Start of construction The fortress was built on the remains of
Tyras, an
ancient Greek city on the northern coast of the
Black Sea which existed until the 4th century. Frequent attacks by invaders (
Goths and
Huns) destroyed the city.
Antes,
Slavs, and
Bulgarians lived on the site of Tyras after the Greeks. In the 10th century, Bilhorod was part of
Kievan Rus'. Later it was owned by the
Kingdom of Hungary, then the
Principality of Galicia–Volhynia, where it stayed until the invasion of the
Mongols. It is not known when construction began on the fortress. Most historians today believe that it was a trading
exclave of the
Republic of Genoa on the Black Sea, first established in the 13th century. The territory was surrendered to the
Golden Horde, but the Genoese managed to ally with the Mongols. Bilhorod was officially a
Tatar city, but ruled by the Genoese; the fortress controlled the
estuary of the
Dniester. In the second half of the 14th century, the Genoese lost their influence in the Black Sea region and secure passage across the
Aegean Sea, because of increasing military pressure from the
Ottomans. According to most historians, Lithuania came to replace Genoa. In the 14th century, the
Principality of Moldavia gained control over the Lithuanians.
Moldavian period After the territory came under the control of the Principality of Moldova, the Moldavians called it (literally White Citadel). In the 15th century the city was a metropolis with about 20,000 inhabitants - Moldavians, Greeks, Genoese, Armenians, Jews, Tatars. It was the start of the greatest development period in the city's history. The city was based on a fortress, which had already grown significantly. Its main elements had been constructed by 1440. The fortress had 34 towers, some as much as 20 meters tall. Outside, the fortress was surrounded by a deep moat. The fortress was built of white limestone, for which a
mortar made of eggs, crushed marble, carbon, and silicon was used. In 1440 one portion which was neither a wall nor a castle tower was completed. This segment is located outside the castle walls very close to the estuary and has remains preserved today. Inside the wall, 10 stone cores were inlaid in the wall as a kind of talisman. This part of the wall had no practical defensive value. For a long time historians and architects could not identify the purpose of it. The cores inside the wall were shaped like a
tetractys: a figure with ten points that form nine equilateral triangles. Some historians have speculated about its potential symbolic meaning, but the precise purpose remains unclear. When in one of the towers, a plate was found, inscribed with: "Master Fedorko finished construction in 1440", some jumped to such a conclusion based solely on the grounds of the usage of the word "master". Another explanation of Bilhorod's tetractys is much more pragmatic: some claim it is just a variant of a sundial calendar. In the second half of the 15th century, the Moldavian principality was marred by a civil war between different factions, and king
Bogdan II was murdered in an ambush by his brother
Peter III Aaron in 1451. In 1457, the throne of Moldavia was captured by
Stephen III of Moldavia (son of Bogdan II) with the help of his cousin
Vlad the Impaler, prince of
Wallachia. Since Cetatea Albă was the main defensive center in the southeast of the state, located right on the trade route between Europe and Asia, it was given renewed attention under a new ruler. The fortress was constructed and reinforced with new stronger walls and a large gate, which then served as the main entrance to the fortress. In order to guard it, a permanent garrison was placed.
Ottoman period In the 15th century,
The Ottoman Empire repeatedly tried to capture the city. The hardest siege was in August 1484, when a 300,000-man army of Ottoman sultan
Bayezid II and 50,000 troops of the
Crimean Khan Meñli I Giray, supported by over 100 large ships, besieged the castle from the coast and estuary. After a nine-day siege, the fortress was taken. In 1485, Stephen the Great tried to recapture Bilhorod, but failed. Turks would rule there for 328 years.The Ottoman Empire made Bilhorod one of its strongholds in the north. The city suffered from endless attacks by the
Zaporozhian Cossacks. Cossack chieftains repeatedly tried to sack the city, among them
Hryhoriy Loboda,
Severyn Nalivaiko,
Ivan Sulima,
Ivan Sirko, and
Semen Paliy. Moldavians and Poles did not leave the city in peace either. However, Bilhorod remained an impregnable stronghold. Much attention to the fortress was also paid by the vassals of Turkey:
Crimean Tatars. Bilhorod was often a place of refuge during the campaigns, and the Crimean Khan
İslâm II Giray even died in the fortress and was buried in the mosque, of which only one
minaret now remains. During the long Turkish domination, the Bilhorod fortress was repeatedly rebuilt and renovated with new fortifications. In 1657
Melek Ahmed Pasha significantly strengthened the fortress. In 1707, the Turks invited French military engineers, who constructed a new
bastion line. After 1756, consolidation and repairs were made to the fortress almost every year.
Romania ceded the city to the
Soviet Union on 28 June 1940 following the
1940 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia. That year, the name was officially changed from Cetatea-Albă to
Belgorod-Dniestrovski. The pieces with the
heraldic symbols of Moldova and the
Moldavian Principality were removed by Soviet authorities. Romania regained the city on 28 July 1941 during the
invasion of the USSR in the course of the
Second World War and held it until 22 August 1944, when the
Red Army reoccupied the city. After the Soviets partitioned Bessarabia, creating the
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic, the city and fortress became part of the
Ukrainian SSR, and after 1991,
Ukraine. In 1789, the town was captured without a fight by a large detachment of
Don Cossacks and a
Jäger (infantry) hunter corps headed by
Mikhail Kutuzov. The following year, Kutuzov became commander of the fortress, but had to leave this position soon after. According to the agreement between Russia and the Ottoman Empire, the river Dniester was their border. The Ottoman period of Bilhorod ended in 1812, following the
Russo-Turkish war of 1806-1812, when Russia took the eastern part of the Principality of Moldavia, between the
Prut and Dniester rivers. The
Treaty of Bucharest (1812) put
Bessarabia (including
Budjak) and Bilhorod under the control of the
Russian Empire. The
Akkerman Convention was signed in 1826 between the Russian and the Ottoman empires. This treaty expanded Russian influence in the
Danube region and established a framework for the eventual independence of
Western Moldavia and Wallachia. == 20th century ==