Discover Izmail: A Historical Gem of Odesa Region, Ukraine

1. Name.

Izmail stands on the site where the Greek colony of Antioch was located in the IV-V centuries. Researchers of the city's modern history, professors Mehmet Tyutyunji and Andrii Krasnozhon, note that the first "village at the Ismail crossing" was recorded in archival documents in 1543, but was soon destroyed. The second attempt dates back to 1560, but it was also destroyed.

The local museum of history and local lore has an exact copy of the decree of the Ottoman Sultan Murad III concerning the foundation of Izmail. A charter dated November 14, 1589, granting Mehmed Habishi-Azi ownership of lands in the lower Danube region. The document instructs the third in the hierarchy of the Ottoman Port to organize a crossing "in the area of Ismail Gedici and to establish a town and a marina nearby." According to the traditions of the time, the city was named in honor of its founder, Mehmedabad.

The official year of the city's foundation is 1590. The death of Habishi-Agha in 1591 led to the fact that the place name "Mehmedabad" associated with his name did not take root.

After the Bucharest Peace Treaty, on October 26, 1812, Izmail received the status of a city and the name "Tuchkov" in honor of Major General Serhiy Tuchkov, commandant of the Bessarabian fortresses. The name Izmail was returned to the city in 1856.

According to historian V.O. Posternak, Izmail was mentioned as a fortress in the census of July 1592. According to the census, Izmail was a small fortified fortress with a military garrison, 36 guards, and 53 horseback riders. Russian troops first took the fortress in 1770, but managed to hold it for only 4 years, after which it fell to the Ottomans, who immediately began to further fortify it.

The capture of Izmail in 1790 under the command of General Alexander Suvorov was one of the turning points of the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792 and hastened the defeat of the Ottoman Empire. The Cavalier bastion was destroyed. The Russian troops held out in the fortress until 1791, after which the fortress was again occupied by the Turks. The next return of Russian troops to the fortress occurred only in 1809.

After Russia's defeat in the Crimean War of 1853-1856, according to the Paris Peace Treaty of 1856, the city, along with the surrounding territories, became part of the Principality of Moldova, which was proclaimed autonomous within the Ottoman Empire, the fortress was disarmed, and the walls were blown up. At the end of the nineteenth century, as a result of the development of long-range artillery, the former fortress finally lost its defensive significance.

In December 2022, the monument to Suvorov in Izmail was dismantled.

The Small Mosque (Turkish: Küçük Camii) is a former Ottoman mosque in the city of Izmail, the only part of the Turkish fortress that has survived to this day. Currently, the mosque does not function as a place of worship. It is a part of the Izmail Military History Museum Complex and houses the diorama "Assault on the Fortress of Izmail." The mosque is a unique example of medieval Ottoman architecture from the period of its highest prosperity in Ukraine.

The mosque was built in the XV-XVI centuries on the territory of a Turkish fortress. During the storming of the fortress by Russian troops in 1790, the Turks held the defense in the mosque to the last.

In the nineteenth century, the minaret was dismantled and the gallery was covered with a sloping roof. During the restoration of 1971-1973, the lost details and the roof of the gallery were restored. On May 9, 1973, the diorama "Storming of the Izmail Fortress" was opened in the building.

The diorama. Image: Wikipedia

The Izmail Memorial Park-Museum "Fortress" is a territory in Izmail located on the site of a former Turkish military structure. Only the mosque and the gates of the former cemeteries have survived to this day.

According to one version, the founder of one of the largest and strongest Old Believer sects, a Don Cossack from the army of Kindratiy Bulavin, the Old Believer Photius Vasyliv, took the name of Philip in monasticism. His followers refused to pray for the tsar and rejected the rituals of the official Orthodox religion. The "Philipines" (derived from the name "Piliponians") were later called "Lipovans".

Gradually, this religious and social unity, as well as the name "Lipovans" itself, became the definition for a rather diverse mass of Old Believers in Southeastern Europe. In the mid-eighteenth century, Old Believers, and later Zaporizhzhia Cossacks, who were persecuted by the Russian authorities, took refuge in the Danube Delta in impassable floodplains. This is how the village of Lipovanske was founded. Around 1746, the village was renamed to a post and called Vylkove.

Gradually, church and secular authorities came to realize that persecution was not productive. Memoirs of the missionary-priest Theodosius Volove (editorial translation): "Monotheism is the prayerful and canonical unity of the Old Believers with the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Orthodox Church. In the name of this union, the Old Believers accept the canonical priesthood, while the Orthodox Church allows them to keep the old rites, books, and icons of the old script."

On October 2, 1896, a new wooden church on a stone foundation was consecrated, but on October 7, the church burned down as a result of arson. In the spring of 1897, construction began on a new church designed by the provincial architect G. S. Lozynskyi. On November 16, 1897, the church was consecrated by Bishop Arkady of Akkerman. The first rector was Archpriest Elesvoy.

In 1961, the church was closed by the authorities and transferred to school No. 5. In the 1960s, the students ruined the grave of Yelezvoy. He was reburied in the city cemetery, which was later demolished.