Tustan is an ancient Russian defense complex, customs and a fortress city, the remains of which are located in the Carpathian Mountains (Eastern Beskids), in the Skole district of the Lviv region, near the city of Borislav. The modern State Historical and Cultural Reserve "Tustan" is located in the Podgorodtsevsky forestry.

For four centuries, from the second half of the 9th to the middle of the 13th century, there was a mighty wooden citadel (castle) Tustan on the rocks, built by the tribal nobility of the White Croats. The central part of the fortifications with an area of ​​3 hectares was located on the rocky group of the Yamnen sandstones 40 meters high. Tustan was an important strategic point and was part of the unified system of the Carpathian (Ugrian) line of defense of the southwestern borders of Kievan Rus, and later the Galicia-Volyn principality. At that time, Tustan, together with Przemysl, Korosn and Terebovlya, belonged to the most famous settlements of Galicia, and also served as a customs point, as evidenced by the Arab dirhams found in Tustan, which were in circulation in the IX-XI centuries.
In 1241, Tustan was destroyed by the Mongol-Tatars during the invasion of Batu, only the village of Tustan (later the village of Tustanovichi, now part of the city of Borislav) and the impregnable castle of Tustan remained. Later, the city-fortress Tustan is mentioned in the annals of the Krakow historian Jan Dlugosh and the chronicle of Jank from Charnkov, according to the latter, it guarded the southern border of the Galician principality, in 1340 it was captured by the Polish king Casimir the Great and, by his order, rebuilt after destruction.

In the charter of Pope Boniface IX dated May 15, 1390, Tustan is mentioned as a border fortress through which salt mined in Drohobych and its environs was exported to Transcarpathia and Hungary.
After its capture by the Poles, Tustan was a royal fortress, that is, it belonged to the state. A royal deed of gift dated November 4, 1395 testifies that Tustan was also the center of the Tustan volost. In 1539, Tustan became the property of the Polish magnate Blitsinsky, according to the terms of the deed of gift, his heirs were obliged to restore, strengthen and maintain at their own expense, and later to defend, which indicates the neglected state of the fortress.

The gradual decline of the fortress was due to several factors:

Economic. In the XVI century. in the countries of Central Europe, their own salt deposits begin to be developed, and therefore the need for its export from Galicia disappears. Tustan loses the role of customs.
Political. With the stabilization of political relations between Poland and Hungary and the advancement of Polish borders to the east, the need for Tustan as a defensive fortress disappears.
Military. Changes in military equipment and, accordingly, in military tactics, led to the loss of the defensive value of the castle.
The last written mention of Tustan as a customs point dates back to 1565.
About 4,000 grooves and cuts made in the rock have survived to this day on the rock group Kamen, identified during research in 1971-1978. In 1972, archaeologist Roman Bagriy found a bronze mace on the territory of the citadel, and later a complex bronze cross in which holy relics were carried. Men's rings, battle axes were also found there, and at the bottom of a stone water cistern there was a pot from the 9th century. On the northern side of the large wing of the Uritsa rocks, archaeologists have discovered kilograms of arrowheads for bows and crossbows. In addition, the remains of single burials, crypts, caves, stairs, underground corridors, a well and two water tanks were found. Based on them, a graphic reconstruction of the unique old Russian rocky 5-storey defensive and customs checkpoint of the fortress city Tustan of the 9th-13th centuries was made. The high-rise structure of the rock building, ground defense walls 15 meters high, a five-story residential complex of the 13th century with a floor height of 3.5-4 meters, a complex water supply system (a well hollowed out in the rock, as well as two cisterns) testify to the high level of ancient Russian construction technology. Not only in Ukraine, but throughout Europe, there are still no wooden fortresses of the 10th-13th centuries that have survived, which puts the remains of Tustan in a number of unique monuments of ancient Russian architecture of the pre-Mongolian period.