The Old Constantine Castle is a Volhynia

Volhynia

Volhynia, Volynia, or Volyn is a historic region in western Ukraine located between the rivers Prypiat and Southern Bug River, to the north of Galicia and Podolia; the region is named for the former city of Volyn or Velyn, said to have been located on the Southern Bug River, whose name may come...

n castle

Castle

A castle is a type of fortified structure built in Europe and the Middle East during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars debate the scope of the word castle, but usually consider it to be the private fortified residence of a lord or noble...

 built at the confluence of the Sluch and Ikopot' rivers by Prince Constantine Ostrogski

Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski

Konstanty Wasyl Ostrogski was a Lithuanian prince, starost of Volodymyr-Volynskyi, marshal of Volhynia and voivode of the Kiev Voivodeship, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He got married on January 1553 in Tarnów...

 in the 1560s.

The castle of Starokostiantyniv

Starokostiantyniv

Starokostiantyniv is a city in the Khmelnytskyi Oblast of western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Starokostiantynivsky Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast...

 has withstood many attacks by the Turks and the Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars

Crimean Tatars or Crimeans are a Turkic ethnic group that originally resided in Crimea. They speak the Crimean Tatar language...

 but was successfully stormed by the rebellious Cossacks in 1648. The castle played an important part in Ukraine's struggle for independence when Starokostiantyniv was visited by such national leaders as Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Bohdan Khmelnytsky

Bohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky was a hetman of the Zaporozhian Cossack Hetmanate of Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates which resulted in the creation of a Cossack state...

 and Petro Doroshenko

Petro Doroshenko

Petro Dorofeyevych Doroshenko was a Cossack political and military leader, Hetman of Right-bank Ukraine and a Russian voyevoda.-Earlier life:...

.

The grounds still contain a fortified residence and a small church. The latter is dedicated to the Holy Trinity and has a single apse

Apse

In architecture, the apse is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome...

. A sacristy

Sacristy

A sacristy is a room for keeping vestments and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.The sacristy is usually located inside the church, but in some cases it is an annex or separate building...

 building adjoins it from the side of the river. The wall had five towers of which little remains. It used to be encircled by the 6-metre-high earthen ramparts and a moat

Moat

A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that surrounds a castle, other building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive water defences, including natural or artificial lakes, dams and sluices...

 traversed by a drawbridge

Drawbridge

A drawbridge is a type of movable bridge typically associated with the entrance of a castle surrounded by a moat. The term is often used to describe all different types of movable bridges, like bascule bridges and lift bridges.-Castle drawbridges:...

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