Kamyanyets Tower

The tower at Kamyanyets was built between 1276 and 1288 on the order of Prince Vladimir Vasilkovich, a cylindrical brick keep about thirty metres high and thirteen across with walls two and a half metres thick, standing on a rammed earth base, and it is the only fully surviving tower of its kind in Belarus, part of a group of defensive donjons built across this frontier. The wooden fortifications and settlement around it have gone. It survived a nineteenth-century proposal to demolish it, and its brick was cleaned of later render in the twentieth century. Inside are five floors reached by stair, holding a museum of the tower and the region, with a view from the top over Kamyanyets and toward the forest.

What you actually see

• The brick donjon - the thirty-metre cylindrical keep.
• The five interior floors - the museum arranged up the tower.
• The view from the top - Kamyanyets and the country toward the forest.
• The earth base - the mound the tower stands on.

When to go

May to September for the fullest opening; the museum keeps daytime hours and closes on some weekdays year round. It combines with Belovezhskaya Pushcha, which is a short drive south.

Honest expectations

The tower stands alone with nothing else of the fortress surviving. The stair is steep and narrow. The museum is small and labelled in Belarusian and Russian. The visit takes about an hour.

Nearby

Belovezhskaya Pushcha lies south; Brest is southeast.