The remnants of the forts of the Polish fortress Kodak are in a picturesque place on the high bank of the Dnipro in the village of Stari Kodaky.

In ancient times, the fortress Kodak, whose name consists of two Turkic words – "koi" (settlement) and "dag" (mountain), was so important in the fortification sense that it was called the key to Zaporizhzhya. The advantageous location and the traditional form for such structures allowed the Poles who built it to be fenced off from the Ukrainians. It is interesting that the construction of the fortress was led by the Frenchman: engineer with the last name – Boplan received for the construction an enormos sum of money at that time money – more than one hundred thousand Polish zlotys.

A little later, in 1635, Ataman Sulim with his army destroyed it, and in 4 years its restoration was started by a German engineer Hechtan. He increased the size

of the fortress in three times, built a church, monastery, strengthened the living premises for up to 600 soldiers, with the aim of protection from the Zaporizhian Cossacks in the first place, but it did go as planned. Bohdan Khmelnytsky in 1648 took over the fortress and turned it into a fort on the stronghold of Ukrainian troops. For a long time, the fortress Kodak had the very military significance, but in 1711 it was destroyed.

From that time a new history of the fortress began – it became the place where the Cossacks settled with their families, a cossacks village and the center of the Kodak palanka. At the moment, the fortress is left just in fragments, the remnants of the greatness of the fortification structure, but it is also a place that attracts its landscapes and atmosphere.