Novogrudok. Ruins of Novogrudok Castle.

From the beginning of the 11th century to the middle of the 13th century, the central city fortification was a wooden Novgorod detinets located on Castle Hill, which had the characteristic features of many ancient Russian detinets. In the second half of the 12th century, powerful oak log houses were erected. The Grand Duke of Lithuania Mindovg founded the capital of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in Novogrudok, here he was baptized and in 1253 he was crowned. In the second half of the 13th century, during the reign of Mindaugas, the first stone donjon tower was built, made of large hewn stones on lime; it belonged to the Volyn type towers. The tower had a tetrahedral shape and stood on the northern side of the detinets, closing the ring of the earthen rampart.

At the end of the 14th century, on the remains of the old tower, as on a powerful foundation, a new stone tower, Shchitovka, was built (a kind of reliable shield of a medieval city). The new tower was five stories high, with beamed ceilings. Its total height reached 25 meters. The thickness of the walls was about 3 meters, they were cut through by loopholes, and at the bottom there was an opening for the castle gate. The gate was tightly locked from the inside of the tower and during a siege it turned into an independent stronghold. In the southern wall of Shchitovka there was a stone staircase that was used by soldiers during attacks.

At the end of the 14th century, the construction of stone walls began in Novogrudok Castle, which took place in several stages. First, three stone towers and walls between them were built. To the right of Shchitovka, a tall, prism-like Church Tower was built. From the east of it there was a second line of stone walls about 80 meters long and 2.5 meters thick, which led to the next tower, called the Small Gate. The Small Gate and the Church Tower each had several floors with beamed ceilings, and there were loopholes on each floor. Turning from the Small Gate to the west, there was a 70-meter long stretch of walls, structurally connected to the Posadskaya tower. The right side of the wall led from the Posad Tower to the northern edge of the mountain and closed in the north-western corner of the castle rampart with wooden fortifications that went to Shchitovka.

Already in the 14th century, there was a stone temple on the territory of the castle - the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known from written sources of the 16th-17th centuries. Until 1775, meetings of the Tribunal, the highest court of appeal of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, were held there. And to the north of the temple there was a two-story stone palace, which existed until the middle of the 17th century.

Over time, Novogrudok Castle lost its strategic position and began to collapse. During the war of 1654–1667, the castle towers Meshchanskaya, Kolodeznaya, Malaya nadvratnaya and Posadskaya, as well as the walls of the walls, were destroyed to the foundations. During the Northern War, local fortifications were completely destroyed: in 1706, the Swedes passing through the city blew up their remains. In 1802, the Grodno governor Bennigsen gave the order to dismantle the remains of the castle walls in order to pave the city streets. But two towers have partially survived. In 1906, half of Shchitovka collapsed, and in 1914, a significant part of the Kostelnaya tower collapsed. Only in 1921, Novogrudok Castle was taken under protection, and in 1922–1930, Polish archaeologists conserved the ruins of the towers, and the collapsed walls of the Church Tower were rebuilt. At the moment, only the remains of the Church Tower and Shchitovka have been preserved. Knight festivals are held annually on the castle grounds.

At the state level, a decision was made to conserve the ruins of Novogrudok Castle with the restoration of its compositional structure and historical buildings. In 2021, one of the stages of reconstruction of the ruins of the Novogrudok Castle was completed, including the construction of an organized drainage system from the territory of Detinets, as well as strengthening the slope from the Kostelnaya Tower to the Entrance Tower with the installation of a drainage system at the base of the shaft. Currently, work is underway on the conservation of the ruins of three towers of the 14th-16th centuries - Vkhodnaya, Dozornaya and Posadskaya, the conservation of the stone spindles that connect the Detinets, and the conservation of the walls.