Ternopil in Ukraine, travel, tours,

Ternopil in Ukraine is a cosy town with the green curly parks and blue eyes of the lake. It’s ancient and modern bright and blooming. Like almost all western-Ukrainian towns has a binding city-stuff : different temples castle mention of synagogue and a few more castles, clean streets and friendly citizens, not dear cafes with the vivid menu of delicious dishes and the absence of hot water almost throughout the town.

The first mention of the city is the permission given by King Sigismund I to Jan Tarnowski, the castellan of Krakow, in 1540 to construct a castle on Seret. This is how the city of Ternopil started, although it would be fair to mention that even from the times of old Halych a settlement called Sopilche (or Topilche) existed at the site of the city, and that archeological research in the city’s vicinity found evidence of settlements dating back to Mesolithic period and Trypillian culture. At any rate, the history of the ancient city is always connected to the history of its defence – the fortress. Defence ramparts surrounded the city in the south, while the west and the north were protected by a pond. The castle was built in eight years. The construction and fortifications were finished by Jan Tarnowski’s son, Krzysztof. The city’s defence fortifications were rectangular. On the corners of the ramparts there were two defence towers, one of which, Kushnirska, was situated not far from the Exaltation Church, which still towers over the lake, and the other, Shevska, is somewhere on the territory of Shevchenko Park.

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We can learn what the city looked like in the 1770-ies from the notes of a well-known traveller Ulrich von Werdum: “...an inheritance of Mr. Koniecpolski, the official of Dolyna. Lies by the slope of the said flat hill. On three sides it is surrounded by a large lake and wide swamps. The fourth side is protected from the field by a rather large moat and is circled by ramparts with two massive towers on the corners and one in the middle which also serves as a gate. The castle towers to the northwest of the city, right in the middle of the lake, it has large structures built of stone in the Italian style: walls and towers on the west and the south guard the castle even in those places where the lake lies. There is a dry moat with an earthen rampart and a palisade near the city".

The years which were terrible for the Ukrainian lands, 1575, 1589, 1672, did not pass Ternopil, but 1675, when the siege of the city by the Turks under pasha Ibrahim Shyshman’s command lasted for several weeks, proved to be the most fatal. Then after the unsuccessful assault on the Terebovlja castle, the frenzied enemy utterly destroyed the castle, blew up the towers, and drained the lake. After the Podillja lands returned to the Poles, the castle owner, Sobeski, made repairs, but the real second life was given to the castle by Franciszek Korytowski.

He removed all fortification elements of the structure, and the castle turned into a palace. It was surrounded by a simple stone wall with a gate on the pylons of which his and his wife’s coats of arms were displayed, and above the coats of arms there were lion masks. The palace-castle could be seen in this shape as late as the early 20th century.

When Ternopil was under the tsarist Russia rule (1810-1815) the palace was turned to... a casino, and here, in the spacious castle halls, balls were held. But the civil life of the castle was not destined to be long – in 1843 the military took over the building turning it into barracks and it remained barracks until 1939. The castle suffered a lot of damage during World War I, burned in 1917, but the greatest damage was done by the battles between the Soviets and the Nazis during World War II. It was the Old Castle which served as the Nazis’ base. For nine days the castle burned, had chemicals poured on it, was blown up, and bombarded. Naturally, only ruins were left of the castle, and only in 1957 it was decided to restore the castle and to station a sports school which still remains in it.

However, restoration ideas of local culture activists give hope that the ancient castle will come back to life.

In addition to the Old Castle there was also a “New Castle”. However, the fate decided against it, and we are left with nothing but a historical mystery because “Ternopil” Hotel was erected on the site of the “New castle”. The New Castle was built in early 19th century. It was a true cultural center of the city with theater productions with amateur and professional performances by Ukrainian and Polish companies. The “New Castle” was the site where “Friends of Music Society” musical evenings took place, piano schools were open, as well as the first in Ternopil movies were shown on a then very expensive Pathe Brothers apparatus. The building’s halls were also used for political activities: election campaigns and elections.