Kamianets-Podilskyi
Kamianets-Podilskyi or Kamyanets-Podilsky (Template:Lang-ua, Kam”ianets’-Podil’s’kyi) is a city located on the Smotrich River in southwestern Ukraine. Historically it is the ancient capital of Podolia; administratively, a part of Khmelnytsky Oblast and the center of that province's Kamianets-Podilskyi raion (district). As of 2004, the city had 99,068 inhabitants.
The first part of the city's dual name originates from "kamen" or "kamin" — "stone" in the Slavic languages. The second part relates to the Podolia (Podilya) historic district. Hence the name is written and pronounced similarly in Ukrainian, Polish (Kamieniec Podolski), Russian (Каменец-Подольский, Kamenets-Podolsky) and Latin (Camenecium).
History
The town is first mentioned in 1062 as a town of Kievan Rus'. In 1241 it was sacked and destroyed by Mongol (Tatar) invaders. In 1352 it was annexed by Polish King Kazimierz the Great and became the capital of Podole Voivodship and the seat of local civil and military administration. The ancient castle was reconstructed and substantially expanded by the Polish kings to defend Poland from the southeast against Ottoman and Tatar invasions. After the Treaty of Buczacz (1672) it was briefly part of Turkey and capital of a local eyalet. To counter the Turkish threat to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Jan III Sobieski built a fortress near by, Okopy Świętej Trójcy ("the Entrenchments of the Holy Trinity"). In 1699 the city was recaptured by Poland. The fortress was continually enlarged and was regarded as the strongest in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
From the Second Partition of Poland (1793), the city belonged to the Russian Empire, where it was the capital of Podol'skaya Guberniya. With the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, the city was briefly incorporated into several short-lived Ukrainian states — the Ukrainian People's Republic, the Hetmanate, and the Directoriya — and ended up in the Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Ukraine) when Ukraine fell under Bolshevik power. During the Polish-Soviet War (1919-1921) the city was captured by the Polish Army, but it was later ceded to Soviet Russia in the Treaty of Riga (1921), which determined the future of the area for the next seven decades as part of the Ukrainian SSR.
Poles and Ukrainians have always dominated the city's population. However, as a commercial center, Kamianets-Podilskyi has been a multiethnic and multi-religious city with substantial Jewish and Armenian minorities. Under Soviet rule it became subject to severe persecutions, and most of the Poles were forcibly deported to Siberia. Early on, Kamianets-Podilskyi was the capital of the Ukrainian SSR's Podil'ska Oblast' , but the administrative center was soon moved to Proskuriv (now Khmelnytskyi).
Tourist attractions
Kamianets-Podilskyi is famous for its ancient fortress, and for ballooning activities in the canyon of the Smotrich River. Since 1998 the city has been growing as a tourist center. Annual Kozats'ki zabavy ("Cossack Games") festivals, which include the open ballooning championship of Ukraine, car racing and various music, art and drama activitiess, attract an estimated 140,000 tourists and stimulate the local enoncomy. More than a dozen privately owned hotels have recently been built there, a large number for a provincial Ukrainian city.
People
- Stanisław Koniecpolski fought here.
- Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski lived here.
- Mendele Mocher Sforim lived here.
- Maurice Zbriger was born here.
See also
- Subdivisions of Ukraine.
- History of Ukraine.
- Culture of Ukraine.
- History of Poland.
- Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket.
External links
- Satellite photo
- Soviet topographic map 1:100,000
- "The old fortress on the Smotrich River," in Zerkalo Nedeli (Weekly Mirror), June 28 - July 5, 2002, available online in Ukrainian and in Russian
