Sevastopol

Lore & Background

Sevastopol, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, and under the Ukrainian legal framework, it is administratively one of two cities with special status (the other being Kyiv). However, it has been occupied by Russia since 27 February 2014, before Russia annexed Crimea on 18 March 2014 and gave it the status of a federal city of Russia. Both Ukraine and Russia consider the city administratively separate from the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Republic of Crimea, respectively. The city's population has an ethnic Russian majority and a substantial minority of Ukrainians. Sevastopol's unique naval and maritime features have been the basis for a robust economy. The city enjoys mild winters and moderately warm summers, characteristics that help make it a popular seaside resort and tourist destination, mainly for visitors from the former Soviet republics. The city is also an important centre for marine biology research. In particular, the military has studied and trained dolphins in the city for military use since the 1960s.

In Their Own Story

The air was thin and cold as Bond stepped onto the Sevastopol docking bay. Emergency lights flickered across the metal grates, casting long shadows that danced like specters. A distant alarm blared, muffled by the vacuum of space, its echo swallowed by the endless dark. Somewhere above, in the station's nerve center, a rogue agent was preparing to launch a devastating attack—a single keystroke away from raining fire on the world below. Bond moved silently through the corridors, past abandoned research labs where monitors still flickered with half-finished equations and forgotten coffee mugs sat on cluttered desks. Each step brought him closer to the heart of the conspiracy, the creak of metal and hum of failing systems his only companions.

Reader's Guide

Sevastopol was founded in June 1783, in the area of the ancient but ruined and abandoned Greek city of Chersonesus, as a base for a naval squadron under the name Akhtiar (White Cliff), by Rear Admiral Thomas MacKenzie, a native Scot in Russian service; soon after, the Russian Empire annexed the Crimean Khanate. Five years earlier, Alexander Suvorov had ordered that earthworks be erected along the harbour and Russian troops be placed there. The Crimean Tatar version of this name is now written Aqyar. In February 1784, Catherine the Great ordered Grigory Potyomkin to build a fortress there and call it Sevastopol. The realisation of the initial building plans fell to Captain Fyodor Ushakov who in 1788 was named commander of the port and of the Black Sea squadron. The city was established on the western shore of Southern Bay which branches away from the bigger Sevastopol Bay. The ruins of ancient Chersonesus were situated to the west. The newly built settlement became an important naval base and later a commercial seaport. In 1797, under an edict issued by Emperor Paul I, the military stronghold was again renamed Akhtiar. Finally, on 29 April (10 May), 1826, the Senate returned the city's name to Sevastopol. In 1803 to 1864 along with Mykolaiv the city was part of Nikolayev–Sevastopol Military Governorate. The town had 3,000 inhabitants by the 1840s. From 1853 to 1856, the Crimean peninsula's strategic position in controlling the Black Sea caused it to be the site of the principal engagements of the Crimean War, where Russia lost to a French-led alliance. After a minor skirmish at Köstence (now Constanța), the allied commanders decided to attack Sevastopol as Russia's main naval base in the Black Sea. After extended preparations, allied forces landed on the peninsula in September 1854 and marched to a point south of Sevastopol after winning the Battle of the Alma on 20 September. The Russians counterattacked on 25 October in what became the Battle of Balaclava and were repulsed, but the British Army's forces were seriously depleted as a result. A second Russian counterattack, at Inkerman in November, ended in a stalemate as well. The front settled into the siege of Sevastopol, involving brutal conditions for troops on both sides. Sevastopol finally fell after eleven months, after the French had assaulted Fort Malakoff. Isolated and facing a bleak prospect of inv

Did You Know?

• The name Sevastopol is a compound of the Greek adjective 'sebastos' (venerable) and 'polis' (city).
• The city was probably named after Empress Catherine II, who founded Sevastopol in 1783.
• In the west of the city, there are well-preserved ruins of the ancient Greek port city of Chersonesos, founded in the 5th century BC.
• During the Crimean War, the siege of Sevastopol lasted eleven months before the city fell.
• Sevastopol was awarded the Hero City title in 1945 for its defense during World War II.