SIBIU’S FORTIFICATIONS

One next to another, the old stronghold towers gather round the heart of the city like a girdle of unflinching sentries. “The Red
City” – that’s how they called Sibiu because of its red clay brick walls that kept the foes at bay. The fortifications watched over the whole history of Hermannstadt and these walls carry the city’s 823 years of attested history carved deep within them. By virtue of the privileged status and the prestige of the German residents who settled here, and also because of the permanent
invaders menace, Hermannstadt’s fortifications have evolved into a complex and inexpugnable defensive system.
A walk along the fortifications line will take you back in time, to the age of the far-famed guilds, fashionable gentlemen, bashful maidens and stern executioners of Large Square.
Only 10 towers of the original fortifications, the Passage of the Stairs, the Soldisch Bastion, the Haller Bastion, the exterior defense wall and the one in Cetăţii Street have survived to this day. Next to their military role, the towers also served as headquarters and storehouses attended by the guilds of old Hermannstadt, which was a renowned craft centre, auspiciously placed on the axis that connected Western Europe to the Balkans and Constantinople. Today, the the towers of Sibiu are still telling the story
of a thriving and dynamic city, shrouded in charming myth and legend.
Our medieval journey begins in the 13th century, when the first precinct of fortifications was erected around Huet Square. A remnant of that age is The Stairs’ Tower, considered to be the oldest construction preserved in Sibiu. The second defensive precinct surrounds the actual Small Square. Because of the Turkish and Tartars’ assaults, over the next centuries the third (14th century) and then the fourth (15th
century) precinct of fortifications had to be built, in order to protect the Upper and the Lower Town, residential areas at that time. Like a real fortress, the city was protected
by a wetland belt of ponds, channels and floodgates that allowed the controlled flooding of the surroundings.