Fortress of Dmitry Rostov history. The mystery of the old fortress (what was the underground passage of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov). Modern excavations of the fortress structures

Fortress of Demetrius of Rostov

Stormy 18th century. Strengthened after the reforms of Peter I, Russia asserted its position as a great power in Europe. Throughout the century there were almost continuous wars - with Sweden, Turkey, Prussia, France.

Most often, Russia fought with Turkey. Therefore, the government paid special attention to strengthening the southern borders. It was decided to build a new fortress on the Don, which was supposed to play in the defense of the southern borders. important role.

The project of the fortress was discussed in the highest government institutions many times. One of the projects was submitted for approval in 1745 by Captain Sipyagin. However, both this project and the subsequent five were recognized as unsuitable and rejected. Then, by decree of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna, a special committee of the largest military engineers and artillery generals was created to review and approve the project.

When approving the final project, the committee proceeded from the fact that “as this fortress is from other places that could divide the enemy forces during the war, it is distant from them, and only one great part Russian borders and it must cover its insides, and even in such a place to build up where the enemy can bring heavy artillery and numerous shells, and for this it must be undeniably strengthened before the others with the abolition, ”since if it“ is taken by the enemy, then for lack of it behind it in the vicinity of reliable fortresses, the border will open completely.

The final project was approved in 1760.

For the construction of the fortress, a place was chosen on the high right bank of the Don, near the Temernitskaya customs house, in the Bogaty Well tract.

There is a legend telling that when Peter I went to Azov with his army in 1695, going down the Don, he stopped at the mouth of the Temernik River in order to repair his ships before the battle with the Turks. While the ships were being repaired, he got acquainted with the surroundings. Two and a half miles east of the mouth of Temernik, he saw a spring of pure and cold water. The spring beat with a strong jet and flowed down the beam to the Don.

They say that Peter, having quenched his thirst with spring water, said with delight: “A rich well!” Since then, allegedly, this place was called the tract "Rich Well".

Whether this was so or not is difficult to prove. But this name has firmly entered the geographical lexicon, and even in government documents of that time, the mouth of Temernik was called “The Bogaty Well Tract”.

It was in this place that it was decided to build a new fortress.

Since the situation on the southern border of Russia was very turbulent and a war with Turkey was brewing, the fortress began to be built according to a temporary project in order to shorten the period of work.

On April 6, 1761, by government decree, the fortress under construction was named after Dimitri of Rostov.

The son of the Ukrainian centurion Savva Grigoryevich Tuptalo, Daniil, was born in 1651 and was named Demetrius when he was tonsured a monk. He was an educated man, fluent in several languages, even wrote plays of a spiritual nature. All this singled out Demetrius among the clergy, and in 1702 he was appointed metropolitan to the ancient cities of Rostov and Yaroslavl. Demetrius died in 1709. After 43 years, in 1752, the churchmen "discovered" the supposedly incorruptible relics of Demetrius of Rostov and declared him a saint. This event was the reason for naming the new fortress after Dimitri of Rostov.

The ceremony of laying the foundation stone was held in a solemn atmosphere. The clergy from Voronezh, headed by the bishop, arrived at the celebrations, the officers of the fortress of St. Anna, headed by the commandant, officials of the Temernitsky customs, local trade nobility.

The celebration was accompanied by salutes from rifles and from 25 fortress cannons, as well as artillery salutes from foreign ships that stood that day in the Temernitsky port with flags raised. And at night, “amusing things were lit and released, like fiery fountains ... wheels ... rockets and the like. Moreover, all the living were illuminated in the windows.

The solemnity of the ceremony emphasized the importance of the new fortress.

The construction of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov was entrusted to one of the major military engineers of the Russian army, later to General Alexander Ivanovich Rigelman. The construction was carried out by the garrison of the Anninskaya fortress transferred here. In addition, 700 people from 10 Ukrainian regiments were sent annually to construction work.

In 1763 the construction of the fortress was basically completed.

What was the fortress of Demetrius of Rostov?

The Rostov Regional Museum of Local Lore exhibits the first plan of the fortress, drawn up in 1763, most likely by A. I. Rigelman. It can be seen from the plan that the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov occupied a territory that had a circumference of 1650 sazhens, or over 3.6 km, that is, more than all the other fortresses in the lower reaches of the Don: Taganrog, Cherkassy, ​​Anninskaya and Azovskaya. It was located in that part of modern Rostov, which is bounded from the north by Gorky Street, from the west by Chekhov Avenue, from the east by Nakhichevavsky Lane, from the south by Stanislavsky Street.

The fortress had the shape of a nine-pointed star. This original star-shaped form of the fortress made it possible to cover all the approaches to it with crossfire. Powerful redoubts were located at the tip of the beams: Donskoy, Troitsky, Alexander Nevsky, Paul, Peter, Elizabeth, Catherine, St. Andrew the First-Called and Anna. On the Don side, the walls did not close. There were two redans here ( Field fortification in the form of a protruding outward): "Donskoy" and "Troitsky", and in the middle - a bastion ( Pentagonal fortification in the form of a protrusion of the fortress wall) "Dimitri of Rostov". On the steep slopes to the Don, there were separate redoubts - "Aksaysky" and "Temernitsky", two half-bastions - "Cherkassky" and "Azov" and, finally, the redan "Bogaty" - at the source.

Two gates led to the fortress: the eastern - "Georgievsky" and the western - "Arkhangelsk", not counting the entrance from the Don.

Inside the fortress there were seven longitudinal and seven transverse streets. On the square where the picturesque Kirovsky Square is now located, there was a wooden Church of the Intercession, transferred here from the Anninsky fortress. Lane Zhuravlev therefore for a long time called Pokrovsky. To the west of the church stood the house of the commandant of the fortress and the building of the school of cantonists ( A soldier's son, attached from the day of birth to the military department and preparing for military service in a special lower military school ), and on the opposite side - prison.

Under the protection of the fortress walls were 28 officers' houses, 28 barracks, 7 food warehouses, 4 warehouses with military equipment, 7 powder magazines and many other structures. The houses of merchants and clerics, 27 shops, 4 taverns, 2 drinking houses were also built here.

The garrison of the fortress at the beginning of its construction consisted of four regiments, with a total number of about 5 thousand soldiers and officers, the Azov Cossack regiment of 465 people, artillery and engineering teams of 381 people.

Built on the high right bank of the Don, surrounded by high earthen ramparts, deep ditches, redoubts and bastions, in which cannon muzzles looked in all directions, the fortress was a formidable force and could withstand more than one enemy onslaught.

But the circumstances developed in such a way that since its foundation, the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov had never been subjected to enemy attacks.

Five years after the completion of construction, the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774 broke out. Turkish troops, as well as the Tatar hordes of the Crimean Khan - a vassal of Turkey - attacked the Russian and Ukrainian lands. The Kuban hordes of Nogais also rose, threatening the lower reaches of the Don.

The main military actions that decided the outcome of the war in favor of Russia were carried out mainly in the Crimea and on the Danube. As for the Don and Azov regions, the Turks and their allies were expelled from here in the very first months of the war, and already in the spring of 1769, Russian troops occupied Azov and Taganrog. The fortress of Dimitry of Rostov in this war served as a support base for Russian troops operating in the Azov region and in the Kuban.

When, in the 80s, Crimea, as well as the Zadonsk and Kuban steppes, were finally annexed to Russia, the fortress of Dimitri of Rostov turned out to be at a considerable distance from the new Russian-Turkish border, which now passed along the Kuban River. In this regard, the fortress, of course, to some extent lost its original significance as an outpost and in 1797 was downgraded. The tsarist government did not dare to liquidate it, since it was still needed for the connection of the Russian troops stationed in the Kuban and Georgia with the interior regions of Russia. In addition, the tsarist government kept this fortress as a base for monitoring the Don Cossacks.

Made up of fugitive peasants fleeing serfdom and looking for a free life on the steppe outskirts of Russia, the Don Cossacks in the eyes of the ruling landlord class have always been considered a "dangerous element". The government did not trust the Don Cossacks and sought to keep them in fear and obedience.

And although the noble Empress Catherine II favored the “loyal and famous Don Army” for his military merits with banners and bunchuks ( Pony tail on a staff as a sign of power (Cossack ataman, hetman, pasha)), but at the same time systematically destroyed the remnants of his former "liberties". This caused unrest, which was exacerbated by social contradictions within the Cossacks. On the Don, according to a contemporary, "the rich and strong lived to excess at the expense of public property," and the mass of the working Cossacks was "oppressed by poverty."

When, after the border moved to the Kuban and further to the Caucasus, Russian landowners appeared on the Don and began to take over the fertile Don and Azov lands, the class struggle on the Don became even more aggravated.

That is why the tsarist government kept the fortress of Demetrius of Rostov even after it had lost its military-strategic significance. The well-known Russian academician Pallas, who visited this fortress in 1793, emphasized that the government "takes great care in maintaining this place, which is very important in order to keep the Don Cossacks in fear."

The fortress of Dimitry of Rostov had outposts ( suburb, suburb) - Soldier and Dolomanovsky. The population of the Soldiers' suburb consisted mainly of retired soldiers, people of "different ranks" and a small number of Russian and Greek merchants. Dolomanovsky suburb was inhabited by the Cossacks of the Azov regiment and a detachment of Kalmyks.

The forstadts stretched in a narrow strip along the Don, to the west of the fortress. Within the limits of modern Rostov, the Soldatsky suburb occupied the territory bounded by Voroshilovsky and Budennovsky avenues and Shaumyan street, Dolomanovsky - Budennovsky avenue and Dolomanovsky lane.

To the east of the fortress, upstream of the Don, there was a large Armenian village of Nakhichevan, founded in 1779 by Armenian settlers from the Crimea.

After the expulsion of the Turks from the berets Sea of ​​Azov on the Don and, in particular, in the suburbs of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov, trade and craft began to develop rapidly. The population of the suburbs increased, which at the beginning of the 19th century merged into a small county town. In 1811, Emperor Alexander I approved the plan and coat of arms of this city, named Rostov-on-Don.

What is the future fate of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov? In 1835, the garrison, guns and military materials were transferred to Anapa, where the guns of the Rostov fortress are still preserved. For a long time the ramparts towered in the eastern part of Rostov and only in the 60s of the last century were torn down. The rapidly growing city quickly swallowed up the territory former fortress Dimitri Rostovsky.

In honor of the 260th anniversary of Rostov-on-Don, at the crossroads of Bolshaya Sadovaya Street and Krepostnoy Lane, a monument "To the Founders of the Dimitry of Rostov Fortress" was unveiled. According to the results of the city competition, the honorary right to create this monument went to the sculptor S. Oleshna and the architect V. Fomenko. By the way, this team also had a chance to work on the creation of a monument to Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, located in Pokrovsky Square.

The monument is a massive five-ton sculptural composition, consisting of five figures and cast in bronze. It captures the moment of discussion of the plan for the construction of the future fortress, from which the history of Rostov-on-Don began. Participating in this discussion at the behest of the sculptor are military engineer, builder of the fortress Alexander Rigelman, brigadier general and first commandant of the fortress Ivan Somov, commander of the Don army, Privy Councilor, Major General Danila Efremov, as well as his adjutant or messenger, the faithful guardian of the fortress - the Dolomanov Cossack, who always faithfully served the fatherland and the Moscow merchant and customs administrator Captain Vasily Khastatov.

Indeed, the significance of this border fortress can hardly be overestimated. It was she who, in the difficult period for the country of the Russian-Turkish wars, played the most important role, protecting the lower reaches of the Don from enemy raids. The construction of this important strategic point began on September 23, 1761. The hard work of its construction was headed by engineer-captain Alexander Rigelman, an experienced fortifier who immediately began to create a large number of objects: an earthen rampart, living quarters for officers and barracks. About five and a half thousand people were involved in the work: soldiers of four infantry battalions, Cossacks of the Azov Cossack regiment, working people and convicts. The fortress was built by the beginning of 1763, despite all the hardships and difficulties that its builders had to overcome.

This structure had the shape of a nine-pointed star, not closed, but open from the side of the Don. In the corners of the fortress there were redoubts named after saints revered in Russia: Alexander Nevsky, the Apostles Paul and Peter, St. Andrew the First-Called. The stubborn point itself was named after the miracle worker - St. Demetrius of Rostov.

Thus, it is from this place that the glorious history of the city begins, which today has turned into a million-strong metropolis. Now every resident of the Don capital can look at these pioneer builders, to whom we owe the appearance of Rostov-on-Don.

Bibliography

1. Vladimirov, A. The founders of the city will be immortalized in bronze / A. Vladimirov / / Rostov official. - 2008. - June 28. - P. 2.
2. Goryavin, V. The names of the first builders of Rostov will be immortalized in five tons of bronze / V. Goryavin / / Evening Rostov. - 2009. - June 26.
3. Kaminskaya, M. "Object number one" / M. Kaminskaya / / Our time. - September 18 - P. 7.
4. Nekrasov, E. Who exactly is considered the founder of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov? / E. Nekrasov / / Evening Rostov. - 2009. - August 28. - P. 4.
5. Olenev A. The founders of the Dimitrov fortress are now standing in Krepostnoy lane / A. Olenev / / Evening Rostov.- 2010.- 12 Jan.-S. 3.
6. Olenev, A. This morning, the founders of Rostov occupied the pedestal / A. Olenev / / Evening Rostov. - 2009. - September 16 - P. 2.
7. Olenev, A. The mayor's office found a place for the builders of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov in Krepostnoy Lane / A. Olenev / / Evening Rostov. - June 19. - p. 4.
8. Popova, E. The founders of Rostov returned with a monument / E. Popova // Evening Rostov.- 2009.- Sept. 21-S. 2.

To the 250th anniversary of the start of construction of the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov (now - the city of Rostov-on-Don)

The XVIII century is for the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov the era of the gradual advancement of the southern Russian state border up to Caucasian ridge, a period of increased colonization and the final assignment of these newly occupied lands to Russia. One of the stages of this advance to the south was the foundation of the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov, from whose suburb the modern city of Rostov-on-Don subsequently grew. September 23, 1761 is considered the foundation date of the fortress, but it is more correct to consider this date as the date of the transfer of the fortress of St. Anna with renaming it to Dimitrievskaya. Fortress of St. Anna was located along the Don River 27 miles above Dimitrievskaya and was founded in the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna in 1730. In turn, this was also the transfer of a small fortress, so-called . Petrovsky retransaction. Thus, the fortress of St. Demetrius, and with it Rostov-on-Don, should be considered the third and final point in the evolution of Russian rule in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov.

At the same time, it should be noted that the names: Petrovsky retranchement, fortress of St. Anna, Fortress of St. Demetrius should not be understood only as a series of fortifications with the ranks of the garrison living in them; in fact, these fortresses were then small towns, where, in addition to the military, belonging to the garrison of the fortress, there were also many townspeople and "people of various ranks"; they made up the population of the fortified suburbs and were engaged in trade and various crafts.

The outskirts had the beginnings of city self-government, the so-called town halls, which is clearly indicated by one of the surviving documents of the Retransition archive, dated 1729 and representing “Attitude to the Chancellery of the Tranchament fortress from the Tranchament town hall about townspeople”. From the surviving plan of the outskirts of the fortress of St. Anna, it can be seen that the area occupied by her suburb was more significant than the area of ​​fortifications.

With the abolition of the fortress of St. Anna and the transfer of her garrison to the new fortress of St. Demetrius, at the same time, the inhabitants of the suburbs of the abolished fortress were also resettled there, for which they were even given financial assistance from the government. So, the beginning of the emergence of the fortress of St. Demetrius, and consequently, Rostov-on-Don, must be pushed back at least to the beginning of the 18th century, namely to 1711.

For 90 years of the 18th century, these three fortresses, outposts of Russian rule in the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov, were witnesses of many historical events played in the arena of our region; since the commandants of these fortresses were invested with important powers of the Russian government, in one form or another they influenced the course of these events. Everything experienced by these fortresses had to leave its imprint in the documents and papers of the serf administrative institutions, and since the existence of these fortresses, as mentioned above, covers almost the entire 18th century, then the serf archives, presumably, should have represented a large number of cases the most precious historical materials for the study of the past of our region. But, as we shall see later, only pitiful remnants of all this wealth now remain.

The first who, undoubtedly, used these archives on a large scale was the builder, and later the commandant of the fortress of St. Dimitri A. I. Rigelman, author of historical works: “Chronicle Narration about Little Russia”, “The History of the Don Cossacks”, etc. These works were written by A. I. Rigelman during his service in the fortress of St. Demetrius, since in his aforementioned works there are references to documents from the fortress archives. But A. I. Rigelman’s use of the Dimitriev fortress archive was not accompanied by such plunder of it as later historians and researchers allowed themselves to do; we know for certain that although in the Rigelman family archive there are (or rather, there were) many manuscripts left by A.I. Rigelman, there are no papers and documents belonging to the Dimitriev fortress archive among them.

After A.I. Rigelman, there comes a long period of time - almost 50 years, during which no one was interested in the archive of the Dimitrievskaya Fortress, until the Committee for the Organization of the Don Army, established in the 20s of the last century, decided to collect materials on the history of the Don and the Don Cossacks. Young people from the Don who had just completed a course at Kharkov University, namely V.D. Sukhorukov, A.I. Kushnarev and M.G. Kucherov, were invited to the staff of the Committee on this issue. They were sent by the Committee for various archives of Russia, including the archive of the fortress of St. Dimitry, whose investigation was entrusted to V.D. Sukhorukov. Unfortunately, we were unable to find detailed information about Sukhorukov's visit to this fortress archive; it is only known that Sukhorukov extracted 863 cases from the Dimitrievsky archive, as well as many plans, maps and drawings. These were, obviously, those materials that concerned the relationship between the above-named fortress and the Don Host, since during the subsequent dismantling of the Dimitrievsky archive, such cases were no longer encountered.

In 1827, when the investigation established Sukhorukov's involvement in the case of the Decembrists, he was removed from the duty to collect historical material, and already collected material had to hand over to his employees.

The further fate of these cases, taken from the archives of the fortress of St. Dimitri Sukhorukov, unknown; they must be considered irretrievably lost; there is a high probability that they died during the fire of the Novocherkassk Military Archive in 1858. The cases selected from the Dimitriev fortress archive by Sukhorukov were in the hands of the Don historian M. Senyutkin, who published some of these materials in the Don Military Gazette in 1864-1865. . Thus, the first defeat of the Dimitri fortress archive was arranged by Sukhorukov; subsequent historians who had to work in the same archive followed in his footsteps.

The trustee of the Odessa educational district, Knyazhevich, while touring his district in 1838, arrived for several days in the city of Rostov-on-Don to revise the Rostov educational institutions; here some official Afanasiev drew the trustee's attention to the fact that the guardhouse of the abolished in 1835 fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov is littered with old files, among which are the handwritten papers of Peter I, many papers signed by Leslie, Minikh, Suvorov and others, representing historical material of great importance. Knyazhevich immediately reported this to the Minister of Public Education, Count A.S. Uvarov, who, without much delay, entered into correspondence with the Military Ministry; he wanted to enter into an agreement with the latter on the appointment of a mixed commission of representatives of both ministries to examine the serf archive. In 1839 this commission was organized; it consisted of: from the Min. Nar. Etc. secretary of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities N. Murzakevich, and from the side of the Military Min. Captain of the General Staff L.P. Batyushkov. The commission arrived in Rostov at the end of May 1839; Here is how the aforementioned Murzakevich describes it in his diary:

“In the morning we went to see a miracle. In the abandoned guardhouse, starting from the doors above and down to the floor, there were piles of papers tightly stuck together, up to about 15 thousand. At first I was glad that the harvest would be plentiful, but after taking several dozen files for testing on an apartment and leafing through them all day, this time I did not find anything worthy. These were ordinary garrison and regimental affairs: orders, drill lists, food reports, etc. Sad and angry with failure, we promised ourselves to work as tirelessly as possible so as not to stay too long in Rostov. The Cossacks brought cases to us in bales, and we literally leafed through day and night and something worthy of attention, historical, took them out of cases (we were allowed to do this) and made special lists for them.

As a result of this work, 700 nos. of files were selected for the archive of the General Staff, and 591 nos. of files for the archive of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities. Thus, Murzakevich's complaints in his diary about the scarcity of valuable documents in the fortress archive were somewhat exaggerated. As can be seen from the further content of Murzakevich's diary, both members of the commission were in a hurry to fulfill the assignment entrusted to them as soon as possible - a month later they completed the dismantling of the serf archive, but it was impossible for two people to view 15,000 documents more or less carefully in a month. Indeed, the subsequent disassembly of this archive by other persons showed that Murzakevich and Batyushkov did not notice many different valuable documents.

Regarding the 700 cases selected for the archive of the General Staff, we have no information: they ended up in the above-mentioned archive of the Headquarters and whether they are stored there to the present. The cases intended for the archive of the Odessa Society of History and Antiquities, although they arrived there, were much smaller than Murzakevich indicated, namely, not 591, but only 79 files on 299 sheets; where the remaining 512 cases disappeared is unknown.

Fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov, as mentioned above, was abolished in 1835, its garrison was disbanded and transferred partly to the Caucasus, partly to Kerch, where he served as personnel for the formation of new military units; some part of the garrison remained in place, but in a significantly reduced number. At this part there was a serf archive. By this time, it is necessary to attribute the "arrival" of Murzakevich and Batyushkov. Garrison military unit she had little interest in the archive of the fortress, which was alien to her, and was even weary of it, as if it were state property, about which the authorities of the military unit had to take care. No wonder that with such views on the archive as a burden, they were not particularly upset by the plundering of the serf archive by visiting historians.

The populated territory of the city of Rostov-on-Don at the end of the first half of the 19th century began to grow rapidly, capturing mainly the free area of ​​​​land adjacent to the river. Don and to the western side of the tops of the fortress. In order to enable further growth of the young, rapidly populated city, the government provided the city administration with the opportunity to continue planning the city in that part of the territory that had previously been occupied by fortifications. The new layout of the streets and the cutting of estate plots required the demolition of some former fortress buildings, including the building of the guardhouse, where in 1839 Murzakevich and Batiushkov found the archive of the former fortress of St. Demetrius. At least, according to available information, in the early 70s of the last century, this archive found shelter in one of the fortress gunpowder warehouses that survived from the demolition, which were registered with the artillery department. This warehouse was a two-story building, on the upper floor of which all the files of the fortress archive were stacked on wooden shelves, and various artillery equipment was stored on the lower floor; despite its unpresentable appearance, the building was completely dry, which, of course, served as an important condition for the proper preservation of the still surviving archival files.

In 1873, at the initiative of the famous Russian archivist N.V. Kachalov, a temporary commission was formed under the Ministry of Public Education to inform and compile an inventory of archives belonging to various departments both in the capitals and in the provinces. It must be assumed that thanks to the requirements of this commission military department ordered the head of the Rostov n / a artillery depot to dismantle and inventory the serf archive that was in his charge. The warehouse manager instructed his clerk Ivanov to carry out this order; the latter, of course, was by no means a learned archivist prepared for this role, but on the other hand, apparently, he was an unusually industrious and diligent person, and maybe. even a kind of archivist; without these assumptions, it is difficult to satisfactorily explain the enormous work done by this humble worker. Suffice it to say that Ivanov compiled an inventory of the number of cases, of which the total weight was 541 pounds! The work environment itself was extremely difficult: the inventory had to be made in the archive room itself, which was unheated in winter, and the bundles of archival files were covered with such a layer of dust and dirt that when they were unpacked in the archive room, a whole cloud of dust rose, forcing them to leave the room and wait a while for the dust to settle again.

The inventory of cases compiled by Ivanov and preserved to our time gives us curious data about what was stored in the archive. There were cases of fortresses: St. Anna, Taganrog, Azov, Yeysk (Eysk fortification, at the mouth of the river Yeya), trenches and some coastal posts on the eastern coast of the Black Sea, which served as strongholds for the Caucasian army during the conquest of the western part North Caucasus, namely the following coastal posts: Navaginsky, Sukhumsky, Svyato-Dukhovsky, Prochno-Okopsky, etc. There were also cases of military units stationed in the above points, namely the regiments: Suzdal, Yelets, Vladimir, Taganrog, Don Cossack, named after Bykhov and others. Then there were cases of commandant's departments, engineering, artillery, and other departments; deeds of provisions, commissariats, reports, exacting statements, etc.; cases of the Rostov n / a police and other institutions. Between military cases there were those that were of great interest in everyday life: for example, a number of cases about Nekrasovites, vagrants, deserters, shelterers, convicts, Turkish and Crimean emissaries, etc.

Were inventories of the affairs of the Dimitrievsky fortress archive used by the commission under M-ve Nar. Enlightenment, that is, was any of the members of the archival commission under M.N.P. sent to Rostov n / a. for the selection of cases, or this selection of cases was carried out according to the presented inventory in person in St. Petersburg, this, unfortunately, we were not able to establish; it is only known that in 1874, out of 541 poods of files from the Dimitrievsky serf archive, 283 poods were allocated and sold at auction. Thus, more than half of what was in the fortress archive perished irretrievably.

In 1875 the archive of the fortress of St. Demetrius was visited by I. D. Popko, already known for his work on the history of the Black Sea Cossacks; at that time he was instructed to compile the history of the Terek Cossacks. To find the necessary historical material Popko was forced to turn to the Don military archive and the archive of b. fortress of st. Demetrius of Rostov, where there was abundant material on the issue of interest to him, since campaigns against the Kuban, Terek in the first periods of the conquest of the North Caucasus were undertaken by Suvorov, Potemkin, Rosen and other lesser-known chiefs of the Caucasian Operational Army from the Dimitri Fortress, which was at the end of the 18th and into the beginning of the 19th century, an important rear point of this army.

Having briefly familiarized himself with the contents of the affairs of the serf archive, immediately determining with an experienced eye the great historical value of the archive for the history of colonization and conquest of the North Caucasus and rightly fearing for further fate of this valuable, but abandoned and of no interest to anyone archive, Popko made a request to b. The Ministry of War allowed him to transport the affairs of the fortress of St. Demetrius in Stavropol, so that there he could compile an inventory of archive files, use the material he needed for his historical work, and then deposit the files with the Stavropol military archive. Permission was willingly given, and in October 1876 the entire archive of the Dimitrievsky fortress in the amount of 48 bales, with a total weight of 307 pounds 31 pounds, was safely delivered to the city of Stavropol and stored in the Stavropol military archive.

Popko could start analyzing and describing the received archive only at the beginning of 1879, since in 1877 he, as a military man, was drafted into the ranks active army. Being a rather influential person in terms of his social position, Popko settled in such a way that, on his orders, the Stavropol Military Archive delivered the files of the Dimitri fortress archive to his apartment in bales. Popko dealt with the archival material he needed in the same way as his predecessors, i.e. he did not limit himself to some extracts from the archives he needed, but simply kept everything that interested him in order to constantly have it at hand. Of the 152,077 archival files he personally reviewed, about 7,000 Popko recognized as necessary for him and detained him. Thanks to such an unceremonious attitude to archival documents in Popko's house, a huge mass of archival files has accumulated in the city of Stavropol. The well-known, now deceased, historian of the Kuban Army E. D. Felitsyn, when he saw these cases at Popko, was so amazed by their number that he suggested that Popko simply took the entire archive of the fortress of St. Demetrius; b. made the same impression. Chairman of the Stavropol Scientific Archival Commission, now head of the North Caucasian Museum in Stavropol G. N. Prozritelev, who often visited Popko's house in the 80s of the last century.

As we were told, Popko kept all the historical material collected from various archives in his hallway under the stairs without special supervision. No wonder that some of these cases could be stolen and sold to the market, for wrapping. At least after Popko's death, in 1893, all his property, including archival affairs, passed into the jurisdiction of Bezmenov's guardian, who for a long time did not want to give Popko's property to the Stavropol Nobility Deputies' Assembly; the judiciary had to intervene. In the end, the archives were donated by the mountains. Stavropol and kept in the city public library. For all the time of disputes due to inheritance and repeated transfers from one room to another, there was also a loss of some files and, it seems, most of this loss fell on the files of the Dimitriev fortress archive. According to the investigation of the Stavropol Scientific Archival Commission, there were 239 of all cases, of which 97 are such cases, in which you can find a part of what was once seized from the archive of the Dimitrievskaya fortress.

Due to the special role of the city of Stavropol as a parking lot for many units and regiments that are part of the Caucasian army, as well as the concentration of command and control bodies of this army, 187,862 files have accumulated in the Stavropol military archive, mainly related to the history of the conquest of the North Caucasus and the conquest of the mountaineers.

In view of such a huge accumulation of cases, in 1881 the Commission was appointed by the Main Military Headquarters to analyze the documents of the Stavropol military archive; needed to be separated from total mass such cases that contained historical materials; This Commission worked for 8 years, and the result of its activities was the destruction of many documents, and only 6190 cases were decided to be left. Between the destroyed files there were a lot of files from the archives of the fortress of St. Dimitry of Rostov; at least, the chairman of the Stavropol Archival Commission, G.N. Prozritelev, bitterly tells in one of his printed articles that he personally had to buy apples in Stavropol, wrapped in bags glued from the files of the Dimitriev fortress; on some of these bags he came across orders signed by Suvorov.

It was truly a complete destruction of what was left of the serf archive after the excavations of Sukhorukov, Murzakevich and Popko. How many such interesting documents were destroyed during this defeat, which, perhaps, were of no importance to military historians, but would be very important sources to learn about the past everyday life who inhabited our region not the military, but "people of a particular rank", civilians.

We also managed to trace the further fate of the files of the Stavropol archive, graciously abandoned by the military sorting Commission. The management of the local brigade in the late 80s of the last century was transferred from Stavropol to Vladikavkaz; together with the management of the brigade, the rest of the Stavropol military archive was also transported there. Here the archive did not linger for a long time; the indefatigable researcher of the military past of the Caucasian army, Colonel Esadze, having learned about the archive of the Vladikavkaz brigade, obtained permission from the Military Ministry to transport these files to Tiflis, where they found a proper place for themselves in Military History Museum Headquarters of the Caucasian Military District.

Through correspondence in 1915 with one of those working in this archive, we managed to find out that only 519 files are stored in the Tiflis Military History Museum from the Dimitri fortress archive; of which the affairs of the fortress of St. There are Annas from 1733, that is, almost from the foundation of the fortress; cases for the fortress of St. Demetrius are available from 1762 to 1848. In addition, in this bundle of 519 cases there are also cases in the city of Taganrog from 1773 to 1836, in the mountains. Azov from 1768 to 1803. There are gaps of several years, and in some cases not even deeds have been preserved, but simply incoming and outgoing journals, which, to be fair, were kept very carefully then: the papers fit in at length and in detail. In addition, there are many more cases without covers, listed only under No. No., with no indication of their content.

According to our correspondent, the affairs of the Dimitriev fortress archive were poorly sorted out, since the affairs and fortresses of St. Anna and the fortress of St. Dimitri, Azov, Taganrog. The degree of preservation of cases is unimportant; as we were told, “it’s even scary to touch some bundles,” before the paper suffered as a result of its more than a century of ordeals.

From the foregoing, one has to come to a very sad conclusion that the archive of the former. fortress of st. Dimitry of Rostov, who contained a lot of valuable historical material on the Sea of ​​\u200b\u200bAzov and partly on the Region of the Don Cossacks, almost completely died; only pitiful remnants in Tiflis, Odessa and Leningrad accidentally survived from it. Therefore, it seems to us very necessary at the present time, through negotiations with the relevant government agencies, to obtain permission to withdraw these remnants of files from the above-mentioned archives and transport them for storage in the North Caucasus Regional Archival Bureau. This would be a great service to the study of the past of our region.

NOTES

1. Notes of the Rostov-on-Don Society of History, Antiquities and Nature. Rostov n/D, 1912. T. 1. S. 270, 280.
2. Rigelman A. Rostov-on-Don 150 years ago = Vedomosti i geographical description fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov with the places belonging to and touching it, composed by decree of the Governing Senate in 1768 / Ed. Height. on the Don Islands of history and antiquities. Rostov n/a: Type. T-va on faith "Ashkhatank", 1918.
3. Stefanov A. T. Archive of the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov and his fate // Zap. North-Kavk. edges. islands of archeology, history and ethnography. Rostov n / a, 1927. Book. 1 (T. 3). Issue. 1. S. 16-22.
4. Lunin B. [In memory of A. T. Stefanov (1.03.1868, Yeysk - 04.15.1934, Michurinsk] // Soviet local history in the Azov-Black Sea region: collection of local history materials. Rostov n / D, 1935. Issue 3 pp. 177.
5. Archive of the Federal Security Service of Russia for the Rostov region. Case No. P-41135). More about this in the heading "Our local historians" (Donskoy Vremennik. Year 2011. Issue 19).
6. This fire destroyed 10,000 bundles, concluding 335,254 cases.
7. Don Military Bulletin. 1864. No. 48, 49, 50; 1865. No. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 11, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31.
8. Russian antiquity. 1887. No. 9.
9. A complete description of these 79 No. surviving files of the Dimitriev fortress archive can be found in the article by M. B. Krasnyansky: “Archival files of kr. St. Demetrius of Rostov, stored in Odessa (Zap. Rost. n / D. of the island of history, antiquity and nature. T. 2. S. 218 222.

The fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov in the middle of the 18th century was of great military and strategic importance and was the most powerful among the southern fortresses of Russia. From the name of the fortress came the name of the city of Rostov-on-Don.

The fortress did not directly participate in hostilities; at the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-1774, this fortress lost its significance as a border fortification. From its former suburbs, the city of Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinoslav province, was formed by the year. In 1835, the garrison and military property of the Rostov fortress were transferred to Anapa. The ramparts and bastions were razed to the ground by the end of the 19th century.

Location

The fortress was located between the current lanes of Chekhov and Fortress, Gorky and Stanislavsky streets.

Construction

In the 1740s, it became necessary to create a more powerful fortification on the Don to protect the Temernitsky customs than the existing fortress of St. Anna. In 1744, Captain Sipyagin reported on the choice of a site for the construction of fortifications near the tract Bogatyi Istochnik. The Senate rejected the first seven projects, but after two projects (stone and earth fortifications) were approved, on December 20, the garrison of the fortress of St. Anna was transferred to a new location. On April 6 (17) of the year, Empress Elizaveta Petrovna, by her decree, appropriated the name of St. Dimitry of Rostov, and on September 23 of the same year, its laying took place.

The construction was led by military engineer A. I. Rigelman.

At the direction of Rigelman, in 1761, a brick factory was built on the Kiziterinskaya beam for the construction of the fortress and structures in it. Stone for construction was mined from the Bogaty spring, logs were imported from the Leontief and Deaf gullies, located near the rivers Mius and Kalmius. The forest was cut down and floated along the Mius to the Mius Estuary. Logs were transported from the estuary to the construction site on horses and oxen. By 1761, seven redoubts were poured into the fortress.

Earth fortifications and the main buildings of the fortress were completed in the year.

Description

The fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov was of great military and strategic importance. It was the most powerful among the southern fortresses of Russia. The circumference of the fortress was about 3.5 km, its area was about 76 hectares.

The fortress was star-shaped in plan and consisted of nine redoubts, surrounded by a moat and connected by eight ravelins. From the side of the Don, the fortress was defended by a bastion with a kronverk. Below the bastion, the steep bank was fortified with two redoubts, three batteries and two semi-bastions, located in ledges one above the other. The total length of the fortification front was 3.5 kilometers. There were two gates in the Fortress Wall - from the western and eastern sides. The redoubts had the names: Trinity, Anninsky, St. Andrew the First-Called, Catherine, Elizabethan, Petrovsky, Pavlovsky, Alexander Nevsky, Donskoy.

The fortress was armed with 238 guns.

Gunpowder, artillery and provisions depots, 28 soldiers' barracks and military hospitals, as well as officers' houses and houses of artisans and merchants were erected on the territory of the fortress.

Two gates led into the fortress. In the west of the fortress were the Archangel Gates, in the east - St. George's. The streets inside the fortress, from 10 to 20 meters wide, formed rectangular quarters. At the same time, wide streets were laid perpendicular to the river. The central street was named Bogatyanovsky Lane (modern Kirov Avenue).

Intercession Cathedral with an octagonal drum and a dome was built on the central square in the fortress. The facades of the main administrative buildings of the military department were built facing this cathedral. By the end of the 18th century, five churches were built on the territory of the fortress: the Cathedral of the Intercession, Kazanskaya, Nikolaevskaya, Merchants (Nativity of the Mother of God) and the Church of All Saints.

The emergence of the city of Rostov-on-Don and the initial period of its history are associated with the construction of the Temernitskaya customs and the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov. During the Azov campaigns of Peter I in 1695-96. the Cossacks drew the tsar's attention to the steep slopes of the Don and the spring, which he called the Rich Well, or the Rich Spring. They decided to build a fortress near the source, but Peter I did not have to do this. After the unsuccessful Prut campaign of 1711, Russia was forced to give the Turks Azov, the girl of the Don, tear down fortifications in Taganrog and other fortresses built in the south of the country. In the XVIII century. was introduced customs control for goods imported and exported from the Don.

In 1730, at the direction of Anna Ioannovna, on the Vasilyevsky Hills near Starocherkassk, on the site of the monastery retrashment, erected by order of Peter I, a fortress was erected according to the project and under the guidance of the engineer Dekolong, named after St. Anna. The customs house located in the fortress could not perform its functions. Cossack outposts arose at river crossings. An attempt by tsarist officials to limit the trade turnover of the Don chieftains and foremen caused them dissatisfaction, and numerous complaints flew to St. Petersburg, therefore, on December 15, 1749, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna issued a decree on the construction of customs "... on the Don, at the mouth of Temernik, against the tract , called the Rich well, where the Don Cossacks can conduct their trade with visiting Greeks, Turks and Armenians ... ". The customs house was named Temernitskaya after the river. By the middle of the 18th century, the Temernitsky customs and the port, which soon arose near it, began to play an important role in economic life Southeast Russia. It was the only point through which Russia could trade with the ports of the Azov, Black and Mediterranean seas.

The customs settlement was small: the number of its inhabitants during the period from 1749 to 1761 did not exceed a thousand people, mainly the families of the soldiers of the fortress of St. Anna. Their residential buildings and state warehouses for the warehouse of goods became a kind of first layout of the future Rostov. The territories around the Temernitsky outpost were gradually built up. A Dolomanovsky outpost arises (from among the suburban semi-Cossack regiments of the fortress of St. Anna, city Cossacks, or dolmans, hence the name).

In the 40s. Russian military engineers are intensively looking for a place where they could create a more powerful fortification. The project of the fortress was proposed in 1745 by the engineer Sipyagin, but it was not approved in the same way as six more projects drawn up in 1748. government agency Russia - the Governing Senate - was specially engaged in considering the projects of a new fortress, since everything was supposed to be built according to last word military equipment. Ten years later, a group of engineers (M. Dedenev, D. Debosket, M. Martynov, L. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, S. Kozmin, M. Mordvinov and others) drew up two projects. The first provided for the construction of a stone fortress (cost 674.4 thousand rubles), according to the second (cost 438.8 thousand rubles), the fortifications had to be earthen, but "in the same lines, so that later it would be convenient to remake." The projects were approved, and on December 20, 1760, the garrison of the Anninsky fortress was transferred to the Bogaty spring.

On April 6, 1761, by the decree of Empress Elizabeth, the new fortress was named "Fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov". On September 23, 1761, its solemn laying took place. In the autumn of 1761, large construction work began, which was difficult. The area of ​​the future fortress was crossed perpendicular to the Don by deep beams, which required tens of thousands of carts of earth to backfill. The builders did not have enough food and money. So, in one of the documents dated 06/15/1762 it is said: "With the entry into work of the past 1761 on December 17th by virtue of the decree, wages have not yet been received from anywhere and being in that work a dress and other things were very cut off, which they can’t go to work in clothes in such a frost.”

The construction of the earthen fortress was carried out under the guidance of an experienced military engineer A.I. Rigelman. On his orders, in 1761, a brick factory was built on the Kiziterinskaya beam for the construction of a fortress and houses in it. Stone for construction was broken at the Bogaty spring, timber was brought from the Leontief and Glukhikh gullies - the region of the Mius and Kalmius rivers. At that time, the banks of these rivers were covered with dense forests, in which beech, hornbeam, and oak grew. The forest was cut down, rafted along the Mius almost to the Mius estuary, from there they were taken on horses and oxen to the fortress. Already in 1761, seven redoubts were poured from the floor side. Due to the ravine terrain, the coastal part of the fortress fence received a different solution than it was designed. The construction of earthen fortifications and the main buildings inside the fortress was completed in 1763.

The Rostov fortress was of great military and strategic importance. In this regard, it became the most powerful and largest among the southern fortresses. Its circumference exceeded 3.5 km, and the area was about 70 acres. The system of its fortifications was a new word in fortification art. The fortress had an original star shape in plan. Nine redoubts protruded from the floor side, connected by eight ravelins, thus forming eight fronts. The redoubts, starting from the southwestern in circumference to the northeastern, had the following names: Troitsky, Anninsky, St. Andrew the First-Called, Catherine, Elizabethan, Petrovsky, Pavlovsky, Alexander Nevsky, Donskoy.

The redoubts were surrounded around the perimeter by a deep ditch with a fortified counterscarp. The coastal plateau, occupied by the fortress, rose 30 fathoms (64 m) above the level of the Don. A system of fortifications was created on the terraces of the cliff from the side of the river. The Trinity and Donskoy redans adjoined the extreme redoubts, between which there was the bastion of Dimitry of Rostov with a crownwork. Temernitsky and Aksai redoubts were located under the redans, three batteries were even lower. On the lower terrace there was a redan Bogaty, on the sides of which the semi-bastions of Azov and Cherkassky were located. In addition, powder magazines were erected in the redoubts in the form of extensive underground structures covered with rolling beams.

The fortress had a large garrison, was armed with 238 guns and for half a century was the rear base of Russian troops.

There were two gates in the fortress wall. From the west, the Archangel Gates led to the fortress, from the east - St. George's. Inside, a grid of rectangular quarters was outlined, separated by streets 10 and 5 sazhens wide, with wide streets directed perpendicular to the river, from north to south. The central street of the fortress ran towards the Rich spring and was named Bogatyanovsky Lane (now Kirov Avenue). The fortress occupied the space now limited by M. Gorky and Stanislavsky streets, Nakhichevansky and Chekhov lanes.

The construction of the fortress was dominated by the Intercession Cathedral, located on the central square, crowned with an octagonal drum and a dome. A three-tiered bell tower adjoined it from the west, and another small church from the south. The facades of the main administrative buildings of the military department (the house for the commandant, the garrison school - it had 216 students, prison) were facing this square. In the center of the fortress there were 28 soldiers' barracks, 7 provisions and 4 artillery depots, military hospitals. The quarters were also built up with officer houses, residential buildings for merchants and artisans, shops and drinking houses. By the end of the 18th century there were five churches here: Cathedral of the Intercession, Kazanskaya, Nikolaevskaya, Nativity of the Theotokos (at that time it was called the Merchant) and All Saints.

The stability and security of the Sea of ​​Azov from Turkish raids led to a sharp increase in trade turnover of the Temernitsky customs. In 1758, its turnover was 86,989 rubles, and in 1762. - 240220 rub. According to the historian of Russian commerce M. Chulkov, in 1762 Temernitsky port was visited by 26 ships, on which Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish merchants brought not only goods, but even their relatives. Many of them settled near the Temernitsky port. In 1768 the population of the fortress was over five thousand people.

In 1768, Admiral O. N. Senyavin came here in connection with the construction of a shipyard (in the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe present Budennovsky Prospekt).

The famous Russian naval commander Fyodor Ushakov began his service in the fortress: he served on Prama No. 5, which guarded the mouth of the Don as part of the Azov flotilla, then he was promoted to lieutenant and commanded four transport ships. Forming garrisons for defensive fortifications between the Don and Kuban, in 1778 A. V. Suvorov visited the fortress. Then he was here quite

often in 1782-1784.

The construction of the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov, which was aimed at protecting the Temernitsky customs, became milestone in the history of the city. With the establishment of the fortress, the name of the Temernitsky customs disappears from official papers and is replaced by the names "Dolomanovsky suburb". Thus, the first settlement requires a fortification to protect itself, and then, when the fortification is arranged, the settlement turns into the first outpost of the fortress. This is how outposts arise: in 1750 - Dolomanovsky or Cossack, in 1763 - Poludenny; in 1765 - Soldier or Merchant.

The suburban development had a regular layout along the banks of the Don, typical of Russian military settlements of the 18th century. Over time, the layout of suburbs turns into a system of city streets and quarters, their territory increases, approaching the boundaries of the fortress. Buildings that provide life for the population, mainly engaged in trade, are becoming more diverse - the town hall, customs with warehouses, and the stock exchange with 52 shops and warehouses. Within the limits of modern Rostov-on-Don, the Soldier's suburb was limited on the east side by Voroshilovsky Avenue, from the west - by Budennovsky, from the south - by Shaumyan Street. The Dolomanovsky suburb was smaller than the Soldier's one. It stretched from Budennovsky Prospekt to Dolomanovsky Lane, and from the side of the Don it was limited to Turgenevskaya Street, to the north of Shaumyan Street stretched a desert steppe, cut through by a wide Generalskaya beam, along the bottom of which the Shapov stream flowed, flowing into the Temernik River.

The banks of the Don at the outskirts were occupied by buildings - the Engineering Yard with warehouses and the business yard of the Artillery Department. Port activity was concentrated at the Rich Spring, where a wooden wharf was built.

In 1779, by the will of Catherine the Great, the resettlement of the Armenian community from the Crimea was organized to the Don. The settlers were asked to found a city with the name Nakhichevan in the Poludenny suburb of the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov. In connection with this, the midday inhabitants were moved to the Soldier's suburb, which is renamed Merchants. There comes a new period in the history of Rostov, the period of the existence of another city, Nakhichevan, on the territory adjacent to the fortress of St. Demetrius of Rostov. In 1785, a "City charter" was established for the entire settlement, and the fortress received city management.

After the end of the Russian-Turkish war of 1768-74. the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov loses its significance as a border fortification. At the same time, the role of its suburbs is growing, which on August 17, 1806, by decree of Alexander I, were first named the city of Rostov, and later - Rostov-on-Don, in contrast to Rostov Yaroslavsky.

In 1811, the county town of Rostov-on-Don, Yekaterinoslav province, was finally formed from the former outskirts of the fortress. In 1835, the garrison of the fortress of Dimitry of Rostov, weapons, ammunition, ammunition were sent to the Anapa fortress. The territory of the fortress began to be gradually built up, earthen ramparts were torn down.