Kamianets-Podilskyi

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General view of the fortress.

Kamianets-Podilskyi (Ukrainian: Кам’янець-Подільський, translit. Kam”yanets’-Podil’s’kyi; also referred to as Kamyanets-Podilsky) is a city located on the Smotrich River in the western Ukraine. Formerly the administrative center of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Oblast (#redirect [[Template:Lang-uk]], translit., Kamyanets-Podil'ska oblast’), the city is now the administrative center of the Kamianets-Podilskyi Raion (district) within the Khmelnytsky Oblast (province), after the administrative center of the oblast was moved from the city of Kamianets-Podilskyi to the city of Khmelnytskyi. The city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast.

The current estimated population is around 99,068 (as of 2004).

Nomenclature

The name is written and pronounced similarly in different laguages:

• Polish: Kamieniec Podolski
• Russian: , translit. Kamenets-Podolsky
• Latin: Camenecium

History

From the Second Partition of Poland (1793), the city belonged to the Russian Empire, where it was the capital of Podol'skaya Guberniya. The Russian Emperor Peter the Great, who visited the fortress twice, was impressed by its fortifications. One of the towers was used as a prison cell for Ustym Karmeliuk (a prominent peasant rebel leader of the early nineteenth century), who managed to escape from it three times.

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 Ploskyriv (now Khmelnytskyi).

Sister cities

Tourist attractions

Stefan Batory Tower, one of the city gates.

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 activities, attract an estimated 140,000 tourists and stimulate the local economy. 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.
• David Günzburg 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]
• [Kamianets-Podilskyi photo gallery] - by Colin Guard, May 2006

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