A museum with embrasures

The building of the Mykhailivska dungeon battery, as military historians call it, or the Mykhailivskiy ravelin, as Sevastopol residents call it, has been a gloomy spectacle towering over the local bay for decades. It was a restricted area and an ammunition depot.

At the beginning of this year the Ministry of Defense donated the complex of buildings in Mykhailivska battery to the National Museum of Military History of Ukraine. Now the place houses a branch called the Navy Museum of Ukraine, consisting of 30 halls and a huge exhibition square – over 2,000 sq. m. The building accommodated 10,000 works from the collection of Oleksiy Sheremetev, a well-known Ukrainian sponsor and collector, a member of the Royal Crimean War Research Society. He also financed repair works and restoration of the ravelin building.

Sheremetev was obviously excited at the opening ceremony. The sponsor admitted they had to complete repair and restoration works, beautify the adjacent territory and arrange the exposition within a record time of 100 days.

The result of strenuous efforts is impressive. First of all, the ancient fortification was very carefully and meticulously restored. No contemporary repairs, painted plaster or plastic moldings! The smallest details of the interior were recreated according to photographs and engravings that date back to the 19th century.

For example, heating ovens located along the long corridor inside the battery were restored. None of them remained from the old times, so they had to be remade of cast iron according to old blueprints. The restoration crew also had to order special ship timber for the flooring. In order to preserve the authenticity of the building the crew preserved the “scars of time” on its walls – traces of bullets and shells and inscriptions. The work, however, has just begun, because the first floor, the ravelin vaults and adjacent premises are the next objects scheduled for restoration.

It is common knowledge that a museum is all about its expositions – not only rich, but also integral. The collection composed by Sheremetev and his brother Ihor is unprecedented. Many objects are very unique. For example, the collection includes original copies of blueprints of the famous military engineer Edward Totleben, the personal seal of Russian Admiral Mikhail Lazarev, which was by sheer accident noticed at the sale of a private collection at an antique exhibition in St. Petersburg and an original radiogram sent by Mikhail Frunze to Baron Wilhelm von Wrangel, in which the Commander-in-Chief of the Red Army Frunze proposed the general to lay down his arms. The Navy Museum also includes an exhibit of naval uniforms from different years that cannot be found in any other museum.

Sheremetev said he began collecting military memorabilia in his childhood after visiting the Panorama Museum with his parents. Over time he amassed thousands of documents, decorations, uniforms, printed stuff, photos, personal belongings of soldiers that fought in the Crimean War, the Civil War and both world wars. The lives of certain people stand behind every object. Sponsors say they tried to trace the fortunes of Russian British and French soldiers and officers – all those that fought in major battles of the 19th – 20th centuries, while collecting the exhibits.

The same idea was became the concept of the Navy Museum. Its exposition will reflect the live history of Sevastopol since the moment of its establishment right up to the present day, as well as the history of the Black Sea Fleet.

It is not only a spirit of the times to turn historical military installations into galleries or concert halls. Global practice has proven that a cultural center in the suburbs or outskirts of a city can give impetus to the development of whole districts of the city.

Mayor of Sevastopol Valeriy Saratov pins such hopes on the Navy Museum. “The museum is located practically in the outskirts of the city on its northern side. For this reason, we should work on creating a respectable image of this part of the city, so that people will willingly visit it,” Saratov noted. The mayor promised to build a quay near the ravelin within a year and arrange excursions for school students.