Castle Stare Selo (Old village) in Lviv region

The village of Stare Selo is located at a distance of 22 kilometers from Lviv. Everyone who often goes by rail towards Ivano-Frankivsk had the opportunity to notice the huge walls that seemed to be lost and accidentally came to us from the Middle Ages. I suggest that you learn a little more about the "castle near the railway", because once I was inside the castle and was struck by these majestic ruins. I will illustrate this story with my own photos.

There are several dozen villages named Old Village (Stare Selo in Ukrainian) in Ukraine. However, only one, located in the Lviv region, has a pentagonal defense castle - an architectural monument of the 16th-17th centuries, or rather, what remains of it. The Old Village is located in Pustomyty district of Lviv region 22 km southeast of Lviv.

The Old Village Castle is one of the largest castles in Ukraine, with borders measuring about 2 hectares. It can also be called the most fortified castle of Lviv region among all others, as it repeatedly stood in the face of enemy attacks and remained intact after the end of the battles. Ukrainian and Polish historians are still debating exactly when the castle in Old Village was built. Some claim that it was built at the end of the XVI century, at the request of Prince Konstantin Ostrozky, someone believes that the castle was built later, in the mid-seventeenth century by Dominic Zaslavsky, and you can still hear another version that the Princes of Zaslavsky and Ostroh were only reconstructed it, previously, they only replaced the wooden strongholds and the walls with stone ones.

The castle walls had a height of 8 meters, their thickness was 2 meters. The towers reached heights 14-16 m. The plan was a wrong pentagon. The defense capacity of the outpost was enhanced by the moats, ramparts and swamp that surrounded the castle. Shortly after construction, the castle was destroyed during the Turkish siege. In the seventeenth century it was restored in the style of the Eastern European late Renaissance. In the eighteenth century, the owner of the Old Village, tycoon Adam Nikolai Senyavsky restored the outpost. In 1731, the fortress belonged to the princely family of Chartorii, and the last owner of the old walls until 1939 was the Count, Marshal of the Galician Seimas, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, an ordinance in Lancut, Alfred Pototsky.

The Old Village Castle, like all others, is surrounded by legends. And now in the village they readily tell how chicken eggs were added to the mortar during the construction of the castle for strength. The eggs were taken from all the surrounding villages. One gentleman sentenced to death was given a chance at life, but provided he brought a cart of eggs and none would break. The man resorted to tricks and brought boiled eggs. But this trick did not help him and the nobles were still executed.

Rural weddings and other holidays were celebrated on the castle territiry. Also, there was make a movie called "From Bug to Wisla". Festivals, biker conventions and other entertaining events are now being organized on the 2-hectare square. Unfortunately, I was in the castle grounds in the winter, so it was empty, overcast and cold. The castle is now very badly destroyed and needs major renovation (that is, large investments). Still, it's worth a visit, especially in the summer. You can get from Lviv to the Old Village by electric train Lviv-Khodoriv or Lviv-Zhidachiv, departing from the suburban train station, or a shuttle bus from Lviv to the Old Village, from the bus station #5.

The author of the photo on the cover, which depicts the aerial view of the castle, is Birutė Valionytė. [sourse]

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