Sevastopol city history
The hero city of Sevastopol(aka Sebastopol) is situated on the Black Sea coast of the Crimean peninsular.Its population is 388.5 thousand people who are proud of the city's history and beauty. The name of Sevastopol is of Greek origin and means "city of glory, majestic, worthy of worship". Founded in 1783, it has since justified its name.
The territory of Sevastopol was settled at the beginning of the first
millennium BC.
The remains of Tauri fortifications confirm the first settlements
of these sea-shore pirates appeared here on 9th century BC.
The first Greek cities were founded on the north coast of the Black Sea in the 7th-6th centuries. One of them was Chersonesus (aka Chersoness, Khersoness, Kherson, Chersonese, Chersonessus), which appeared in the 5th century BC. Medieval Chersonessus or Kherson as it was called at that time was the chief Byzantine bastion in the Crimea until the 13th century and being under the influence of Byzantium, remained a political, economic and cultural center on the north coast of the Black Sea for many centuries. Another Greek settlement existed on the territory of Present Sevastopol. Its name was Symbolon-Limne. It appeared in ancient times at the place of a Tauri settlement and was located to the south of Chersonessus.
It formed a part of the polis and was connected with the city
for 1,500 years.
Now it is the town of
Balaklava
, situated in the
administrative territory of Sevastopol.
In the 13th century Byzantium started to decline and the polis withstood numerous Tatar assaults, but could not survive all of them. In the last decade of the 14th century the Tatar Khan Edighey put the Crimean towns to the sword and burnt them to the ground. Kherson was left in ruins.
In 1350, according to an agreement with the Byzantine emperor, the ruined city of Chersonessus was given to Italians from Genoa together with the Greek settlement in present Balaklava.
At that time Crimean peninsula found itself at the center of important trade routs and the Genoese that came there to take up mediatory trade earned much money.
Then the Turks took over this area and till the victory of Russian troops
in Russian-Turkish war 1768-1774 there was a Crimean Khanate under the
rule of Guirey dynasty.
In 1783 Khan Guirey abdicated from the Crimean Throne and the Crimean peninsular started to be joined up with Russia. On June 3, 1783 on the western shore of the bay named Southern the first stone constructions of the future city were laid. This day is considered to be the birthday of Sevastopol. It was built by the sailors at first, later by serfs s ent to Sevastopol from different parts of Russia.
The name of the future city was given by the Russian Empress Catherine II.
First she decided to name it Kherson in the memory of ancient Chersonessus
and it was decided to give a name of Sevastopol to another city,
laid in the mouth of the Dniper River. The first Russian ships were being
laid there at that time. But the envelopes with Catherine's decrees were
mixed up and sent in the wrong directions, so the supposed Sevastopol
became Kherson and the future Kherson was named Sevastopol.
On learning the mistake the Empress changed nothing.
Having been found as the base of the Navy, the city of Sevastopol connected its destiny with the Navy for ever. So the Navy determined its appearance, biography and those severe sufferings that made Sevastopol world know. The history of the city is for ever connected with the names of Admiral F. Ushakov, who was the Commander-in Chief of the Black Sea Navy, and the ports, Admiral M. Lazarev, a military Governor of Sevastopol. Admiral Lazarev created a special school that trained officers for the Black Sea Navy. He paid a lot of attention to the city and its development.
Admiral Lazarev brought up whole galaxy of outstanding Russian officers,
future heroes of the Synop battle and the first defense of Sevastopol
during
the Crimean War 1854-1855.
They were Admirals
P. Nakhimov,
V. Kornilov,
and V. Istomin. The defense lasted for 349 days,
during which the inhabitants of Sevastopol did not yield, holding
in check the advance of the numerous enemy troops and demonstrating
the examples of courage, heroism and inflexible will.
The war was lost and under the Paris Peace Treaty Sevastopol was returned
to Russia in exchange for the fortress of Kars, which returned to Turkey.
For 20 years Sevastopol laid in ruins, but after the point of the Paris
Peace Treaty concerning Russian Navy was cancelled and the railway
connected the base of the Black Sea Navy with the center of the
country in 1875, the city began to rise from ashes.
The February bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1917 and the overthrow of the tsar became known to the population of Sevastopol only in March and the Soviet power established in Sevastopol on December 29 1917, but it did not last long. The German troops took the Crimean peninsular and Sevastopol. Until 1920 Sevastopol was under interventionists, then the White Guard of General Denikin, the general Wrangler established a military dictatorship in the Crimea and then the Southern front under M. Frunze took Sevastopol.
Once agein peaceful life of Sevastopol was interrupted on June 22, 1941. Great Patriotic War began. Some hours before war was declared Sevastopol had been bombed. The advance of Hitler troops on Sevastopol started on October 30, 1941. For 250 days and nights the enemy was unable to even approach the city. Sevastopol was liberated from the invaders on May 9, 1944.
By the beginning of 1957 the city was practically restored from the zero level. It was a real labor exploit as far as after the liberation there were hardly 10 buildings uninjured during the war. Historical and architectural monuments were restored from the ruins; new blocks of buildings and districts were built. Therefore Sevastopol looks so young.
In 1954 Sevastopol together with the Crimea was given under the power of Ukraine. The collapse of the USSR was especially painful for Sevastopol as it has always been referred to as a Russian city and most of the population is Russians.
Nowadays Sevastopol as well as Kiev is under the administrative power of the State of Ukraine. But it still remains the main base of the Black Sea Fleet of Russian Federation.
The crash of the military industry negatively affected the economy of Sevastopol. Quite recently Ukrainian government has started to invest in the city as in the future tourist center.
A famous airport Belbek was opened for civil flights, a new by pass highway over Inkerman was built. A city is becoming a center of extreme tourism, including mountain biking, mountaineering, speleology, gliding; war and historical excursions, sea voyages. The city citizens give their numerous holiday homes for rent at a quite high level of comfort, not to say about a big number of resort houses around Sevastopol.
In the last years the number of tourists coming to Sevastopol increased considerably. Earlier it was rather difficult to come here. Sevastopol was a closed city because it was the base of the Navy and one had to get a special permission to get into Sevastopol. In 1996 it was opened finally and became of special interest to tourists from both CIS and foreign countries.
Among the other branches of economy, agriculture is in good condition. Local canned fish, sausages confectionery are also very good.
High Quality wines are produces in Sevastopol region. The Balaklava wine-making plant named "Zolotaya Balka" and Inkerman vintage wine winery are world-known.
Sevastopol is also a serious scientific center. The city is the center if international oceanography. The Institute of Marine Hydrophisics is the only research institute in the CIS, occupied with the studying of the Ocean's physics.
The institute of biology of Southern Seas is the only oldest one of it's kind on the territory of the CIS. It is also supporting the Sevastopol(Sebastopol) Aquarium-Museum, one of the most attractive sites of Sevastopol.
There are several high educational establishments in the city - Sevastopol National Technical University, Naval institute that trains officers for the Ukrainian Navy, the institute of Nuclear Energy and Industry which trains specialists to work at nuclear power stations, the department of Moscow State University.
Sevastopol Home page
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More Crimea, Ukraine: | Ai-Petri Mountain || Vorontsov's Palace(Castle) in Alupka || Bakhchisaray(Bakhchisarai,Bakhchisarai), and Fountain of Tears || Balaklava(Balaclava) || Chersoness (Chersoness, Khersoness, Kherson, Chersonese), ancient city || Evpatoria(Kirkinitida, Gizlyar, Gezlev, Yevpatoriya, Eupatoria, Gozlow, Kozlov) || Laspi Bay || Livadia Palace and Organ || Massandra Palace near Yalta || Nikitsky Botanical Gardens || Simferopol, capital city of the Crimean Republic || Yalta |
Other Localities: |Gomel, Belarus |Minsk, Belarus |Kiev, Ukraine |Poltava, Ukraine |Odessa(Odesa), Ukraine |
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