One of the highlights of our trip to Ukraine was going to visit the Akkerman Fortress. This is located right in the town of Belgorod-Dnestrovski, where we have been staying. I was surprised at the amazing size of the whole structure. When you look at the details of how it is made you really appreciate the work that was done with very little technology.
Around 600BC the first town was built at this location. It was called Tyras. In about the third century AD The fort was built on the site of the town of Tyras during the Byzantine empire. The fort was attacked by the Turks of the Ottoman empire, but was successfully defended in 1478. Six years later it was attacked yet again and that time it was conquered by the Ottomans. They held it until 1806 was the Russian empire took it over.
The fortress is located on a prominent point overlooking the bay of the Dniester near where it flows into the Black Sea. The entire fortress is surrounded by a mote almost 40 feet deep. If someone managed to cross the mote, the next line of defense would be the outer wall. This wall is over two kilometers long. It includes a total of 30 towers. If you enter through the main gate, you go into the “civil yard”. This is the largest area of the fort and probably where a lot of the common people lived. From there you can enter a gate through another wall that encloses a smaller area known as the “garrison yard”. Inside the garrison yard is the last line of defense, known as the citadel. The citadel is a tall square structure with round guard towers at each corner. The walls of these towers are about 10 feet thick.
As we walked around we tried to imagine what it was like to be there 500 years ago.
Standing in front of the citadel
The outer wall facing the water
Wow. What a great castle. I’ve seen a lot of them from a distance, but have only been inside of one, at Dover, England. It was very similar to what you describe here. I agree that it was amazing the kinds of structures that they could make, and how well they took advantage of the technology they did know. At Dover they had a place in the Queen’s bedroom to hang their clothes about a story high (20 feet?) over the latrine. By adding hay to the latrine it produced ammonia which kept the moths out of their clothes, and they had a place to go do their business without leaving the room.
That’s not the most picturesque kind of example of technology, but it was one I remember. Has to do with liking chemistry I guess.
Welcome home, sounds like you had a fun trip.
doug