Gulyay-gorod

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Gulyay-gorod, also guliai-gorod, gulay-gorod (Russian: гуляй-город, Гуляй-городок, literally: "wandering town"), was a mobile fortification used by the Russian army in the 16th and 17th centuries.

A gulyay-gorod was made of wooden walls with holes for guns installed on wheels or sleds. The gulyay-gorod was designed as a fortification in steppes, whose flat, void landscape provided no natural shelter. An early Western description of the gulyay-gorod was made by Giles Fletcher, the Elder, ambassador to Russia, in his Of the Russe Common Wealth.

A gulyay-gorod played the critical role during the Battle of Molodi (1572), which brought to a halt the expansion of the Crimean Khanate into the Russian lands. In Ukraine, a large gulyay-gorod was built at the behest of Bogdan Khmelnitsky for the siege of the castle of Zbarazh in 1649.

With the proliferation of firearms this kind of fortification fell into disuse. In a wider sense the Russian term has come to be applied to foreign mobile fortifications, such as wagon forts of Hussites.

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