Zolochiv Castle, Renaissance castle in Zolochiv, Ukraine

Zolochiv Castle is a square fortress enclosed by earthen and stone ramparts with angular bastions at the corners. Inside stand the Great Palace, a two-storey building of 72 by 22 metres, and the Chinese Palace, a two-storey rotunda with one-storey wings. A round tower with a dome rises on the right side of the courtyard.

Jakub Sobieski, father of King Jan III Sobieski, funded the fortress in 1634 on the site of an older wooden castle, to a design by an unknown Italian architect. In 1672 the Turks under Kapudan Pasha took it after a six-day siege, and it withstood a second Ottoman siege three years later. From 1772 an Austrian garrison occupied it; from 1870 it served as a prison under successive Austrian, Russian, Polish and Soviet authorities, and in the Stalin period its cellars held an NKVD-MGB special prison where mass shootings took place. The prison was closed in 1954.

The Chinese Palace, added at the end of the 17th century for Jan III Sobieski's wife Marie, has housed the Museum of Oriental Cultures since 21 May 2004. Its five halls hold about 250 works from Egypt, Sumer, China, Japan, India, Indonesia, the Ottoman Empire and Persia, including a mummified falcon, fragments of Egyptian sarcophagi, 18th-century Japanese prints and Chinese lacquer. A tea room occupies the rotunda, and an oriental park with a gazebo surrounds the building.

The castle stands in Zolochiv, about 70 km east of Lviv, and is a branch of the Lviv Art Gallery. The gate tower, the Great Palace and the Chinese Palace form the Renaissance ensemble around the courtyard; the ravelin by the entrance now holds a restaurant and a souvenir shop. The Great Palace opened to visitors in August 2009.

The Chinese Palace began as an open gallery-rotunda with eight columns on its main facade and a balcony running around it; the one-storey side wings were added in the 18th century, when the building got its name. Reliefs above the doors and second-floor windows of the rotunda survive. Since 21 May 2004 it has housed the Museum of Oriental Cultures, with about 250 exhibits including a mummified falcon, fragments of Egyptian sarcophagi and 18th-century Japanese prints.