Cape Arkona | cape (geography), interesting place

 cape (geography), interesting place

Arkona was a fortress-city and the religious center of Rujani, the West Slavic tribe, one of the Polabian Slavic tribes. Arkona existed till XII century and was located on Cape Arkona in Rügen island also known as Ruyan or Buyan in local Slavic languages.

Due to it's location on the near-impregnable cliff in the north-eastern corner of the island it existed till 1168, in spite of numerous attempts to destroy it made by the crusading forces of the rulers of Denmark. A magnificent temple of Svetovid, one of the Slavic gods was located in the fortress. Historical descriptions of the exterior of the temple supply a large number of details. Also a number of small sculptures of Svetovid have been found during archeological digs on the mainland around Rügen.
The temple was visited by thousands of pilgrims annually, which provoked the militantly Christian rulers of the surrounding lands. During last decades of it's existence the city was home to Varangians which used it as a base for their piracy operations, preying on passing Swedish, German and Danish ships. They also permanently modernized and improved defense of the fortress, and hence it existed far longer than most other Slavic settlements in the area.

In 1168, Valdemar I, king of Denmark and the great-grandson of Russian grand prince Vladimir Monomach captured and rased Arkona fortress and forcibly baptized local population. After that a strange, virtually supernatural incident took place - the rocky part of the promontory where the fortress had been built slowly submerged into the Baltic Sea, hiding the ruins. Some local inhabitants believe that during some foggy nights the ghost city appears in the former place in it's old glory.