How Khadjibey was searched for in Odesa: the head of the excavations told a detective story

The pavement at the excavation site in the center of Odesa near the Richelieu monument, where archaeologists found the remains of the wall in the summer of 2025, has been restored, and the head of the excavation, Andrii Krasnozhon, told the Real History Project how he searched for the right place.

The Real History Project has published an interview with the rector of the South Ukrainian Pedagogical University, Andrii Krasnozhon, in which he told how he searched for the possible location of the Khadjibey fortress.

In the interview, the scholar said that he found the information he needed in Moscow before the Revolution of Dignity. There, he found a report from the officers who stormed the fortress, where a map of the fortifications of the time showed how the assault took place. The map of the fortress led Andrii Krasnazhon to the site of future excavations.

"In their reports, this or that officer reported who stood where, who was the first to climb the wall, and did so on the maps of the fortress, these documents are military reports, they cannot lie. However, they were not entirely accurate in their reports, so we realized that the location could vary by 10-20 meters," the scholar explained.

Eventually, they decided on an approximate location, having found anomalies underground using ground-penetrating radar. At the excavation site, they found part of an extension to the castle dating back to the 18th century.

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VIDEO: The real story

Andrii Krasnazhon also expressed doubts that the fortress was built by the Ottomans, because in 1573 the empire sent a representative to Khadjibey to oversee the restoration of the fortress. That is, there was already a fortress here that had fallen into disrepair.

"So we understand that the Ottomans inherited the fortress. Who could build a fortress here? Only a state that could permanently control this territory," the scholar explained.

At the same time, Andriy Krasnozhon noted that he doubts even that the fortress was founded in the 15th century when the first written mention of the port and fortress was made, because Polish historian Jan Dlugosz points out that the grain that Polish King Władysław allocated to envoys to Constantinople to help them was to be received in the royal port of Kochubiyiv.

"Why do I have doubts? Długosz writes about an existing port. That is, about the working infrastructure. Who could have built a port there? I believe it was a maritime power. Why not the Lithuanians? Imagine that somewhere in Vilnius or Kyiv there is a prince who has a garrison in the Black Sea region where the Tatars ruled, and it is very problematic to maintain this garrison by land," the historian noted.

Thus, Andriy Krasnozhen believes that Khadzhibey could have been built by the Genoese, who actively traded with the Dzhuchi Ulus, better known in national historiography as the Golden Horde. The Genoese built fortresses in the Black Sea and Crimea for trade. This theory is indirectly confirmed by the findings of ceramics from the first half of the 14th century.

Кирило Бойко