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Kerch

The oldest city in Ukraine, one of the first city-states on the territory of Crimea. Founded as the ancient Greek polis of Pantikapaion (610–590 BCE), it was the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom. Located on the shore of the Kerch Strait. Currently — temporarily occupied by russia.

Overview

Kerch is the oldest city in Ukraine with a history of over 2,600 years. Three main epochs define the mythology of the city: antiquity (the Bosporan Kingdom, Pantikapaion), the "annexation" to the russian empire (1774), and World War II (a Hero City of the USSR). The medieval (Byzantine) period often remains in the shadows, although the 8th-century Church of St. John the Forerunner stands in the city center.

The center of the city — cultural, tourist, and spiritual — is Mithridat Hill, the highest point of Kerch, named after the Pontic king Mithridates VI Eupator. On the hill are located the Obelisk of Glory (1944, built from the walls of the Holy Trinity Cathedral), the acropolis of ancient Pantikapaion, and the famous Mithridat Stairs.

Key Details / Subtopics

Mithridat Hill and the Mithridat Stairs

  • The Great Mithridat Stairs — built in 1840 to the design of architect Alessandro Digbi and on the initiative of the city governor Ivan Stempkovsky. Symbolically they were meant to unite the modern city and the ancient city.
  • The Small (Constantine) Stairs — built in 1860 with the support of the merchant Oleksiy Konstantinov.
  • During the Crimean War of 1853–1856, the Great Stairs were damaged by naval shelling. A major restoration took place 130 years later (in the 1980s), when sculptor Roman Serdyuk recreated the griffins and the bowls.
  • After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the stairs began to fall into ruin: in 2015 a section collapsed. Despite a promise by V. Putin (2016) to allocate 1.5 billion rubles, the repair failed. The St. Petersburg company "Meander" (which won the tender in 2017) dismantled the griffins and tiles, but the work turned out to be ineffective and barbaric (driving 1,134 piles 30 m long into the cultural layer without archaeological excavation). Over 167 million rubles were spent in vain. As of 2018–2019, the stairs remained in ruins.

Ancient Heritage

  • On Mithridat Hill was located the acropolis of Pantikapaion — the capital of the Bosporan Kingdom.
  • Chaotic excavations and looting of ancient monuments continued in Kerch from the late 18th century. The Museum of Antiquities (a branch of the Odesa museum) was founded in 1820, but the plundering continued until the creation of a commission for the study of antiquity after 1850.
  • The Englishwoman M. Huth (1795) and the traveler F. Dubois de Montpéreux (1830s) documented the barbaric attitude toward ancient monuments.

The Visit of Alexander Pushkin and the 1999 Monument

  • In 1820, Alexander Pushkin visited Kerch as the first city of Crimea. Failing to find the tomb of Mithridates or the preserved ruins of Pantikapaion, he left disparaging comments about the city, remembering only fishing boats and the smell of fish, which shaped a negative perception of Kerch in literature.
  • In 1999, for the 200th anniversary of the poet, a miniature monument "To A. S. Pushkin from the people of Kerch" was welded with argon arc welding on the Kerch embankment at "full height" (which turned out to be considerably smaller than his actual 160 cm). The sculpture evoked contradictory reactions: it was called an ironic "revenge" for the poet's comment (in contrast to the majestic sculpture of Taras Shevchenko). In 2004 the mini-monument was stolen, but soon returned.

Educational Institutions during World War I and the Revolution (1914–1920)

  • The Zdolbuniv Women's Gymnasium: Evacuated to Kerch in 1914–1915 on the initiative of Baroness Eleonora von Taube, the gymnasium operated in the city until 1918 inclusive (holding classes in the second shift in the premises of the Kerch Women's Public Gymnasium).
  • The Attempt to Found a Polytechnic Institute (1918): An initiative by a representative of the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Oleksandr Korobov, to create a higher education institution in the premises of the oldest educational institution in Kerch — the Kushnikov Institute for Noble Girls (1830s–1920) — failed due to the refusal of the institute's administration.

Post-War Decline of Industry and Construction (1944–1954)

  • The Metallurgy Crisis: The Kerch Metallurgical Combine (the Voikov Plant) remained in ruins until 1954 (only the foundry shop was operating), and the launch of the blast furnace was under threat of failure. The Kirov Coke and Chemical Plant was never rebuilt; only the Komysh-Burun Iron Ore Combine was in operation.
  • Unfulfilled Infrastructure Promises: Due to the absence of its own production base for construction trusts, the reconstruction of the Kirov district of Kerch was in fact not carried out. Republican government resolutions on the creation of the "Kerchtsivilbud" trust (1953), the construction of a sea terminal (1952), and a dairy plant (1945–1953) remained unfulfilled until the transfer of Crimea to Ukraine.

russian Occupation

  • Kerch was the very first of the Crimean cities to become part of the russian empire (1774).
  • The annexation of Crimea in 2014 demonstrated the continuity of the tradition of neglecting heritage: illegal excavations, destruction of historical layers under the guise of "restoration" (Meander), the disappearance of buildings from the 19th–early 20th centuries.
  • More on the use of Kerch's cultural heritage in the rf's geocultural war.

Controversies and Open Questions

  • Different sources name different people connected to the Mithridat Stairs: city governor Ivan Stempkovsky as initiator/customer and Alessandro Digbi as the designing architect. There is no direct contradiction — the roles could have been distributed.