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The fortress is among the staple sights of the town. The age-old history of Soroca is closely connected with this defensive installation. Built in the late 15th century, it had to serve as a sinew of princely potency on the outskirts of the state, to control the middle part of the river route to the Black Sea and a crossing along the Dniester shoal. It was seemingly then, that the defenses came to be called Soroca.
There are lots of pages in the history of the fortress. The Tartars' spears, Turkish yataghans, Polish sabers had been broken against its walls…Even nowadays one can see bullet and cannon-ball traces on the tower outwalls.
It is long since man reared houses for living and strongholds for defense from enemies. Conquerors were destroying strongholds, burning down houses, leaving behind excruciated land. The fortress of Soroca escaped, however, this lot, despite numerous sieges and storms. And in these days, its towers, as usual, view the world with the loop-holes. The perfect architectural aspect of the fortress strikes the people, as before.
Maybe you are asking yourself- where did the name of the fortress and the vicinage came from?
L. Uspensky, who was dealing with the problems of toponymy, inferred that the name of ”Soroca” came from the Moldavian word “sirak”, meaning a poor fellow, an orphan. The opinion that the denomination originated from the Slavic term ”srok” (,,soroc” in Moldavian), which denoted a feudal obligation, served by the vicinal rustic at the construction of the fortress, seems to be most trustworthy.
A 16th -century map, charted by V. Gorodetsky, wherein the Moldavian fortress is designed as Soroca, testifies in favour of this assumption.
The fact that the earth-and –wood defenses existed in Soroca as far back as in the late 15th century, is evidenced by documents. On June 1, 1512 , the Moldavian sovereign Bogdan III, wrote to the Polish king, that he wished to receive in possession the mills, situated “over against our castle of Soroca …that is an outpost against parandom…”
The generous soils of the people-ploughmen, cattle-breeders, hivers, and able artisans were attracting not only peregrinate merchants, but also outlanders-enslavers, who sought to seize by force the riches of Moldavian land. To curb the enemies, waywodes started raising strongholds and watch-castles on the land borders.
The Moldavian annalist Miron Kostin communicates that the stone fortress in Soroca was erected by the sovereign Peter Raresh (actually my high school name has the same name”Peter Raresh”- I have already finished it ) during his second reign. And Raresh's letter of April 23, 1543 , in which he requested …”masters from Bistrita to be sent to effect fortifications in Soroca”, Served as a documentary corroboration of it.
…The High Steward brought in candelabra and set them in front of the sovereign. At Raresh's table, the guests-the metropolitan and boyards-raised their cups to his health not once. The sovereign let a towel down onto the table, the Master of Household struck the verge against the ground, and the guests, bowing, broke up. The wine didn't contribute to the sovereign's calm or glee. He was harassed with the thought, that already for many years he could not keep his word, given to his father Stephan III-to raise a stone fortress walling in Soroca. Times out of number pagandom was burning down the oak tower framing, clambered up the earthen ramparts, ravaged the surroundings of Soroca. He always fell short of going to these parts, to decide it solely, where to place the castle. Where the outpost stands of yore? Or in some other place? Raresh called his men and ordered them to get ready for a long journey.
The commandant of Soroca rooted to the spot, when the sovereign having surveyed the outpost and making the round of the towers, cast an angry look on his side. ”We will not cut oak any more to renovate the outpost. We shall raise a fortress of stone after the Italian model and resemblance. We shall find rock and begin hewing stone…”
The sovereign rode along a woody bank of the Dniester , absorbed in his own thoughts. He raised his head up to the sun and saw a kite overtaking a cob-swan and a pen. The white-eathered birds were beautiful fluttering their wings, he grudged giving them up to the celestial fox. Raresh took an arrow out of his quiver, aimed at the kite, drew the bow-string…Here the waywode's horse shied at something, rushed sidewards. Raresh's hand faltered, the arrow flew to run down not the kite, but the pen. She fell down into the river, and the swift waters carried it away. The second arrow of the sovereign hit the kite, but the success didn't bring joy to him: the cob remained in the sky all alone. He was long circling about the Dniester waters, calling his mate. She never emerged. Then, the swan rose aloft, and having his wings folded, threw himself onto a sharp cliff, towering among the woods by the village of Cosauti .
The sovereign rode up to the cliff and saw the swan's mortal remains down and blood on it. Raresh stood long meditating, before he heard somebody quarrying stone alongside. He came up and saw: a craftsman bent his head.
Here we have their discussion:
<< -- Well now, the cliff stone must be durable, what?
--Why, there's no finding no finding stronger, my waywode. What you build, will stand age-long.
--So be it, Raresh said. Cut the cliff and drift it down the river on feluccas and rafts to the hill, where the outpost of Soroca stands.>>
Since that time, as the story goes, the cliff came to be called a Swan Cliff, while of the stone, quarried in Cosauti (now the village of Cosouti ), the fortress of Soroca had been built.
It had been inferred for a long time, that the fortress was a work of the Genoese, which reared it as a trans-shipping point on their trade-route. Recent excavations and research of the Candidate of History G. F. Chebotarenko prove the Moldavian origin of the fortress. The citadel used to be a prime defensive installation in its time. We learn of the role, the fortress played in the remote times, from the work “Description of Moldavia” by Dimitrie Cantemir: “With the loss of Tigin, the town becomes an important strong point in the struggle against the Poles, and is administered by two military chiefs”.
The fortress stands on the right bank of the Dniester . It presents a gigantic battle-tower, equally fortified on each side. Its operational effect is hightened by the fact, that five identically spaced little towers, each of them being a stronghold in a fortress, outstand in the walling circle. Four towers are round, while the fifth one, the gateway facing the Dneister, is of rectangular form. The towers are about 5 meters in diameter, 20 meters high, Walling thickness equals 3 meters . Once, there were three storeys in the towers, the second and the third ones being well-viewable today. There is a supergate chapel in the second storey of the rectangular tower. All along the inner walling perimeter of the fortress, up to the second storey level, there were 13 casemates-depots, of which only 6 have survived. There are two wells in the inner yard: a round one (of Moldavian type)\\you can see how it looks like in summer and in winter time in photos section \\ the other well is a squarewise(Polish). The round one is called Ulita. Why? There goes a legend:
…In olden times, our forefathers were raising the fortress walls. Many masters arrived then. Some of them were from Bistrita, but there were ours, from Cosauti, too. Every master was conspicuous in a way, but Uly was numbered among the first. He had a daughter Ulita. Every morning Ulita was going to spring in Malachuny woods, fetching the craftsmen azury water in two containers. It flowed out of the ground from under the roots of a giant oak. People said that he, who had a swallow of the azury water, gained an extraordinary strength. The master liked the azury water, it helped them to get along well with the fortress. Though many years stone had been carried from the Swan Cliff over here, while the towers were raised in three years. And again, the cause was right-the fortress was to defend the forefathers' land from Turkish villainy.
Ulita once went out to fetch the azury water, and came back, when the moon crossed over the river in a yellow path. A haiduk sang to her a love-song all the day long. The craftsmen didn't work well that day, they were short of vigor for the hard labour. Ulita came, and the master Uky, wrathful at his daughter, broke the earthenware containers with azure water. The water of Malachuny has gone into the earth amid the fortress. Ulita disappeared, too.
The masters turned it over and over again, who would go to the well-head. The foreman Yakop stood forward in the circle and said: “Let's send my younger daughter to the azury well-head”/ The craftsman Yakop's daughter left, but she came back with empty containers. “The spring's dried up…”, -she said. The masters came mournful, they could not complete the for seven days and nights, and on the eighth day, the craftsman Uly heard groaning. It went out from under the ground , in the middle of the unfinished courtyard of the fortress. Uly pressed his ear to the ground and heard it to whisper in Ulita's voice: “Oh, how grieving it is, I have nowhere to sob out my azury tears…” The master seized hold of a trowel, and started digging out. The other masters came helping him. They were digging out through seven days and nights, until they dug up to Ulita's tears. The craftsmen quenched their thirst with the azury water and felt vigorous, as before. And they realized that Ulita would never come back in the sunshine, she would live for ever in the azury water, lending a wonderful strength to feat. That is why, the well-head was called Well of Ulita.
Let us peep into one of the round battle-towers of the fortress and make acquaintance with its lay-out. We shall get into the second storey via the roof of a casemate-depot and enter the tower. Three cannon loopholes look alertly in different directions. There are stones on the left side of the loop-hole, facing the Dniester . Soot traces persist on its walls since we shall see the same number of loop-holes, but through these loop-holes firing was carried out not from guns and rifles.
Excursionists are especially interested in the rectangular tower. Let's observe it thoroughly. In the chapel, apart from an ambo place, square-wise slabs, covering the floor, loop-holes have survived. Two of them look up and down-stream of the Dniester, while one of them, close to which the central cannon of the fortress stood, looks straight ahead, on the left bank of the river.
It is noteworthy: to drag the central cannon into the fortress, they had to use a raft, as at that time the Dniester waters approached the gateway of the fortress, wrought of oak trunks, roasted, tarred and metal-plated.
After the death of Stephan III, the Great Moldavia did not manage to retain sovereignty, and towards the end of the 30s of the 16th century, it became subjugated by the Turks for three centuries. Devastating forays of the Turks and their vassals, excessive tributes, abduction in slavery, pillage led to the economic and political decay of the land.
The Turkish sultans often superseded the objectionable Moldavian sovereigns. In the course of the 16th-17th centuries, 50 waywodes took turns on the throne, 24 of them took it twice. Waywodes were buying the right of potency from a sultan. Alexander Lapushneanu was among them. Before getting the throne, he promised to tear down all the Moldavian fortresses. The chronicler Grigory Ureke wrote: “Alexander Voda (Lapushneanu-auth.) wanted to gain the Turks' confidence and promised to demolish all Moldavian strongholds by the sultan's order… The Turks wanted to weaken the country”
And Alexander redeemed his pledge. The fortress of Soroca was burning, which is supported by recent investigations. There was a conflagration in the fortress, charcoal, ashes, charred girders have been found there. The inner walling plaster of the fortress, opening and doorway framings have preserved vestiges of char deposits. The fortress courtyard, wooden galleries, re-edified seemingly later on, were on fire,
During its active being, the stronghold was besieged by the Poles, Transilvanians, Cossacks, Tatars, and Turks. In 1686, the Polish king Jan Sobieski, attempted to conquer Moldavia with the help of Cossacks. On crossing over the Dniester against Soroca, the Cossacks encountered fierce resistance and retreated. Only six years later, the fortress was taken by the Poles after a protracted siege.
As excavations showed, the Poles restored it in a part. They filled the lower storey in the round towers with earth, raised the courtyard level, built up 13 casemate- depots, dug out well.
In 1699, according to the Karlovice Peace Treaty, the Poles returned the fortress to the Moldavian Realm. When the Moldavian fighters marched into the stronghold, they noticed the changes, which took place, but paid no attention to a heap of stones in the fortress courtyard corner, on the right of the gateway gallery. For long time 276 years nobody knew about the existence of a well, hidden away under the stones. It was revealed by an archaeological expedition. The workers unearthed ten cubic metres of ground and few cubic metres of stone, before they reached the bottom. The well came to be useful for people again.
It was not only in the 17th century, that the stronghold was re-edified. In the 30s of this century, restoration works were carried out over here. New, round loop-holes (imitation) were hewed out instead of the wrecked ones from the Cosauti stone, and then, set in the second gun storey of some towers.
The stronghold survived hosts of battles, and saw lots of brilliant figures. On April 13, 1711 , in Lutsk , a boyard Stephan Lupu, on behalf of the sovereign Dimitrie Cantemir, entered into a treaty with tsar Peter the Great of alliance with Russia . Combined operations of Russia and Moldavia against Osmanli Empire were specified in the treaty, which consisted of 17 clauses. When in June 1711 the Russian army crossed over the Dniester against Soroca, the town inhabitants met the soldiers with joy and tried to help them in the difficult expedition towards the Prut . While the Russian troops were moving over the Moldavian terrain, all the citizen of Orgeyev, Soroca and Lapushna settlements rose and attended them up to the river Prut crossing, an annalist Ion Nekulche wrote. Peter the Great visited the fortress at the same time. Let us mentally carry away to those days, and see into the events going.
The day in June 1711 was intolerably hot. From the very morning in the fortress they were getting ready to meet the Russian troops, headed by the Emperor Peter the Great. The commandant Semion Afendik, having left the boyards' embassy, which, by Dimitrie Cantemir's edict, arrived to receive the Russian Emperor in the commandant's tower, and got up onto the wall, from which there opened the view over the left bank of the Dniester. Guard outposts stood by the fords, where Peter the Great was to cross over the Moldavian side.
The commandant was making the round of the towers. Everywhere the servants were getting ready to meet the guests. Afendik noted to himself on and on the virtues of the fortress, he was in charge of. The towers guarded the fords over the Dniester , the meander of the river. If a felucca comes forth below, from Trifautsy woods, the first tower takes aim at it, comes it up the second tower cannoneer sights it, appears it over against the gateway- the foremost cannon aims at it. Goes it up- it is intercepted by the fourth tower, upper- by the third one. The fortress was contrived superbly.
On outriding the regiments, Peter I, escorted by the Transfiguration Regiment detachment, was the earliest to reach the top of a sightly hill, affording the view of the stronghold and the town. Buried waistdeep in a high dusty grass, the tsar viewed trough a telescope the fortress and the Moldavian regiments, exercising regulation manoeuvres near the town.
Peter brushed sweat off his face and set the telescope to the eye. Russian troops were crossing over the Dniester . They were welcome by the citizens of Soroca, coming onto the riverside. When the Russian forces crossed over to the Moldavian bank and Russian and Moldavian patrols were posted, Peter came riding down the hill and stroke to the place, where Cantemir's embassy were greeting him. He attentively heard out the ambassadors, accepted presents, and requested to be showed into the fortress.
Semion Afendik could hardly keep pace with Peter. The tsar was interested in everything: when the fortress was put up, where was stone brought round from, which masters were arranging it, what mortar it was secured with. An interpreter had hardly time enough to set it forward.
Peter walked about the galleries, examined old murals on the stones, letters, carved in Greek, Old Russian, and Old Moldavian, tasted water from the Well of Ulita, and went to see how his regiments were billeted. In those days that his regiments stayed in Soroca Peter frequented the fortress.
When the Russian regiments, accompanied by the volunteers from Soroca, set out for Iasi , the Turks made an attempt to seize Soroca. The enemies tried to climb up the battlement via scaling-ladders, but the defenders fought courageously. A report on the lattermost events was submitted to Peter, in which he was informed , that the Turks and Poles “wanted to bring their garrison into the fortress, but the commandant and the steward of the Wallachian potentate locked themselves up with a few rustics in it and never let the Turks in”.
In commemoration of the remote days, a hill on the left bank of the Dniester , close to the Ukranian village of Tsekinovka , where, according to traditions, stood the marquee of Peter the Great, is called “the Emperor's hill” up to date.
In October 1973, on the day of the 300th anniversary of Dimitrie Cantemir,in Soroca, in the place ,where the Russian riflemen and Moldavian guards met. There was installed a stele with the inscription both in Russian and Moldavian:” Over here, in 1711, the Moldavian people welcomed the Russian army, which marched in the Moldavian land pursuant to the treaty, concluded by Dimitrie Cantemir and Peter the Great, for a combined struggle against the Ottoman Porta”.
At the beginning of the Russian-Turkish War of 1787-1791, the stronghold was visited by Alexander Vasilyevich Suvorov, who was making for Izmail via Soroca, to lead the Russian troops assistance in provisions and transportations. The reeve of Soroca District Vasilaky Apostolov addressed the Russian army headquaters, requesting the fastmost liberation of the Moldavian land from the Turkish oppressors. Here are a few lines from the appeal: “Senior and junior boyards and the Moldavian populace are ready to entirely follow your commands and benefit Russia in everything… for Moldavia perishes from the Turkish barbarians and enemies… We tearfully beg you, free us from the hands of pagans…”
In 1806, incited by Napoleon Bonaparte, The Ottoman Porte went to war against Russia . The Moldavian volunteers, in particular, many of Soroca citizens, allotted to the Russian Army, tought against the Turks. The Moldavians welcomed the 1806-1812 War termination. According to the Bucharest Peace Treaty, Turkey ceded the lands between the Prut and Dniester to Russia , later called the Bassarabian Region, and then-the Bessarabian Province . The annexation of Bessarabia to Russia was of a progressive signification for the land. It was freed from the three hundred-long Turkish yoke, at last.
After 1812, the fortress of Soroca lost its operational importance, and since 1856 on, when the last cannon was taken off, it got buried in oblivion for all but a hundred years.
In our time, the stronghold of Soroca invariably attracts searching eyes of investigators. Numerous expeditions were in it. In 1968 the Republican Ministry of Culture took a decision of the subsequent archaeological excavations, which resulted in eliciting previously unknown constructive details, in ascertainment of the fortress building and restoration stages, in finding medieval articles of general consumption. The latter strikes us by their number and diversity.
Among the collection finds there are Turkish, Polish, Russian gold, silver, cooper coins of the times of Stephan Batory, John Kazimir, Abdul-Khamid I, Elizabeth Petrovna, the 17th century tile fragments, earthenware tobacco pipes, cups, signet-rings, glassware goblets, the 17th –century pitchers of the Lebantian origin, ancient ceramics, ironware, musket bullet moulds, arrow- and spear-heads.
On the fortress walls, under a soot layer, there were detected carved drafts and designs, signs and inscriptions. One of them, read by a Master of architecture V.A. Voitsekhovsky, runs: “The castle is arranged by Yakop”. Others make out Moldavian names, for example “Gligor”. Stone carvings of different kinds of feluccas, which were ploughing the Dniester waters in the Middle Ages, of tools of trade of Soroca Residents are of interest. The carvings are nearly four hundred years old. They opened new pages in the history of the fortress of the town, which is proud of the Mediaeval masters' work up to the day.
The Fortress of Soroca.
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