The cliff-side city and fortress of Tustan has a special place in wooden construction of the Middle Ages.
Rock formations, which are mighty defence walls themselves, were smartly used by builders.
Gaps between rocks were closed with wooden walls, preventing any approaches to the fortress.
Special cuts – grooves and hollows – were made in rock surfaces to secure log structures.
Those traces allow recreating the appearance of the fortress during the 9th–16th centuries, despite the fact that the log structures were not preserved.
Only on the rock complex Kamin of Tustan, over 4,000 traces of the cliff-side construction were detected and studied.

Having analysed all traces, the main researcher of Tustan, Mykhailo Rozhko, came to a conclusion that the fortress was built in several stages; then it was constantly built up, grew taller and claimed the top grounds of the rock complex.
In the 13th century, during the period of its heyday, the fortress embraced all possible galleries and terraces from the very bottom to the top.
The height of the complete construction in the courtyard reached five storeys, each 3.5–4.0 m tall, which is a sign of a very advanced level of construction technology.

For water supply during siege, the fortress had a well at the bottom of the rocks and two cisterns.
As of today, only the remains of the stone wall survived.
Mykhailo Rozhko dated the wall construction with the 2nd half of the 13th century.
The wall was 2.5 m thick and covered the grooves cut in the rock surfaces for wooden walls.
The cliff-side city and fortress of Tustan has a special place in wooden construction of the Middle Ages. Rock formations, which are mighty defence walls themselves, were smartly used by builders. Gaps between rocks were closed with wooden walls, preventing any approaches to the fortress. Special cuts – grooves and hollows – were made in rock surfaces to secure log structures. Those traces allow recreating the appearance of the fortress during the 9th–16th centuries, despite the fact that the log structures were not preserved. Only on the rock complex Kamin of Tustan, over 4,000 traces of the cliff-side construction were detected and studied.
Having analysed all traces, the main researcher of Tustan, Mykhailo Rozhko, came to a conclusion that the fortress was built in several stages; then it was constantly built up, grew taller and claimed the top grounds of the rock complex. In the 13th century, during the period of its heyday, the fortress embraced all possible galleries and terraces from the very bottom to the top. The height of the complete construction in the courtyard reached five storeys, each 3.5–4.0 m tall, which is a sign of a very advanced level of construction technology.
For water supply during siege, the fortress had a well at the bottom of the rocks and two cisterns. As of today, only the remains of the stone wall survived. Mykhailo Rozhko dated the wall construction with the 2nd half of the 13th century. The wall was 2.5 m thick and covered the grooves cut in the rock surfaces for wooden walls.
Fortress of Tustan