... History ...

The oldest human traces of  habitat on the banks of the Dniester dates back to 300 thousand years ago, the period of the early Paleolithic (3 million - 120 thousand years ago), during the warming and retreat of the Great Glacier to the north. People lived in conditions of prenatal society, a group of hunters and gatherers (primitive flock). The most ancient inhabitants of our region belonged to the Pithecanthropes. (photo 1) The most ancient people lived in caves and grottoes, they knew how to use natural fire. The main occupations were hunting for large animals and gathering edible fruits, roots and mollusks. Ancient people made the simplest tools of labor out of stone in the early Pal...

In the process of the Golden Horde’s decline, the strengthening of the kingdoms of Hungary and Poland, as well as the beginning of the formation of the Principality of Moldova (1359), the region where the town of Tigin subsequently appears on maps and written sources was included in the influence zone of the Yambolukskaya Horde. This Horde’s power extended to a significant territory of the right bank of the Dniester, right up to the borders of Lithuania, Poland and Hungary. From the left bank, the territory was controlled by the Khachibey (Hajibey) yurt, and from the south by the Kutlubug yurt. These same settlements controlled the crossing through the Dniester in the area of pre...

The most common and well-known version (and scientifically proven at the same time) of the origin of the Bendery fortress is that the current stone fortress was begun to build in 1538 – the year of the final conquest of the Moldavian Principality by Turkey. It is this date that is indicated on the Tarikh of Sultan Suleiman together with accompanying explanatory text. Tarikh is a marble embedded plate that previously was hung on the front side of the citadel’s Gate Tower of the fortress. The plate original is partially preserved till today; in addition, very accurate hand-drawn copies of its full text, well-studied, carefully translated in different variations, have remained intac...

In 1415, the ruler of Wallachia [1] Mircea the Old agrees to pay the Ottoman Empire an annual harach [2] of 3,000 gold, after, as a result of punitive expeditions to Wallachia, the Turks captured Turna (Severin) and Braila, turning Giurgia into a raya[3], forcing the ruler of Wallachia to conclude peace. In 1420, after a major campaign in Wallachia, during which the Turks defeated and executed the ruler Mihai, the successor of the ruler Mircea on the throne, the Ottomans reached the borders of the Moldavian Principality. In 1420, the Turkish fleet attacked Chetatya Albe (future Akkerman), but the fortress was recaptured by the Moldovan army. The second attempt of the Turkish fleet to capture...

The Bender fortress impressed the imagination of travelers and writers of the past and present centuries not only with the power of defensive structures, but also with its oriental flavour. A number of its descriptions have been preserved. There are a lot of them: quite detailed, and superficial, sometimes careless. There are descriptions of only a few phrases, mentioned cursorily, but very valuable for the historian.Everyone who described the defensive structures clearly identified its two main components: a stone citadel and an earthen fortress with powerful bastions and deep moats. Scientists and local historians have long ago come to the unanimous opinion that the Bendery fortress was re...

The Ottoman Empire sent troops to Bendery and continued its actions to create military and political bridgeheads in the Northern Black Sea region. While preserving the internal independence of Moldova, Wallachia and the Crimean Khanate as vassal territories, Turkey at the same time consistently seized the strategically and commercially important points of Kafa (1475), Kilia and Belgorod (1484). The modern French scientist S. Lemercier-Kelkeje believes that the Bendery fortress became an important link in the system of defensive structures "erected by the Ottomans in the late XV and early XVI centuries to protect the Danube principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, which are in feudal depende...