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Kamenka, in northern Pridnestrovie, is called a small Switzerland by the locals

KAMENKA (Tiraspol Times) - Kamenka is located on the banks of the Dniester River, in northern Pridnestrovie (also known as Transnistria in English). It was developed 200 years ago by prince Peter Wittgenstein, a German-Russian field marshall. He spent many years and much of his fortune to turn Kamenka into his own dream of paradise.

Prince Peter Wittgenstein was a Field Marshal distinguished for his services in the Napoleonic wars. He also commanded the Russian army in the war against Turkey, fighting a winning battle which took place on the River Prut in what is today Moldova.

When Peter Wittgenstein first set foot in Kamenka he knew that he had found his own personal paradise. Located in a valley enclosed by the mountains of northern Pridnestrovie, Kamenka is much warmer than other parts of the country.

This was when Wittgenstein discovered Kamenka. In contrast to Moldova, the territory on the left bank of the Dniester River was Christian and never been in the hands of Turkey. So it was safe territory for Wittgenstein and he picked Kamenka as his base. Amazed with the beauty of Kamenka, the field marshall made it the center of a beautiful park with various breeds of rare trees and bushes. In the private park was opened the climatic station, vacation homes and a sanatorium where Europe's landed gentry could come for health treatment. Wittgensteins also opened a bottling plant for Kamenka's mineral waters.

Openwork bridges (two of them still in use) connected picturesque ponds. A huge, colorful flower bed was constructed in the same of the Wittgenstein family Coat of Arms. For years, Kamenka has maintained its historical legacy. To this very day, Wittgenstein's vinery cells and grape terraces are still maintained in Kamenka.

In this area there are a lot of historic monuments, architecture and culture. Don't miss a photo visit to the beautifully restored Polish Catholic church Sacred Kaatan in the nearby village of Rashkov, a historical river town with a long and famous past. It is also the home of an extensive natural landscape preserve.

Thousands of years of history

Kamenka is one of the oldest settlements of Pridnestrovie, with civilization dating back to the epoch of late paleolith. Nearby Kamenka villages like Katerinovka and Rashkovo are home to some of Europe's most interesting archeological digs. Scythian barrows have been found in the area, and in 100 B.C. the Dniester River formed the border between the Slav lands of Scythia and the Romanian lands of Dacia, to the west.

Kamenka's history is an important part of the history of the rest of Pridnestrovie. In the ninth and tenth centuries, it was part of Kiev Russia. In the fifteenth century, it became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania as a result of the Polish-Lithuanian union which included Pridnestrovie. The border was marked by the Dniester river. Moldavia, on the other side of the river, was never part of the union.

Kamenka was formally incorporated as a town in 1776 as the personal property of prince Sergey Trubetskoy, who soon sold it to a relative, Peter Wittgenstein. Famous for winning battles against Napoleon, he was a friend of fellow German Carl von Clausewitz who joined him to serve in the Russian Army. Both Wittgenstein and Clausewitz led the Russian Empire to success on the battlefield. Later, Clausewitz returned to Prussia to write his book entitled "On War" while Wittgenstein staying behind in Kamenka, his own personal paradise.

After the death of Peter Wittgenstein in 1843, his eleven children continued developing Kamenka. They constructed roads, bridges and even opened free drugstores for the population of the area. Even today, the area still retains a strong German influence.

The personal playground of Lolita's creator

Wittgenstein's estate in Kamenka was the childhood playground of Lolita-author Vladimir Nabokov. Visiting his aunt Elizabeth, who had married into the Wittgenstein family, young Nabokov wrote fondly of his days in Pridnestrovie in his memoirs: "Picnics, plays, stormy games, our mysterious park, charming old Batov, splendid Wittgenstein estates."

The Dniester Sanatorium is located close to Wittgenstein's park. Today, it is a modern health resort: Comfortable, with light interiors, a fine dining room and a cinema hall for 550 places, pool, library, billiard.
It offers therapeutic and recreational services for the residents and visitors to Pridnestrovie. A unique method of medical treatment called ampelotherapy (treatment by grape juice and wine) is successfully practiced in the sanatorium.

The Kamenka region, also called "Pridnestrovie's Switzerland", is a therapeutic and recreational zone. Here, the monuments of nature and historical places alternate with the ravine-covered slopes of the valleys of the Dniester and its tributaries.

A small area of the floodplain landscape near the village of Valea-Adynka with an output of ancient limestone. Time, wind, and water have eroded the abrupt slopes near the village of Rashkov, having formed the limestone outliers, towering above the slopes.

Also in the vicinity: The (former) largest weapons dump in Europe

Kamenka welcomes tourists and visitors. It is a daytrip from Tiraspol and well worth a visit. But there is one area which is off-limits to casual daytrippers: Kolbasna.

Kolbasna is a small town near Kamenka in northern Pridnestrovie. It is located less than 2 kilometres from the Ukrainian border and part of the Administrative Region of Kamenka. It is also the site of a former ammunition depot of the former Soviet Union, today guarded by a multinational force of Joint Control Commission peacekeeping troops made up of three nationalities.

In the past, Kolbasna was the single largest weapons and ammo storage facility in all of Europe. But not any longer: The majority of the ammunition has by now been removed from Kolbasna under the supervision of OSCE, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. Military equipment which was unpractical to remove has undergone on-site destruction as per Moldovan demands that the "weapons dump of Transnistria" be removed. The U.S. State Department has recognized that the process of removal of ex-Soviet munitions and equipment has been carried out with efficiency since 2003.