Borders

Southwestern Ukraine borders Slovakia, Hungary, and Romania.  Here is the border just west outside Uzhhorod with Slovakia.  (Not much farther north the west border is with Poland!)

Part of the border with Hungary is along the Tisza river.  Here is the border crossing, and then the river bridge and where cows are being coaxed back home.

As the Tisza flows west to east, there is a stretch where it is the border again, this time with Romania.  I couldn't get a picture right on the river, but the mountains on the horizon are in Romania.

Farther to the east, the southern border is with Moldova.  You will already know that the eastern border of Ukraine is with Russia and on the north is Belarus.

Many Castles and Fortresses

We have seen so many interesting castles.  A previous blog showed a very old ruin.  And there are lots of those around.  But there are some really interesting ones in better condition.  I'll go from good, to better, to best!   This "gloomy castle fortress", as our guide book says, is in a small village.  It had a museum, but we could hear a tour group inside (their bus was outside) and the door was locked.

This is the "hunting castle" of Count Schoenborn, built in 1890.  It has 365 windows, 52 rooms, and 12 entrances!  We didn't get to go inside but walked around the wooded grounds.

This model of the Uzhhorod castle helps give an overview of the various defense walls and inner castle.  The location was used for castles since the 11th century, but this was constructed in the 16th century.  Castles on hills have dry moats, but it is still hard for invaders to get over a wall, across a cleared area and then over another wall or into a castle without being hurt by the defenders from their protection.

This castle was restored in 1990 and is very lovely---fit for Hungarian royalty (Uzhhorod is next to Hungary and was part of the Austria-Hungarian empire), French and Italian Counts, etc.   We didn't attempt to take photos inside of the wonderful museum displays.  The collection of weapons used at various times reminded me that the props we see in movies or on stage are modeled after real things.

This is front and back side of our favorite castle at Mukacheve built by Hungarians in the 1400's on a commanding hill.  It had 8 defense lines starting with 20 ft deep water moat at the base of the hill (the Uzh river is close by).  Then there were two succeeding 25 ft ramparts topped by oak fences (no longer existing).  The 4th defense was the steep hill.  The 5th was the castle hill terrace, (entrance pictured above) with a draw bridge over a dry moat..

These are the first and second draw bridges.

The lower, middle and upper castle are the final defenses.  This is the courtyard of the lower castle. 

This is the courtyard of the middle castle.  The final tunnel into the upper castle is visible.

The stairs are for tourists!  It was originally just a steep cobbled road.  You can see the iron gates at either end, which were shut when enemies were inside, trapping them.

This shows a passage above with one of 5 holes that open onto the passage below where stones, hot liquids, or flaming material could be tossed onto the trapped intruders!  

This is the upper palace courtyard with trees and a well that is 250 ft deep!

This castle withstood many sieges.  The most famous was led by Ilona Zrinyi who led 2000 men in repelling attacks of 20,000 Austrians for 4 years!  This statue commemorates her and her 10-yr-old son.

This Fortress on the Dniester's steep banks is at Khotyn.  It has been used by many Eastern-European filmmakers.

It was constructed and added to in the 13-15th centuries.  In the 18th century the old castle was encircled with strong earth moats, 7 bastians for long-range artillary, and 5 gates.  Some of that is visible here.

A church and customs office were also built

These figures represent soldiers of various armies that used this fortress: Poles, Cossacks, Turks

Inside the castle

Our final castle fortress to visit was in Kamianets-Podilskyi, located on the high plateau of a small river which snakes back and forth creating an almost-island peninsula.  Towers are located around the outside of this old island town.

This town is protected by a fortress just across the narrow rocky road and bridge;

the castle walls are difficult to tell from the canyon stone.

Beyond the old castle walls are earth ramparts for further defense.

Inside the fortress

Inside one of those upper turrets going up or down, steep steps are cut out so a toe or heel can pass

Walking through the protected hallway in the wall over to the next tower

In these last two castles I kept thinking how much fun our grandchildren would have running all over, up and down, trying out this archery range....

But one must not get put into a dungeon!

There seemed to be enough real castles, that we were completely surprised by this new building along a rural road in "nowhere" that someone with money is building!

In the Carpathians--Day 2

We spent the night at Bukovel.  This is a new ski resort that opened 2003-4 as the country's first fully planned ski area.  The altitude is only 900-1245m but they make snow and offer night-time (5p-8p) slopes. They continue to expand and plan to bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics.  Construction was going 24/7 and the small stream was muddy as a result.  There was a small village before and now beyond it there is this new developing resort.  Think Ketchem/Sun Valley!  But it was a pleasant place for the evening.

This was our room--the middle upstairs.  Our next destination was Vorokhta where we were to get a permit to hike the next day.   We knew it was Ukraine's independence holiday (20 years now!) and guessed right that the office would be closed.  There is a ski jump hill there and they were having a meet so we stopped and watched!  The hill was covered with synthetic ? and was wet and they were gliding and stopping on sawdust!  I took some pictures but with sunlight and shadow, guessing when to click, etc, the picture I will include here does barely show a dot of a skier on the left hill just below the crest!  

Also there were two interesting Orthodox churches--one newer and one old wooden one (actually photographed the following morning in the lifting fog)

Finally, look at this photo of this spread-out little community in the Carpathian mountains!  We love the vistas and can't take photos or publish all of them.

 We drove on south to Verkhovyna to meet with a member family.  It was a good day to catch Ivan off work.  They have three teen-age children, who were all home.  Anna was involved in the community Independence celebration.  We were able to see the parade of community people.  She created the floral tribute she carried and put at one of the monuments.  Then there was flag-raising and speeches (each of the men on the stage gave a speech), songs and dances.  We didn't stay for all.  But we were glad to see their enthusiasm and patriotism in a small Ukrainian community.