Berezhany Castle, city of Berezhany

By the Decree of the Government of July 17, 2001 No. 1508 “On the establishment of a state-architectural reserve in the city of Berezhany”, the city acquired all-Ukrainian significance.

In 1530, having received ownership of Berezhany, the magnate Mykola Syniavskyi began the construction of the Berezhany castle. The Golden Linden River occupied the fortress itself in two spurs, which looked like a pentagon and was built on oak piles. The masonry from the eastern side reached 16 meters in thickness. The fortress itself was protected by four stone bastions and one ravelin. Access to it was hampered by wild rosemaries, up to 800 meters wide, so that the guns of that time could not reach the walls of the fortress, they reached no further than 500 meters. It would not be easy to get this fortress. It belonged to the richest defensive border fortresses of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth

As the well-known art historian G. N. Logvin noted, those great changes that in the middle of the 16th century were reflected in the Berezhany castle. are established in the castle architecture. They manifested themselves, first of all, in the transformation of castles from military-defensive structures into defense-housing. This evolution has affected not only the appearance, but also the layout. So, in the Berezhany castle, not defensive walls were built along the perimeter of the courtyard, but residential buildings, the outer walls of which have loopholes. With facades facing the child with large windows and exquisite courtyard open arches – galleries, they resemble Italian palaces. In the seventeenth century the palace richly decorated with white stone carvings was built in the eastern part of the castle. For its magnificent decoration, it was compared with Krakow’s Wawel.

After the partition of Poland, difficult times began for the Syniavskyi castle. The castle troops were gone, the weapons were confiscated, the cannons were transported and melted down for iron, and partly for the processing of bells. The last of the Sinyavsky family, Adam Mykola, died in Lviv in 1726. Izabella Liubomyrska, the granddaughter of Adam Mykola, did not like the castle walls and lived permanently in a ward in the nearby village of Rai. Berezhany ceased to be a great-panish residence. Isabella had two daughters, Oleksandra and Konstantsiia. The first married Count Oleksandr Pototskyi, and then the castle became the property of the Pototskyi family. The new owner rented part of the castle for a brewery and a shop, and the rest was rented out to the troops. A regiment of Hungarian hussars was placed in the castle. Warriors in search of gold opened sarcophagi and raked out the bones of the dead, as eyewitnesses said. Gone are the rest of the expensive images, furniture. Cloths with paintings of the Syniavskyi family events were torn off and bags were sewn from them.

Of the interesting guests who lived in the castle, it is worth remembering the Hungarian national hero Ferenc II Rakoczi. Hiding from the Habsburgs, he found protection here for a while, as evidenced by a memorial tablet on the castle wall.