Remains of Ottoman, Genoese forts found in Odessa

Archaeologists have discovered the long-sought remains of an 18th century Ottoman fortress on top of artifacts from the 14th century Genoese fortress on the Primorsky Boulevard in the historic center of Odessa, Ukraine. Its location has been debated for 200 years, even though it only disappeared when Imperial Russian troops blew it up in 1789. There were no reliable maps or written sources documenting its exact location, and since the stones that survived the blast were recycled for new construction, no traces of it remained visible on the landscape.

Archaeologists from the South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University and the Institute of Archaeology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine found the remnants of Khadzhibey Castle between the boulevard and the bronze statue of the Duc de Richelieu in the middle of the semicircular plaza overlooking the city’s Black Sea port.

In two excavations and two pits, we found the front wall of the artillery coastal battery, which was added to the castle from the shore, as well as traces of the dismantling of the curtains. We managed to record the angular intersection of this wall with the side wall, which covered the battery from the southeast. The structure is present on various plans and images of the castle of the late 18th century. It is distinguished by its unique structural features and the specific location near the cliff. The attribution is facilitated by the accompanying finds of ceramics and bronze products of Ottoman origin. The battery was an open area, fenced by a wall up to 1.5 m high and 90 cm thick. It held a low earthen embankment on the front, on which cannons were placed, directed towards the sea.

The base of the castle battery wall is embedded in the antique layer of the 5th century BC. This is the first time that it has been possible to trace the cultural layers of the ancient Greek settlement of Istrian Harbor within its northern border. Previously, it was assumed that its border lay somewhere in the Duka area. But now we can say for sure that it was defined by a small ancient ravine, which we managed to record in one of the excavations of 2021 in the northern part of the semicircular area. This natural barrier also formed protection from the north-western, ground-level side for Hadzhibey Castle, determining the choice of its location.

Ivan Liptuga, Director of the Department of Culture of the Odessa City Council, has proposed a plan to install glass over the excavated remains instead of covering them back up with pavers, so visitors can view the archaeological layers of the city as they wander. The wider outline of the fortress structure could be marked on the plaza with pavers of a different color.

What would become Odessa was founded no later than 6th century B.C. as a Greek colony on the western coast of the Black Sea. Turkic nomadic peoples took over the territory by the end of the 4th century, and it would be absorbed into the Golden Horde, the Mongol empire ruled by the descendants of Genghis Khan, in the mid-13th century. It was eclipsed by a different kind of power: the Republic of Genoa, a major maritime power in medieval and early modern Europe, that established colonies and trade outposts throughout the Mediterranean, Tyrrhenian, Aegean and Black Seas. From the 13th through the late 15th century, Genoa’s commercial empire dominated the Black Sea. Every current port city on the Black Sea today was once a colony of Genoa, and Odessa is no exception. Genoa built the fortress of Ginestra there, as documented on Italian maritime maps of the 14th century.

A settlement at the site first appears in historical records in 1415 as the port of Kotsiubijiv in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but it was small and depopulated a few decades later. The territory was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in the 1530s and they repopulated the settlement in the middle of the 18th century, just in time for Imperial Russia to capture it in 1789 during the Russian-Turkish War.

It was under Catherine the Great that the modern town of Odessa began to take shape. She ordered construction of a military harbor and commercial port buildings, and in 1795, the town was named Odessa after the Greek colony of Odessos that was believed to have been founded there. It was still a small town at this point, with a population of less than 3,500 people when the first census was taken in 1797. It didn’t even have a bank until 1801. The Duc de Richelieu changed all that. 

The duke, a great-great-great-nephew of the famous cardinal, fled Revolutionary France with a bounty on his head and settled in Russia. He volunteered to join Imperial Russian Army, ultimately achieving the rank of Major General. Tsar Alexander I appointed him governor of Odessa in 1803. He held the office for 11 years, transforming the small town into a well-planned, fully-developed, economic and cultural center to rival any city in Europe. He built its modern port which would become known as the Pearl of the Black Sea. By the time he returned to France in 1814, Odessa had grown into the third largest city by population in the Russian Empire. Even though his family estates, confiscated during the Revolution, were never returned to him, he was just as successful in France as he had been as an émigré, becoming Prime Minister of France pretty much as soon as he hit the ground in Paris in 1815, serving until 1818, and then for a second term lasting 10 months in 1821. He died of a stroke in 1822.

He remained very much beloved in Odessa. The bronze statue of the duke clad in an incongruous toga was commissioned in 1828 and placed at the top of the stairs leading down to the port he built. In 1905, a general strike and violent suppression of striking workers in Odessa resulted in days of rioting and fire. The workers were supported by the mutineer crew of the Russian battleship Potemkin docked at the port. A fictionalized account of this uprising is the plot of Sergei Eisenstein’s ground-breaking 1925 silent movie masterpiece, Battleship Potemkin. The famous scene of citizens being massacred while a baby carriage careens down the steps was set on the very staircase leading to the port that is at the feet of the Duc de Richelieu monument. You can even see the back of it when the crowds rush down the stairs fleeing the advancing troops.

* This article was originally published here