The witness of the fall of the last Macedonian tsar. This place has existed since the establishment of the city, in early ancient times. However, the first evidence for its existence comes from the 11th century, when the Byzantine emperor Basil II issued the order that the walls around Strumica were to be burned to the ground.
The fortress tells a tale that Strumica was not a province but a big center throughout many ages. It witnessed the fall of the Macedonian Slavic tsar Samuel, whose soldiers not only suffered defeat from the Byzantine troops on the mountain Belasica but were also blinded as an act of revenge.
The fortress, which, according to the Byzantine 14th-century writer Nicephorus, “rises above the clouds,” probably had 4 towers on the north and one round tower on the southern entrance. Today, the most preserved tower is the one in the interior of the fortress, the hexagonally shaped one, and made of walls 4 meters thick. Some projects strive to fully restore this fortress and make it a tourist attraction.
