Description of the attraction
Venden Castle is the largest and best preserved of the other medieval order castles on the territory of Latvia. It is located in the center of the city of Cesis, which went down in history under the German name Wenden. Wenden was founded a little later after the castle of the same name, probably by the Vendians (or Wends), as the name indicates. The castle was created on the site of a wooden fortress of this people.
The Wenden Castle was built in a place of great strategic importance. Here trade routes converged to Pskov, Dorpat, Lithuania. Later, it became part of the fortification system of the Gauja Corridor, protecting lands in Estonia and northern Latvia.
In 1206, the knights of the Order of the Swordsmen, under the leadership of Master Venno (Vinno) von Rohrbach, began the construction of a stone castle. The construction was completed in 3 years. The year of the beginning of the creation of the castle is regarded as the year of the founding of the city of Cesis.
After the Battle of Saul in 1236, part of the defeated Order of the Swordsmen entered the Teutonic Order and formed the Livonian Order as an offshoot of the Teutonic Order.
From the beginning of 1237, for many years, the Venden Castle was the residence of the Master of the Livonian Order, but with some interruptions, since about half of the time the residence was located in Riga. From the original appearance of the castle, the remains of a one-nave chapel in the eastern part of the castle and fragments of architectural details made of white stone of the late Romanesque type have been preserved. Usually, about 30 knights lived in the castle. Their families and mercenaries were located nearby.
The castle was rebuilt in the late 14th - early 15th centuries. From it survived two buildings, connected at right angles, located in the southwest and southeast, and two tiers of the main western tower. Not far from it was the entrance to the courtyard, as well as fragments of the outer arched gallery. The walls were built of limestone and boulders. Apparently, the windows in the castle were decorated with beautiful bindings of white stone.
At the end of the 15th - beginning of the 16th centuries, when Master Walter von Pletenberg ruled, two round towers for artillery with walls more than four meters thick were built, and a network of forburgs was organized.
The Wenden castle has undergone many shelling and withstood a lot of sieges. In 1577, the troops of Ivan the Terrible almost destroyed it. And in 1748 the castle burned down during the city fire. In 1777, the family of Baron Sievers bought the land and rebuilt the castle, turning it into a Gothic palace. After the independence of Latvia, the Venden Castle was restored.
Currently, work is underway to restore the Vendens Castle in Cesis. The western tower, which houses the master's hall, is in good condition. The Lademaer tower, outbuildings and the east tower look good. It contains a refectory - remter, in which the knights dined.
For walking around the castle, tourists are given a flashlight, and what is very interesting - a medieval helmet in order to give a special flavor and in order to protect themselves from blows in dark corridors on jambs and on narrow spiral staircases. In the basement is the castle's prison, which can also be visited.
An interesting fact is that the writer A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, a Decembrist, created a novel about the Wenden Castle and its noble owner - “Wenden Castle. An excerpt from the diary of a guard officer. May 23, 1821 "(this is one of his four" Livonian novels ").
The Venden Castle in Cesis is a unique attraction as it is the largest and best preserved medieval castle in Latvia.
