Arabat fortress

Fort Arabat, 1840s, 1856 album, London . Artist Carlo Bossoli , 1815-1884.

The Ottoman traveler Evliya Celebi , describing Tauris , writes about Arabat as a fortress that was supposed to block the Russian rati , Cossacks , Poles and Kalmyks from the way to Crimea.

However, in 1668, the Cossacks under the command of the kosher Ivan Horn took Arabat by storm and destroyed everyone who was there .

In 1737, a regiment of Cossacks, commanded by Colonel Onisim Bily, led Russian troops through Sivash during a drop in water levels due to a wind drive and helped to capture the fortress .

The Sytin Military Encyclopedia says that, in 1737, during the Crimean campaign, Field Marshal Count Lassi with 40,000 army did not attack the Arabat Fortress, but built a bridge in the middle of the Arabat Spit , against the mouth of the Salgir River , unhinderedly invaded the peninsula and made large devastation for the enemy ^[4] , defeating the khan's army in two battles on June 12 and 14.

In 1771, Arabat fell again, unable to withstand the assault of the Russian army under the command of V. M. Dolgorukov , a detachment of Prince Shcherbatov ^[5] , consisting of one infantry regiment, two grenadier companies , 100 rangers and 1,500 Cossacks , crossed on June 13th through Genichesky having spilled 50 fathoms to the Arabat Spit over the bridge from boats delivered from the fleet , then, moving further along the spit 100 versts and making a transition to 44 versts on June 17, approached Arabat in the evening and, despite such a large transition, made an attack at night and took possession of the fortress by storm ^[6] on June 18, capturing from buddies 6 banners , 50 guns and a Tatar camp surrounded by trenches ^[7] .

The German scientist - the encyclopedist P, S. Pallas , who was the first to describe this fortress, described it with 7 bastions , and he was obviously mistaken, considering that the bastion ledge, for the bastions, was also over the gate tower and redan , but in fact there were 5 of them ^[8] .

After the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire, there was a garrison in the fortress, which during the Crimean War did not allow the enemy landing on the Arabatsky arrow . In the spring of 1855, in order to protect the route of communication of the Crimean army , with the internal regions of the empire, along the Arabat spit, the dilapidated fortress of Arabat was put into defensive position, its garrison was strengthened to two battalions , and fortress armament to 17 guns, in another source - 4 battalion with 8 guns ^[9] . As soon as these measures were carried out, the enemy squadron , including 13 pennants, approached Arabat and opened fire on it, but after a 3-hour unsuccessful cannonade left.

In 1856, Arabat was deprived of urban status.

• S. D. Burnashev

• The Arabat Spit or Arrow // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• The Arabat Spit // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.
• Kerch // Military Encyclopedia : [in 18 vol.] / Ed. V.F. Novitsky [et al.]. - SPb. ; [ M. ]: Type. t-va I. D. Sytin , 1911-1915.
• Scherbatov, Fedor Fedorovich // Russian Biographical Dictionary : in 25 volumes. - SPb. - M. , 1896-1918.
• Arabat arrow, Geographical and statistical dictionary of the Russian Empire P.P. Semenov.
• Evarnitsky D.I. Ivan Dmitrievich Sirko, glorious ataman of the army of Zaporizhzhya lower Cossacks. - SPb. : Type of. I.N. Skorokhodova, 1894.
• Evlia Celebi . Evlia Celebi Travel Book. Trekking with the Tatars and traveling around the Crimea (1641-1667) . - Simferopol: Tavria , 1996 .-- 240 p.
• V.N. Korolev , Sea raids of the Cossacks in the eastern Crimea. “Don Archeology”, No. 3, No. 4, 1999.
• Yu. V. Krikun , Monuments of Crimean Tatar architecture (XIII - XX centuries). Simferopol, "Tauris", 2001.

• Natalya Yakimova, “1K”, “Arabat Fortress is an old fortress with a strange fate.”