Traveler's Guide
East Macedonia & Thrace
Ancient and medieval fortress Vishegrad
Visherad fortress is situated on a panoramic high peak above the right bank of the Arda River, in the area Harman Kaya . The name of the fortress has a Slavic origin and means "high city", a name given to forts in other Slavic countries as well. Among the local population it is known as Yustyu Hissar (Upper Fortress).
The walls of the fortress, as we find it today, were built on the foundations of a former fortress built in antiquity. Dugouts and bases of furnaces have been found deep inside the fortress. The excavations revealed millstones, fragments of pottery, iron tools and weapons. The earliest materials are from the transition between the Bronze and Late Iron Ages. It is supposed that life in the fortress continued in the ancient and medieval periods.
Seventeen Thracian burial mounds have been found nearby.
The medieval fortress was built probably in the 12th -13th century.It is a small fortress- 0.56 acres. The south wall is 75 meters long, at the top end it is 1.75 metres.The preserved height is 7 metres.It has two internal rectangular towers. One is at the east end of the fortress. Dimensions are 9.1 x 7.5 m and the walls have a thickness of 2.3 m. A bearing wall was built through the center of the room later, which wall is adjacent to the southern wall of the tower and there is a well-defined gap between the two. The ground floor must have been used for water storage. The second tower is located in the middle of the south wall. Its dimensions are 6.2 x 5.5 m, the walls are 2.2 m thick. In the west half of its north wall, external stone staircase has been preserved. It served as an entrance to the second floor of the tower. Five meters from the south wall there is a second , parallel to it, which formed a 51-metre long room that was later divided by transverse walls of crushed stones fitted together with mud. Although the rock was hardly accessible, a new wall was built to the north. This sheltered the fortress from all sides. The main entrance was from southeast and had a width of 2.5 meters, which was later narrowed to 1.2 meters. Big parts of it are now destroyed. "Vishegrad" fortress guarded a diversion on the road from Adrianople to Philippopolis towards the Rhodope Mountains, along the Varbitsa River. The governor of Achridos district is known to have stayed in the well-preserved citadel. According to historians, beneath the walls of Vysehrad passed the group of Crusaders led by Marshal Villehardouin Geoffroy. And on the left bank of the Arda River, below the fortress Mneakos (Monyak),was located the camp in which Anry was elected - the second emperor of the Latin Empire.
At the beginning of the 13th century, the Eastern Rhodopes and the area around present-day Kardzhali became a scene of hostilities with the Latin Empire. In the summer of 1206, the defeated Crusaders managed to mobilize and started a campaign against the Bulgarian Tsar Kaloyan"s troops. They moved along the Arda River and reached a beautiful and fertile valley, above which the impressive fortifications rose.
Other sources say that in the autumn of 1207, lured by rumors of the jewels of the Achridos area, the Lord of Thessaloniki Boniface Monferadski entered the mountains. Locals ambushed and defeated the Latin Knights. The head of Boniface was sent to Kaloyan afterwards.
Legends have it that secret underground channels lead to the castle.They were used to supply the fortress with food. One legend has it that once into the fortress came mules carrying the king’s treasure chest filled with gold but neither the mules nor the treasure chest were ever seen again. Another tells of a hunting dog that entered a hole while running after prey and three days later was found 3 hours north of the fortress. The hunters entered the doorway only to realize that the channels were big enough for two people to walk freely.A third legend has it that the underground tunnels lead all the way to Eudrine.
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