Zolochevsky castle

Zolochiv Castle, Castle in Zolochiv

Ukraine, Zolochiv

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Categories: Story Zolochiv, architecture Zolochiv

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GPS: 49.8008, 24.9053

Zolochevsky castle

Zolochiv Castle, Castle in Zolochiv

Ukraine, Zolochiv

The town of Zolochiv is located on the Ternopil-Lviv highway, 66 km east of the regional center. Zolochiv Castle was first mentioned in documents in 1532, when the owner of the city, Stanislav Seninsky, sold it to the Poznan nobleman Count Gurkov.

Then the castle becomes the property of Jacob Sobessky, the father of the future king of Poland. He rebuilt the castle in 1634, fortifying it with four bastions. The castle was built in the form of a bastion-type citadel. Rectangular in plan, it was surrounded by earthen ramparts covered on the outside with stone slabs. At the corners of the ramparts there were bastions with watchtowers.

On the territory of the castle there is a two-story palace in the Renaissance style and the so-called Chinese Palace. Outbuildings are located along the perimeter of the yard. The special pride of the Zolochiv Castle is its toilets. In those days, toilets located in residential areas were extremely rare due to the stench emanating from cesspools. The design of the toilets of the Zolochiv castle made it possible to avoid this.
The Polish king Jan III Sobessky, having inherited the castle from his father, practically never visited it. In 1672, the castle was badly destroyed by the Turks, but it was restored before 1675. After the death of King Jan III, his son, Prince Jacob, lived in the castle for some time. After his death in 1737, the castle became the property of the Radziwill family. However, the new owners did not particularly care about the safety of the castle and it began to collapse.

In 1802, the Komarnitskys became the owners of Zolochev. They restored the castle, but in 1840 they sold the castle to the Austrian government for military barracks. And since 1872, the Austrian authorities began to use the castle as a prison and a courthouse.
After the annexation of Western Ukraine to the USSR in 1939, the NKVD department was located in the castle, which was located here until 1941. During the German occupation, the Gestapo was located in the castle. In the post-war years, a vocational school was located in the castle. And only in 1986, at the initiative of the historian Boris Grigoryevich Voznitsky, a museum was opened here. Restoration work is still going on. Now both palaces are open to the public. They restored the interior, and there is an exposition dedicated to the victims of Stalinist repressions.

But two stones lying on the castle courtyard are especially interesting. Their surface is covered with mysterious writings and drawings. These stones were brought here from the village. Novoselki Zolochevsky district. Who, when and why made the inscriptions on these stones is still a mystery. According to one hypothesis, the inscriptions on these stones are one of the components of the cipher indicating the place where part of the treasures of the Knights Templar are hidden.

REVIEWS

All reviews (1)

Filatova21

Traveled 9 years ago

Rating 7

I recommend to visit

As an architectural structure, the castle is ordinary, but it has a rich history, interesting stories, a good exposition, but there is still something to work on. Restoration work has not yet been completed. The territory of the park is well-groomed. Walking along the ramparts is interesting - a beautiful view. I recommend visiting.→

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