Located on the Smotrych River, near to its flow into the Dniester, Kamyanets-Podilsky is one of the oldest cities in Ukraine, for many centuries a major cultural centre of Podolia. It was first mentioned in 1062 as a Slavic town controlled by Lithuanians, but evidence suggests that was founded a thousand years before by the Dacians, under the name Petridava or Klepidava. In 1241 it was destroyed by the Mongols, and in 1352 was annexed by the Polish King Casimir III. Under the Poles it grew into a center of international trade, second only to Lviv. In 1672 the city was captured by Cossacks and Turks, and remained in Turkish hands until 1699. After the Second Partition of Poland in 1793, the city belonged to the Russian Empire, and with the collapse of it after WWI it became part of the Soviet Union, in Ukrainian SSR.
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