Hotin

Hotin stood above a Dniester crossing on the northern borderlands of Moldavia. In the first half of the fourteenth century it was held by Poland, which built its first fortifications.

Lithuania took Hotin in 1351 and handed it to Moldavia in 1354. After 1400 Prince Alexandru cel Bun built a stone fortress, which Ștefan the Great retook from Poland in 1459 after a two-year siege. Polish-Lithuanian armies defeated the Turks there in 1621 and 1673, but the Ottomans annexed it in 1713 and held it until Russia conquered Bessarabia in 1812.