Balaklava
From Free net encyclopedia
- For the article about the South Australian town see Balaklava, South Australia.
- For other uses, see Balaklava (disambiguation).
{{Crimean town | enname = Balaklava | runame = Балаклава | ukname = Балаклава | qrname = Balıqlava | arms = Image:Balakl s.gif | flag = Image:Balaklava-flag.gif | region = Sevastopol | coord = Template:Coor dm | altitude = ~10 | area = ? | population = 30,000 | year = 2001 | density = ? | postalcode = 99xxx | phone = 692 | oldname = Cembalo (until 1475), Yamboli, Symbolon | mapx = 68 | mapy = 158 | crimearegion = Sebastopol | site = http://balaklava.crimea.ua/ }}
Balaklava (Template:Lang-uk, Template:Lang-ru, Template:Lang-qr) is a town in Crimea, Ukraine which officially has a status of a district of the city of Sevastopol. It became famous for the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War, featuring the suicidal Charge of the Light Brigade, a cavalry charge down a heavily defended Russian position, in which about 250 men were killed or wounded, and over 400 horses lost, effectively reducing the size of the mounted brigade by two thirds. The British poet Alfred Tennyson wrote a famous poem on this charge.
It was a city in its own right until 1957, when it was officially incorporated into Sevastopol by the Soviet government.
Balaklava has changed hands many times during history. A settlement at its location was originally founded under the name of Symbolon (Συμβολον) by the Ancient Greeks, for whom it was an important commercial city. During the Middle Ages, it was controlled by the Byzantine Empire and then by Genoese who conquered it in 1365. Byzantines called the town Yamboli and Genoese named it Cembalo. The Genoese built up a large trading empire in both the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, buying slaves in Eastern Europe and shipping them to Egypt via Crimea, a lucrative market hotly contested with by the Venetians. It was supposedly on board a Genoese trading cog sailing back to Genoa from Balaklava that the Black Death first arrived in Europe. The ruins of a Genoese fortress remain a popular tourist attraction to this day.
In 1475 the growing Ottoman Empire took Balaklava, calling it Balık Yuva ("fish nest" in Turkish), which was slowly corrupted over time to its present name.
In 1771, Russian forces overran Crimea. When Crimea was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1783 Crimean Tatar and Turkish population abandoned Balaklava and Greeks from the Aegean Archipelago were settled in the town by the Russian government. Nevertheless rural communities surrounding Balaklava remained Crimean Tatar until the deportation of 1944. In 1787 the city was visited by Catherine the Great.
During the Second World War, Balaklava was the southernmost point in the Soviet-German lines.
In 1991 Balaklava, together with the whole Crimea, became a part of the independent state of Ukraine.
Today there are over 50 monuments in the city dedicated to the remembrance of military valour in past wars, including the Great Patriotic War, the Crimean War and the Russian Civil War.
Nuclear submarine base One of the monuments is a underground and classified (ex-) nuclear submarine base operational until 1991 said to be virtualy indestructable, including a direct atomic impact. In this period Balaklava was one of the most secret villages in Soviet Russia. Almost the entire population of Balaklava at the time worked at the Base, even family members could not visit the town of Balaklava without good reason and identification. The base remained operational after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 until 1993 when the decommissioning process started and the warheads and low yield torpedos were removed. Then in 1996 the last Russian Submarine left the Base, and now you can go on Guided tours round the Cannel System, Base and small Museum, which is now housed in the old weapons stowage hangers deep inside the hillside.
External links
- Template:En icon Balaklava and the Sevastopol Inquiry, 1855
- Template:Ru icon Genoese fortress in Balaklava
- Template:Ru icon Balaklava - Official City Site
Template:Settlements of Crimeade:Balaklawa no:Balaklava ru:Балаклава tr:Balaklava uk:Балаклава