the Roman emperor, at the beginning of the 1st century AD lived in exile, died and was buried in Tiras, present day Belgorod-Dniestrovsky, this is why the tower was given his name. Only many years later it was discovered that Tomoi, an ancient Roman colony, was the actual place of his exile, which was located in the present day Romanian port city of Constanta. There lie the remains of the great Roman poet. The Ovidius Tower has been preserved fairly well, they have had to restore only a few upper rows of the masonry, the inner floors and the marquee roof. The tiling has been made of the medieval grooved tiles which have survived in abundance on the old buildings of the city.
The Great Gates at the front entrance to the fortress are two storied structures covered by a four-layer roof and overlapped by a vaulted ceiling that was erected at the beginning of the 15th century and has been rebuilt since. The entrance aperture of the tower was overlapped by two grates made of thick solid oak beams and by two double-folding hinged breechblocks. It was restored in 1972 by restoration craftsmen from Kiev using the drawings that had survived since the medieval times. From the Great Gates a suspension bridge made of wood spanned the bypass moat. In case of emergency it could be easily and promptly raised.
In the square of the fortress after passing under the Great Gates arch visitors a good view of the grounds of the fortress can be had with it’s huge walls, towers and gunports. A two and half kilometer moat is 14 meters deep and it encircles the fortress providing a reliable obstruction in the enemy's path.
Having captured the southern regions of Ukraine and Moldavia Ottoman Turkey tried to use these lands as a base to extend it’s campaign of aggression in the direction of the adjoining states and Russia. The Ukrainian and Moldavian people rose in arms against the oppressors but poorly armed detachments of Moldavian rebels and Zaporozhsky Cossacks failed to drive the Ottomans from the region.
Twice the Russian army in alliance with Zaporozhsky Cossacks and Moldavian insurgent detachments took possession of the Akkerman fortress but both times according to the peace treaties signed between Russia and Turkey the city and fortress remained in the hands of the Ottoman empire.
For the last time the invaders were driven out in the course of the Russian -Turkish War of 1806 - 1812 and according to the Bucharest peace treaty of 1812 the lands located between the Dniester and the Prut rivers (Bessarabia) became a part of the Russian state.
The Russian government gave much attention to restoring the ravaged territory, it was necessary to populate the deserted steppes adjacent to the Dniester River, that had ceased to bear wheat crops and to restore the cities of Izmail, Kiliya, Reni, Bendery and first of all Akkerman.
Since Turkey broke the peace agreements and resumed aggressive acts, Russia was compelled to keep military garrisons in this region. Such garrisons were billeted in the Akkerman fortress.
Later on the valuable historical and architectural monument fell into decay and went to ruin. It suffered great losses due to the Romanian occupation of the city and Bessarabia from 1918 to 1940. They disassembled many structures of the fortress and broke out from the walls and towers and stole marble slabs with inscriptions in Arabic, Tatar, Turkish, Moldavian, Latin, Greek and Persian languages throwing light on the centuries of old history of the fortress.
During World War II the Nazi forces turned the fortress into a place where the Soviet people were executed. In August 1944 Belgorod-Dnestrovsky was liberated from the fascist occupants. Immediately after the war the fortress was declared an historical and architectural relic, was put under the protection of the state and it’s restoration began.
It is definitely worth the trip from Odessa to see the fortress, one can take the electric train, the microbus next to the train station or the bus from the central bus station and of course many tourist agencies offer complete tours . ENJOY IT!