Soroca Fortress is a 16th-century Moldovan fortress located in the Republic of Moldova, more precisely in the city of Soroca, the capital of the district of the same name. It is located in the middle of the city of Soroca, about 160 km north of Chisinau. In the medieval period, the Soroca fortress was part of a vast defensive system of Moldova, which included: 4 fortresses on the Dniester, 2 fortresses on the Danube and 3 fortresses in the north of the country. Thus, with a true "belt of stone fortresses", the borders of the country were protected.

Originally built of wood by the Moldavian King Stephen the Great in 1499, in front of the ford across the Dniester, it was rebuilt in stone by Petru Rareș in the mid-16th century.

Historical sources mention the construction of fortresses on the Dniester at fords, made of wood or stone, in whose seat were placed pârcălabi (an old Romanian word originating from German, i.e., from the term "burgmeister", meaning mayor) and great captains: Hotin, Soroca, Orhei, Tighina and Cetatea Albă. It is assumed that in Soroca, on the site of an old stopover mentioned by Genoese sources, Alciona ("blue" in Greek) or Polihromia ("colored" in Greek - the names are Byzantine) a fortress of wood and earth, a palanca or perhaps a posada was first erected in the first quarter of the 15th century, but with the first documentary mention under the name Soroca only on July 12, 1499, with its first pârcălab Coste.

On July 12, 1499, at the Royal Court in Hârlău, in the hall of the royal throne, the boyars of the Council of the Vodă attested the victory of Stephen the Great and the peace with the Polish king John Albert. Among the boyars of Wallachia were Toader and Negrilă, the Hotin starosts, Ieremia and Dragoș, the Neamț pârcălabi, Luca Arbore, the gatekeeper of Suceava, Ivancu and Alexe, the pârcălabi of Orhei and Coste, the pârcălabi of Soroca.

On September 14, 1499, Stephen the Great concluded a treaty of mutual aid with the Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexandru, where, as in the previous document, "pan Coste, starost of Soroca" is mentioned.

Due to the geological canyon it dug, the Dniester River has relatively steep banks up to Tighina and there are quite a few fords, which were the only entrances for the Tatar hordes that came to plunder the Moldavian settlements. If the fords at Hotin and Tighina were defended by the garrisons of the fortresses of the same name, the one at Soroca did not have, until the reign of Stephen the Great, a stone protection, but only wooden fortifications with earthen ramparts, which would also exist during the time of Bogdan the Blind.

The fortress has a circular shape, with four defense towers and a rectangular access tower.

This configuration makes it different from other Moldavian fortresses and gives the fortress a special historical and tourist value.

Its stone construction and massive fortifications were essential for defending the region from attacks by the Tatars and other invaders. After the erection of the powerful fortification, the city of Soroca began to grow in importance, having an administrative and commercial function through the customs post installed here. At the same time, by fortifying the urban core of Soroca, an attempt was made to create a new center of gravity for the Moldavian urban network and especially for transit trade, after the loss of the fortresses in southern Moldavia in 1484.

The fortress and the Soroca region, whose historical and geographical personality already appears to have been definitively established at the end of the 15th century, would result from the need to organize a political border in the middle course of the Dniester River on the Naslavcea – Vadu Rașcului section, of a commercial circulation under the protection of the Soroca Fortress, of an economic life of the Soroca region from whose economic activity the population of the region derived its existence.

On June 1, 1512, Prince Bogdan III addressed a letter to the Polish king, in which he asked to be given possession of some mills on the Dniester River, located opposite "castrum nostrum Sorocianum... contra paganos tutelam habet" - our Soroca castle, which protects us from the pagans, a document that confirms the existence and purpose of the Soroca Fortress.

Between 1543-1546, during the reign of Petru Rares, the fortress was rebuilt from a stone foundation, as we see it today, that is, a round one with a diameter of 37.5 m and five bastions equally spaced apart. The craftsmen based their calculations on the supreme law of harmony, the "golden section", which makes the fortress unique among the examples of defensive architecture in Europe.

Soroca Fortress is also known as the place where the Moldavian armies under the leadership of the famous statesman Dimitrie Cantemir and the Russian armies led by Tsar Peter I met during the Prut campaign against the Turkish soldiers in 1711.