KAMENETS PODOLSKIY or PODOLIAN KAME NETS, a town in the Ukrainian S.S.R., in 48° 43' N., 26° 35' E., on a high, rocky bluff of the Smotrich, a left hand tributary of the Dniester. It is on the Bessarabian frontier, opposite to the castle of Khotin. The town (Polish Kamieniec), is sharing in the indus trial development of the Ukraine and is the terminus of a branch railway from the north. In 1926 it had smelting works, makhorka tobacco factories and a brewing industry; there is a municipal electric plant. A Workers' Scientific institute has been established recently. Its history and the present variety of racial types reflect its border position. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, built in 1361, was used as a mosque by the Turks (1672-99). The Greek cathedral of John the Baptist dates from the i6th century, but up to 1798 belonged to the Basilian monas tery. Other buildings are the Orthodox Greek monastery of
the Trinity, and the Catholic Armenian church (founded, 1398), possessing a 14th century missal and an image of the Virgin Mary that saw the Mongol invasion of 1239-42. Kamenets was laid waste by the Mongol leader Batu in 1240. In 1434 it was made the chief town of the province of Podolia. In the 15th and i6th centuries it suffered frequently from the invasions of Tatars, Moldavians and Turks; and in 1672 the hetman of the Cossacks, Doroshenko, assisted by Sultan Mohammed IV. of Turkey, made himself master of the place. Restored to Poland by the peace of Karlowitz (1699), it passed with Podolia to Russia in 1795. Here the Turks were defeated by the Poles in 1633, and here 20 years later peace was concluded between the same antagonists.