Still the legacy remains with the people here about how prince Lubart built a dam on the Styr River, put a drawbridge to the Entrance Tower and gradually replaced the wooden fortifications with stone ones, adding chicken eggs in the mix (and this is a type of construction reputed to last forever).

In 1392, Lutsk was transferred to Lithuanian Prince Vytautas the Great. In January of 1429 he invited European monarchs from 15 states to Lutsk. The Holy Roman (and German) Emperor Sigismund, Danish King Eric IV, Polish monarch Władysław II Jagiełło, the Grand Masters of the Teutonic and Livonian orders, a legate of Pope Martin V, Vasili II, Grand Prince of Moscow, an ambassador of the Byzantine Emperor Palaeologus and other high and mighty leaders responded to this invitation. In total more than 15,000 guests came (members of royal families and servants not counted), while the population of Lutsk itself was only about 5,000 residents! A series of very important questions were raised at this “summit”, such as forming a coalition against the growing power of the Ottoman Empire (groundwork of the modern European Union!), equal rights for Catholic and Orthodox churches, and, among other things, the coronation of Vytautas. The Pope’s Nuncio was on his way to Lutsk with a diamond-covered crown for this occasion. But it disappeared somewhere on the way. Legend has it that it was cut in pieces and dispersed throughout Europe. Whatever the reason, Vytautas was never to become king. His cousin Jagiełło refused to acknowledge Vytautas as monarch despite the fact that his domain stretched from the Baltic region to the Black Sea.

Imagine the cost to organize such a summit! Just for the coronation banquet alone (also the birth of European diplomacy) 700 oxen, 1,400 rams, 100 buffaloes and elks were consumed, and nobody even tried to count all the geese and chickens. Seven hundred barrels of beer and honey drinks were consumed daily! It seems that in the Middle Ages the term ‘diet’ was completely unknown.