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The “Sokol” Fortress
The former village Tserkovishtche was later given the name in the honour of the general Kulnev in the XIX century.
During the Livon War the fortress “Sokol” was built by order of Russian tsar Ivon IV (the Terrible) at the rivers Dryssa and Nishcha junction in years 1566-1967. The function of the fortress was to be on guard of the conquered territories. That time it was a very strong and powerful military town with 11 towers above wooden walls of logs enforced by an earthen wall and a moat.
In 1579 when Polotsk was under siege by Polish troops Ivan IV sent part of his army under Boris Shein and Fyodor Sheremetev command to try to liberate the city. After they did not have a success they stopped at the fortress “Sokol”. From that place they attacked food transports and avoided any battles in the fields. The Polish king sent a pack of crack troops on horses under Christofor Radzivill and Yan Glyabovich command against Moscow army. They managed to start a battle near the fortress and to take some prisoners back to Polotsk. The weather that time was rainy. The roads became of a bad condition so that the transport horses had difficulties moving on them. The soldiers being accustomed to fight in rich and highly populated countries had discomfort in finding a dry spot near the shelters for a rest on these territories. At the moment of Polotsk capturing the Polish king stood on the road between Sokol and the city so that if Moscow commanders seeing the glow of the fire could not come close for help. After taking Polotsk on the 19 of September in the year 1579 another commander Batory Radzivill as the leader of Hungarian, German and Polish mercenary troops laid siege to the fortress “Sokol”. The number of the defenders by that moment had reduced in size after the Cossack troops being sent with Boris Shein to Polotsk suddenly decided to quit and went back to Don “absent without leave … not waiting for the Lithuanian people”.
The state of siege was difficult for the both parts. Those who were trying to besiege the fortress had difficulties in finding the food on sparsely populated territories with deep woods and because of the war time. After the heavy battles the Polish army managed to beat the defenders’ troops and to capture the town destroying it with the fire of the Polish artillery with the use of red-hot cannon balls. In one of the history books there is an expressive record about the fortress capturing: “And for our sins the town Sokol was captured in September on the day 25 and the tsar and the prince commanders were beaten down at the town Sokol and those who survived were caught.” Leaving the fortress on fire the defenders took the last and despairing attempt to escape from the town. But they had been forced back inside by one of the German mercenary troops. But the Russians managed to trap them by shutting the gates behind them. And there inside the fortress in the smoke and fire started the horrible mortal fight. The Polish and the Lithuanian troops dashed to the suddenly closed gates mostly not to help the Germans but with a wary that The Germans would take the spoils of war themselves. The attackers broke the gates and burst into the burning Sokol. In a ruthless fight the defenders took another attempt to escape. But they had been almost completely annihilated. The commander Sheremetev and some soldiers had been taken to prisoner after that “butchery”. The other Russian leaders: commander Shein, the prince Paletsky, the prince Lykov and the prince Krivoborsky had been killed in the battle for the town. As the old mercenary colonel Veyer witnessed that he never saw such a numerous corpses lying on such a small piece of land in any battle before. When everything was over, the number of the dead bodies had reached 4 000. The Polish army also had had a big loss of the soldiers. Only German mercenary troops had lost 500 soldiers. There are some stories from the eyewitnesses about outrage acts upon the dead bodies of the killed soldiers after the Sokol battle (some German mercenary women extracted the fat from the dead bodies to use it for making a curing cream later on).