Kamyanyets

Kamianiec (also spelled Kamenets) ( _be. Камяне́ц, IPA2|kamʲa'nʲets, _ru. Ка́менец, _pl. Kamieniec) is a town in the Brest Voblast of Belarus and the center of the Kamenets Raion. The town is located in the northwestern corner of Brest voblast on the Liasnaja river, about 40 km north of Brest. As of 2002, the population was about 9,000 people.

History

It was first mentioned in the Halych-Volhynian Chronicle in 1276, when a castle with a keep, the tower of Kamianiec, was being constructed on this spot, to protect the northern boundary of Volhynia from the raids of invaders. This site on the stony steep bank of the Liasnaja (Lysna or Leśna) River had attracted Oleksa, the prominent builder and architect of Volhynia. He showed the site to Vladimir Vasilkovich, the prince of Volhynia, who appreciated the place and ordered Oleksa to build a castle with a keep on the spot. Later a town appeared around the fortification. The tower is often called "Bielaja Vieža" (alternative transliteration: "Belaya Vezha"), which means "White Tower" or "White Fortress" in Belarusian and in Russian, presumably because of its proximity to the Belavezhskaya Pushcha Forest, but not because of its actual color, which has been brick-red through the ages, never white.

The name of the place derives from the Slav word "kamennyy" meaning "stony", as it was founded atop a stony rise.

External links

* [http://www.kamenets.by Kamenets - Belarus at its BEST!]
* [http://www.radzima.org/pub/miesta.php?lang=en&miesta_id1=brkakami Photos on Radzima.org]