Hotin

Hotin stands above the Dniester on the northern frontier of Moldavia. Its fortress commands an important river crossing and the principal roads towards Podolia, a position that made it valuable to merchants and armies alike. The stone citadel developed under Moldavian rulers, and Stephen the Great strengthened it into one of the principality's strongest northern defences. Its high walls rise above the Dniester, enclosing a princely residence and the garrison's buildings.

After a period of Polish occupation, Stephen recovered Hotin in 1459. The fortress and its approaches became the scene of repeated struggles between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and the Ottoman Empire. In 1621 a Polish-Lithuanian and Cossack army under Jan Karol Chodkiewicz resisted an Ottoman campaign at Hotin; in 1673 Jan Sobieski won another major battle there. The Ottoman state took direct control of the fortress in the early eighteenth century and enlarged its defences, using it as a military base on the frontier.

Russian armies captured Hotin repeatedly during successive Russo-Turkish wars of the eighteenth century, including the campaigns of 1739 and 1769. The fortress was occupied again in the war beginning in 1806, and the Treaty of Bucharest in 1812 brought it under Russian rule with Bessarabia. Its successive sieges testify to the importance of the Dniester crossing in the rivalry of the surrounding powers.