KREMENETS (

See also:

• POLISH

Polish, Krzemieniec)  , a town of south-west Russia, in the government of Volhynia, 130 M . W. of Zhitomir, and 25 M . E. of Brody railway station (Austrian Galicia) . Pop . (1900), 16,534 . It is situated in a gorge of the Kremenets Hills . The Jews, who are numerous, carry on a brisk trade in tobacco and grain exported to Galicia and Odessa . The picturesque ruins of an old castle on a crag close by the town are usually known as the castle of Queen Bona, i.e . Bona Sforza (wife of Sigismund I. of Poland); it was built, however, in the 8th or 9th century . The Mongols vainly besieged it in 1241 and 1255 . From that time Kremenets was under the dominion alternately of Lithuania and Poland, till 1648, when it was taken by the Zaporogian Cossacks .