Genoese fortress description and photo - Crimea: Sudak (Topic)

Genoese fortress description and photos - Crimea: Sudak. Detailed information about the attraction. Description, photos and a map showing the nearest significant objects.

Photo and description

The Genoese fortress in Sudak is a monument of medieval architecture of world importance, it is the only Genoese citadel that has survived in the Crimea. This picturesque fortress, located on a cone-shaped mountain, is now a museum.

Byzantine Sugdeya

The fortress itself in these places existed long before the Genoese - at least from the 7th century. Here was the Byzantine city of Sugdeya - a crowded trade center, already protected by fortifications. There was a Byzantine customs office in the city.

The inhabitants of the city themselves erected its foundation by the 3rd century AD. e. Indeed, during archaeological excavations, a altar of Poseidon was found on the shore. Apparently, there really was some kind of fishing village, port and temple, but little has survived from these times. Sugdeya was also a large Christian center; it had its own bishop. One of the Sugdean bishops is Stephen, who lived in the 8th century. e., canonized and is now considered the heavenly patron of the city - Stefan of Surozh .

Since the 11th century, the city ceases to be considered Byzantine - it pays tribute to the Polovtsy. Polovtsy in response are ready to defend it - for example, at the beginning of the XIII century, a battle of the Polovtsians with the Seljuq Turks took place near the city walls. In 1239 Sugdeya was captured by the troops of Batu and became part of the Golden Horde . But the Venetians controlled these places until at the beginning of the XIV century they were expelled from the city, and their fortifications were destroyed. Soon after, taking advantage of the Horde's internal turmoil, Genoese come here.

Genoese

Genoese the republic was one of the most powerful states in the Mediterranean in the XIII-XV centuries. A huge fleet, established trade relations - all this only strengthened her power. Genoese merchants supplied the whole of Europe with money and expanded their possessions at the expense of the Mediterranean islands, and from a certain time began to take over the northern Black Sea region.

In the middle of the XIII century, the Genoese received, under a treaty with Byzantium, advantages in trade in the Black Sea. They begin to trade through the Crimea with the Golden Horde. They found their colony in Cafe (this is modern Feodosia). In the XIV century, they occupied Balaklava, having won it from the Greeks. They called her in Italian - Cembalo. The Genoese colony of Vosporo existed near modern Kerch. In 1365 they captured Sudgeya - modern Sudak. Soon these seizures were officially recognized by the Golden Horde. Part of the territory of the Southern Crimea around Sudak began to be called "Captaincy Gotia". The Genoese are gradually taking over the entire huge Crimean trade. This is honey, wax, wood, and above all - bread.

Crimea, as in ancient times, remains a Mediterranean breadbasket, the Byzantine Empire was rigidly dependent on grain supplies from Crimea - and therefore from Genoa. This continued until the 15th century and the Ottoman conquest. In 1473 the Crimean Khanate, to which these colonies formally subordinate, became part of the Ottoman Empire. The Genoese resist desperately, but are forced to surrender the city.

Fortress

The very first mention of the fortress in written sources is "Description of Tataria" (ie Crimea) by Martin Bronevsky , Polish diplomat and writer. He twice came to the Crimean Khan from Poland with the embassy of 1578-1580, in total he spent more than a year in the Crimea and wrote a book describing everything he saw.

The fortress was built in the 15th century on the site of the destroyed previous one. It had two lines of fortress walls. Some surrounded the citadel, while others surrounded the nearby territory and port. The outer walls have 15 towers. The walls themselves are up to two meters wide, the towers up to fifteen. The towers of the outer wall were named after the rulers-consuls under whom they were erected. This is evidenced by slabs with inscriptions preserved on some towers. Once the territory (it was called "the city of the Holy Cross") was lined with houses, warehouses and churches - now it is empty.

The inner citadel is a castle surrounded by four towers, itself with two towers, a courtyard and a free-standing keep. The citadel was called the castle of St. Elijah .

The famous traveler P. Pallas describes these places in more detail already at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries. By the end of the 18th century, when he comes here, Sudak is a small port city, and the fortress is almost completely abandoned. There is a small Russian garrison located in the barracks, built of fortress stones. Pallas first takes a trip to the south of Russia, the Caucasus and the Crimea - and makes a detailed description of it, and then completely settles in Sudak. He creates a school of viticulture here and is enthusiastically engaged in winemaking. Pallas is interested not so much in history as in geology - he describes in detail the gray sandstone and other rocks that he discovered in the vicinity and writes about their possible origin.

The Pallas Fortress also describes. It has only 10 towers (the rest at this time, apparently, are in ruins and completely overgrown). Describes, made in a beautiful Gothic font, on the surviving towers, and writes that many lovers of antiquities take plates with these inscriptions with them.

Mosque, church, museum

One of the most interesting structures of the fortress is the so-called "Temple with an arcade" , which now houses the exposition museum. The building has existed since at least the 13th century, and during this time it was radically rebuilt several times. Nobody knows what it was originally or whether it was a temple at all. Perhaps it was just a free-standing tower.

According to the most common version, at first it was a mosque built by the Seljuks. It is even accurately dated - 1222 - just when the Seljuks tried to recapture the city from the Polovtsians. It is believed that later it became an Orthodox church. The Genoese converted the temple from Orthodox to Catholic (according to another version, they used it not as a temple at all, but as a public building for meetings). And when the Turks seized the territory, they turned it into a Padishah-Jami Mosque .

After the establishment of Russian rule, the place changed again - now there was an Orthodox church of St. Matthew . By the arrival of Alexander I to the Crimea in 1818, an audit of all buildings was urgently carried out and everything that could be repaired was repaired. But this dilapidated church was not even repaired, it was simply closed.

In 1883, the building came in handy again. Now it was a Armenian church , which was closed already after the revolution - in 1924

Another surviving temple is the small church of St. Paraskeva . Its foundations also date from around the 13th century AD. Fragments of ancient frescoes were discovered here not so long ago. Now the church is active.

Fortress in the XIX - XXI centuries

In 1839 Vorontsov , the Novorossiysk governor and the actual "owner" of the Crimea, created a "society of history and antiquities" in Odessa. Members of the society were actively involved in the study of Crimea. In 1868, the ruins of the fortress were transferred to the management of the society and in fact became one of the first museums.

In the 1890s, a rather significant restoration of everything that survived under the onslaught of time took place. This is done by Alexander Lvovich Berthier-Delagarde , a member of the Society for History and Antiquities and one of the most prominent researchers of Crimea. He himself was engaged in excavations - in Chersonesos, in cave cities and here, he collected Crimean antiquities, wrote many works devoted to the Crimea. A. Berthier-Delagarde carried out excavations and restoration at his own expense.

After the revolution, the fortress remained a museum , only several times passed from one department to another. The most significant part of its history is the restoration of the 60s. Since the 50s, excavations and research have been carried out, then the “Ukreprestavratsiya” institute began work. This was one of the highest quality and most thoughtful Soviet restorations of historical monuments. As a result, the original appearance of the fortress was reproduced surprisingly accurately, and what was not restored was mothballed to stop the destruction. The restoration was carried out under the guidance of an architect-restorer Elena Ivanovna Lopushinskaya .

Now it is the Museum-Reserve "Sudak Fortress" . In addition to the open area available for inspection, there is also a closed museum exposition. This is, first of all, an archaeological collection housed in four museum halls. She tells about the history of this place from the most ancient times, starting from the Crimean Paleolithic. The museum also runs an exhibition hall in Sudak itself.

Genoese fortress in cinema

This place is so picturesque and falls out of modern times that several historical films were filmed here:" The Gadfly "," The Odyssey of Captain Blood "," Primordial Russia ".

In the film adaptation of The Master and Margarita by Vladimir Bortko, the fortress played the role of Herod's palace, and the Sugar Mountain not far from it played the role of Golgotha. In the cordon of Golgotha, officers of the Sudak militia stood - they played the Roman legionnaires.

In 1981, the Kazakh film "Year of the Dragon" was filmed here, about the battles of the Uyrugs with the Chinese. It is the Sudak fortress that the Chinese troops storm in the final. A whole herd of horses was brought here from Moscow by train for filming.

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Topic: Genoese fortress description and photo - Crimea: Sudak.