Southern fortress wall and gate of Durostorum Drustar

The construction of the Durostorum-Dorostol-Drastar citadel, or the south wall of the fortress, dates back to the beginning of the 6th century.The southern fortress wall is one of the most impressive military defense facilities in Bulgaria since the Antiquity and the Middle Ages. It was built during the reign of Emperors Diocletian and Constantine the Great in the beginning of the 4th century and restored by Emperor Justinian the Great (527-565) as a fortification without analogue through Late Antiquity. It is a powerful polygonal citadel, measuring 350 x 240 m, with 3,60 – 4,20 m thick walls, with two gates and over 12 m high pentagonal and triangular towers. This fortress, destroyed by Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians in the 7th century , was restored by Khan Omurtag (814-831) and used as the citadel of the city without interruption until the beginning of the 19th century.140 meters from the south fortress wall with four towers have been revealed. Two of them – round and triangular – are preserved only at their base. The wall is 3.60m thick. The bases are 3.80 and 3.90 meters wide and 3m deep. They are built of small and medium-sized lobes and roughly carved stones, horizontal and connected with a solution of lime, river coarse sand and crushed construction ceramics.Archaeological studies indicate that the fortress of the 6th-7th centuries, without drastic changes, was restored and re-used for its intended purpose in the 9th-15th centuries. The wall with the central gate has witnessed spectacular political events and impressive historical figures have passed through it. In 681, the triumphant Bulgarian army of Khan Asparuh appeared before it, and after the beginning of the 9th century it was restored by Khan Omurtag. Behind this wall in 896 Tsar Simeon the Great kept the Bulgarian army and undertook the victorious counter-attack against the Magyars. Several decades later, two of the most remarkable rulers of medieval Europe – the Byzantine Emperor John Tzimiskes and the Russian-Viking Knyaz Svetoslav – met at the same place. It was in this place that in 1088 the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Komnin lost to the collective forces of Pechenegs and Bulgarians. Through this gate around 1180 the Asen and Peter brothers restored the Bulgarian power in Drustar. From here, in 1299, the Drustur despot Theodore Svetoslav went to Turnovo, where he was crowned as a Bulgarian Tsar. At last this fortress became the capital of an independent feudal state at the end of the 14th century, ruled by Despot Ivanko Terter. The mighty fortification was conquered by the Turks in 1383 and was the main unit of the fortification of Silistra in the Ottoman times. It was destroyed only in 1810 by the famous Russian prince Bagration – a hero in the battle of Borodino against Napoleon Bonaparte.