while i was in lviv in may earlier this year i picked up a guidebook to ukraine...it's not at all like lonely planet...this guidebook is only focused on the sights to be seen in ukraine...it probably lists every church, every old fortress wall, every small park, etc...there are no logistics given, so it doesn't help in figuring out how to get around, or how much things cost, but it does list sights not in lonely planet, so i like it...
one of the sights listed in this guidebook is the kyiv fortress...it was built in the 11th century by prince volodymyr, as one of several fortifications at approach points to kyiv...there are remains of these walls in several places around kyiv...
we couldn't really tell what various parts of the fortress were, but it was still fun to explore...fun to figure out how to get on top of the ramparts, and what we could see from each viewpoint...(from one spot you can see a big football - soccer - stadium!)
there were some old cannons on one of the walls, i don't know if they were ever actually used, or if so, if they were used to fight around this fortress; there were a number of battles over the years this fortress was used...
what is now the fortress museum was originally built and used as a prison...the prisoners were mostly political prisoners, mostly from the polish uprising of 1863-1864...
there is a large hospital complex in the fortress now, various buildings host different medical specialties...
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