Rock city-fortress Tustan, Ukraine

Today I will tell you about a special place in my country, where I have not been before, but I will definitely visit.

Among the Carpathian Mountains, namely in the Eastern Beskids, near the village of Urich, the remains of a unique rock fortress city Tustan are still preserved. This city is a whole defense complex, which has no analogues in Europe. In this place, many millions of years ago, nature created rocks of various shapes. One of them, called the Stone, became the basis for the fortress.

By Krzysztof Masloch - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23148002

In the Middle Ages, in the princely days of Ukrainian history, this fortress was a customs point. It was located very conveniently - on the way from Drohobych to Europe. In those days Droobych was a famous city, because salt was cooked here.

By Шульгач Юрій - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91776072

This fortress was built for four centuries. Its center is located on top of the rock "Stone" (height about 40 m). The rock consists of fingers, between which medieval builders built wooden walls. They set up wooden towers on the rocks. They attached other towers to the cliffs. To build all this, they needed to dig more than 4,000 grooves in hard stone.

After extensive research, scientists were able to determine what the fortress looked like and recreate it:

Source.

But the fortress is not just defensive walls and towers. The fortress is a whole city. Tustan Fortress included a five-storey residential complex. The height of each floor was 4 m. There was a water supply system. To do this, the builders cut a well in the rock, and there were two huge vessels to collect water. All this was protected by another 15 m high ground walls.

By Шульгач Юрій - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=91776074

In 1241 the fortress was captured by the Tatars and burned, but its activities were quickly restored. One hundred years later it was captured by the Poles. They completely rebuilt it.

In the 16th century, new salt deposits were discovered in Europe and the route from Drohobych to Europe lost its significance. Due to this, the fortress fell into disrepair.

By Asif Masimov masimovasif.net - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=110719986

Personally, I like historical monuments. And I like such unusual ones even more. Therefore, I will definitely visit this fortress, especially since it is located relatively close to my city. However, it is better to visit such objects together with guides or as part of a tour. Just looking at a rock is not so interesting, but when you are shown what to look at, told about the historical value of each object, then it is much more interesting.

Thanks for reading.