Chrysoveri, Aristide Fedorovich

Aristide Chrisoveri was born in 1812, in the Black Sea city of Messemvria ^[1] in a Greek family. In his youth he emigrated to Russia. Educated at the Greek Trading School of Odessa .

In 1828, Russia declared war on Turkey , while bloody hostilities continued for 7 years in Greece, which was seized by the liberation struggle. Aristide dropped out of school and joined the ranks of the rebels. Later, Chrysoveri continued to serve in the Greek Royal Army and by the end of the 1840s had the rank of lieutenant.

With the beginning of the Crimean War , Chrisoveri appeared in Bucharest at the beginning of 1854, and with the help of a Russian naval officer he knew, Greek Ioannis Vlasopulo, met with the commander of the Russian Danube Army, General M. D. Gorchakov . Chryseri suggested that he create a separate detachment of Greek volunteers. By order of Gorchakov, Chrisoveri was sent to the Special Detachment of General A.K. Ushakov , who acted on the lower Danube. It is noteworthy that the Greek volunteers and Chrisoveri himself ^[2] were not dressed in Russian military uniforms, but wore the Greek Kleft fustannela, like the rebels of the Greek Liberation War of 1821-1829 ^[3] .

In the summer of 1854, in Sulinsky girle , Chrysoveri, with the rank of captain and at the head of 25 Greek volunteers, took the battle against the British landing of 700 people. During this battle, the British lost 6 officers and 72 privates, including aristocrat Richard Hyde Parker IV, killed, which caused a hearing in the British Parliament ^[4] .

By the beginning of 1855, the Greek Legion, numbering about 800 volunteers, was transferred to the Crimea . During the storming of Yevpatoriya on February 5, 1855, the legion lost several dozen people dead, 30 wounded, including the commanders Chryseri and Stamati. The latter later died of his wounds.

After Evpatoria, the Greek Legion took part in the defense of Sevastopol , as part of the garrison from March 1 to August 27, 1855.

After the Russian troops left Sevastopol, the legion held the defenses on the Inkerman and Mekenziev heights, participated in sorties, and in the battle on the Black River on August 6 (16), 1855, a legion of 500 people fought in the left convoy of troops under the command of Lieutenant General Belgarde and participated in the assault on the Telegraph Mountain. Among the distinguished command noted volunteers: the commander of the 4th company, Anton Gini, Major Aristide Chrisoveri and others ^[5] .

After the war, Aristide Chrisoveri remained in Russia and in 1864, as a retired colonel, he petitioned the Russian authorities to build a monument to the Greeks who fell in the Crimean War. The design of the monument was not, however, implemented ^[6] . However, in the middle of summer 2016, a monument to the Greek Legion was erected according to a 19th-century project in Sevastopol on Historical Boulevard near a mini-terrarium with animals.