Busha castle

 

The historical-architectural appearance of Busha castle is partly perceived in our days. The main sources for reconstruction of the outward appearance of the castle are the ruins of the former fortifications and memoirs of Watch-tower in Bushanskiy castlecontemporaries. It is known that at the beginning of the XVIIth century Busha got the status of a town. Favorable geographic position helped Busha to develop.

The traveler Ulrikh Fon Verdum wrote in 1672: “On the conjunction of two rivers – the Murafa and the Busha – there formed a very sharp rocky place. There…the town of Busha existed somewhere. You could see the ruins and imagine that the town was built in the form of a long triangle and the rivers washed it’s two sides…”

The castle was the center of the town. It was situated in the middle of the cape formed by the two mentioned rivers. The castle was surrounded by a moat and a swell. Probably, the castle was in the form of a rectangle with the territory of 0,5 hectare. It looked like an eagle’s nest, 30m over the surface of the Murafa river. Giyom de Boplan said the castle had six towers each of which had it’sRocky temple in Busha powder-magazine. The underground passages connected the towers. The castle’s gate was in the northern wall, not far from two watch-towers (one of them still exists). The fortifications of the castle were done according to the demandings of military technology and were good for shooting.
Polish officers compared Busha castle with the fortifications in Kamenets. The building of the castle in Busha began in the second half of the XVI century. At that period the owner of those territories was the crown chancellor Jan Zamoyskiy and later – his son Tomash. In 1629 in Busha there lived more than 2 thousand people. It was a rather big town for Bratslav Podniestrovie.

At the beginning of the XVIIth century Busha castle met the enemies for the first time. In 1617 not far from Busha, near Yaruga the Polish Army of the crown hetman Stanislav Zholkevskiy fought with the Tatar forces of Iskander-pasha. That struggle resulted in the signing of Bushan agreement. That meant for Ezi Zbarazkiy to "Lubich" - the coat of arms of Stanislav Zholkevskiyburn his fortress Bershad. Stanislav Zholkevskiy was near Busha with his string of carts in 1620 going to Cecora.

 

In 1621 Cossacks of hetman Jakob Borodavka fought the Turkish Army of Selim III which was moving to Khotin. In the years of Liberation War the town of Busha was the border-town of Bratslav regiment. The castle’s garrison took part in struggles against the forces of Polish gentry.

For example, in March, 1654 near the walls of Busha 3 thousand of Polish warriors were defeated. The most heroic and tragic events were in the castle on the 18-20th of November, 1654 when the garrison and the citizens of the town fought with the armed forces of S. Pototskiy and S. Charnetskiy. In those terrible day the town was completely destroyed. They tried to reconstruct it during the century but it was impossible to rebuild the castle.

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