The Arabat Fortress, built in the 17th century by the Ottoman army, stands at the southernmost part of the

Arabat Spit The Arabat Spit ( uk, Арабатська коса; russian: Арабатская коса) or Arabat Arrow is a barrier spit that separates the large, shallow and very salty Syvash lagoons from the Sea of Azov. The spit runs between the Hen ...

.Arabat Foretress
(in Russian) Its purpose was to guard the spit and

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

from invasions.Semenov, p.111 It was in use, with intermissions, until the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

of 1853–1856.

Name

The name of the Arabat Fortress originates from either Arabic "rabat", meaning a "military post", or Turkic " arabat" meaning a "suburb", and is the origin of the name of the Arabat Spit.Shutov
Introduction

History

Background: classical antiquity

There is information about a fortification that stood at the site during the times of the

Bosporan Kingdom The Bosporan Kingdom, also known as the Kingdom of the Cimmerian Bosporus (, ''Vasíleio toú Kimmerikoú Vospórou''), was an ancient Greco-Scythian state located in eastern Crimea and the Taman Peninsula on the shores of the Cimmerian Bosporus, ...

(the kingdom existed between the 5th century BCE - 4th century CE).Shutov
Part 1

Ottoman fortress

The 1475 Turkish invasion of Crimea rang the death knell of the

Genoese colonies The colonies of the Republic of Genoa were a series of economic and trade posts in the Mediterranean and Black Seas. Some of them had been established directly under the patronage of the republican authorities to support the economy of the local ...

there, leading to the destruction of the Genoese fortresses on the peninsula. The Turks built or rebuilt fortresses in all strategically important points of the peninsula, their main fortresses being

Or Qapi Or Qapi Fortress is a ruined fort located near the settlement of Perekop on the Perekop isthmus connecting the Crimean peninsula to the Ukrainian mainland. History The Or Qapi fort was built in the 15th century by Mengli Girai and his ...

Perekop Perekop (Ukrainian & Russian: Перекоп; ; ) is an urban-type settlement located on the Perekop Isthmus connecting the Crimean peninsula to the Ukrainian mainland. It is known for the fortress Or Qapi that served as the gateway to Crimea. The ...

, Arabat,

Yeni-Kale Yeni-Kale ( uk, Єні-Кале; russian: Еникале; tr, Yenikale; crh, Yeñi Qale, also spelled as ''Yenikale'' and ''Eni-Kale'' and ''Yeni-Kaleh'' or ''Yéni-Kaleb'') is a fortress on the shore of Kerch Strait in the city of Kerch. Histor ...

on the

Kerch Strait The Kerch Strait, uk, Керченська протока, crh, Keriç boğazı, ady, Хы ТӀуалэ is a strait in Eastern Europe. It connects the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, separating the Kerch Peninsula of Crimea in the west from ...

, Gözleve, and

Kefe uk, Феодосія, Теодосія crh, Kefe , official_name = () , settlement_type= , image_skyline = THEODOSIA 01.jpg , imagesize = 250px , image_caption = Genoese fortress of Caffa , image_shield = Fe ...

. The fortress was probably built in the second half of the 17th century by the Turkish army and was first depicted on a map compiled by

Jacob von Sandrart Jacob von Sandrart (3 May 1630, Frankfurt am Main — 15 August 1708, Nuremberg) was a German engraver primarily active in Nuremberg. At age ten Sandrart obtained his artistic training from his better-known uncle Joachim von Sandrart in Amsterda ...

in 1651. This map was based on material collected by French military engineer and

cartographer Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

Guillaume Le Vasseur de Beauplan Guillaume Levasseur de Beauplan (c. 1600 – 6 December 1673) or William le Vasseur de Beauplan was a French-Polish cartographer, engineer and architect. Beauplan served as artillery captain for the army of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland ...

, author of the 1651 book "Description d'Ukranie". The fortress had a relatively advanced military design, is octagonal in shape with 3-meter thick stone walls, and was surrounded by an earthen wall and a

moat A moat is a deep, broad ditch, either dry or filled with water, that is dug and surrounds a castle, fortification, building or town, historically to provide it with a preliminary line of defence. In some places moats evolved into more extensive ...

. It contained five towers and two gates. Several rows of

embrasures An embrasure (or crenel or crenelle; sometimes called gunhole in the domain of gunpowder-era architecture) is the opening in a battlement between two raised solid portions ( merlons). Alternatively, an embrasure can be a space hollowed ou ...

faced east, north and west and were designed for various artillery types. Whereas the fortress was hard to conquer when properly defended, its remote location from Turkey meant that its garrison was often understaffed, allowing Russian troops to bypass it in

1737 Events January–March * January 5 – Spain and the Holy Roman Empire sign instruments of cession at Pontremoli in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in Italy, with the Empire receiving control of Tuscany and the Grand Duchy of Parma a ...

and to take it by storm in 1771.

Russian Empire

After Crimea became part of Russia in 1783, the fortress was abandoned, but later refurbished and used by Russians during the Crimean War of 1853–1856 to defend the Crimean coast. After the war, the fortress was again abandoned and its walls were used by the people of the nearby small village of Arabat as a source of stone.

Soviet Union

The Arabat Spit saw again heavy fighting between the Soviet

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

and the

White Army The White Army (russian: Белая армия, Belaya armiya) or White Guard (russian: Бѣлая гвардія/Белая гвардия, Belaya gvardiya, label=none), also referred to as the Whites or White Guardsmen (russian: Бѣлогв� ...

in 1920 and the

German Army The German Army (, "army") is the land component of the armed forces of Germany. The present-day German Army was founded in 1955 as part of the newly formed West German ''Bundeswehr'' together with the ''Marine'' (German Navy) and the ''Luftwaf ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in 1941–1944. In 1968, some scenes of a famous Soviet film, ''

Two Comrades Were Serving ''Two Comrades Were Serving'' (russian: Служили два товарища, translit. ''Sluzhili dva tovarishcha'') is a 1968 Soviet war film directed by Yevgeny Karelov with a script by Yuli Dunsky and Valeri Frid. The film is about the ...

'', were shot there.

Ukraine

Google Earth Google Earth is a computer program that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satellite images, aerial photography, and geog ...

satellite imagery shows the fort has been occupied by military forces since the

Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation In February and March 2014, Russia invaded and subsequently annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. This event took place in the aftermath of the Revolution of Dignity and is part of the wider Russo-Ukrainian War. The events in Kyiv th ...

in 2014.

References

{{Tourist attractions in Crimea Forts in Ukraine Buildings and structures in Crimea