PIDHORETSKYI CASTLE (ПIДГОРЕЦЬКИЙ ЗАМОК)

A work of the famous architects Andrea Del Aqua and Guillaume de Bauplan, this Renaissance castle is located not far from Olesko Castle. It is probably the most beautiful castle in Ukraine.

Among the other fortified castles, it stands out for its elegance. The first written mention of the castle dates back to 1431. In 1633, Hetman Stanislas Koniecpolski, descendant of one of the greatest families of the Polish nobility and commander-in-chief in the army, bought the building from the Pidhoretski family, also noble but impoverished. He called on the talents of architects, artists and gardeners to transform the castle into a refined residence surrounded by a park.

Later King Ian III Sobieski became the owner, but his wife Marysenka was no longer attached to Olesko Castle and they almost never lived there. When the king died, the queen removed the sculptures from the garden, works by an Italian artist, and sent them to Tsar Peter I. A small gift that would allow his son to ascend the Polish throne. The scheme failed and left the park bare. In 1720, Waclaw Zhevuski, the owner, transformed the building into a private museum. It displayed the baptismal font, where King Ian III Sobieski was baptized, and several trophies captured from the hands of the Turks, including the Sultan's tent. Among the museum's visitors are a large number of heads of state, including Emperor Franz Joseph of Habsburg. In the 19th century, Leon Zhevuski, the impoverished master of the castle, decided to sell it to Prince Sanguszko for a modest sum on condition that he would take over the restoration of the building and its collections. But during the First World War, the castle passed from hand to hand and most of the painting collections were saved in extremis by being sent to Brazil. The castle was finally transformed by the Russian communist government into a film studio to serve as a setting. When the country became independent in 1991, it was announced that the castle would be transformed into a presidential residence. But it was finally the Lviv Art Gallery that took over the building and transformed it into an art gallery. Unfortunately, the Gallery lacks funds for the restoration of the castle and its park.

Pidhirtsi is 85 km east of Lviv. You can reach it by bus from station n° 2 (departure about every hour, 1h45 of journey) or by car via the M06-E40.