The city of Zhovkva (Zholkva) arose on the site of a settlement called Vinniki, and known since 1242. In Soviet times, the city was called Nesterov. This is a real Klondike of ancient monuments. The history of the city is inextricably linked with the name of the outstanding commander, crown hetman, Stanislav Zolkiewski, who at the end of the 16th - beginning of the 17th centuries became the owner of the surrounding lands. It was he who, in the period from 1594 to 1606, built a castle here, around which, later, the city of Zhovkva arose. After Zholkiewski, the Polish magnates Danilovichi became the owners of the castle. They fortified the castle and built earthen ramparts around the city. Their grandson, the Polish king Jan Sobieski III, creates his residence in the Zhovkovsky castle and luxuriously furnishes it. At this time, the castle and the city are experiencing a period of greatest prosperity. Here was the only mint in Ukraine where silver coins were minted. In 1706, during the war with the Swedes, in the castle where the headquarters of the Russian army was located, Tsar Peter I lived for a long time. It was here that the famous Zhovkevsky plan of victory over the Swedish army was developed. In the 18th century, when the castle belonged to the Lithuanian magnates Radziwills, a two-tiered gallery was added to the castle. Starting from the 19th century, the castle, as well as the whole city, began to decline. In Soviet times, the castle housed a department of the NKVD. Here, in the castle casemates, there was a fierce struggle against "enemies of the people" and "Benderites". Subsequently, the premises of the castle were given over to apartments, a school and a district court. Next to the castle is the city hall, built according to the project of the Lviv architect B. Viktor in 1932 and the Glinsky city gates. They say that in the early 60s of the twentieth century, when it was already believed that the fight against "Ukrainian nationalists" and "Benderites" was over, a yellow-blue flag suddenly appeared on the town hall. A state of emergency was declared and troops and armored vehicles entered the city. However, it turned out that the width of the Glinsky Gate did not allow tanks to pass through. The decision was made to blow up the gate. Twice they planted explosives, but the gates stood. Only in the morning it was possible to destroy them and open the way for the tanks. Those gates that today stand at the entrance to the city are a copy restored from old photographs.