The “Magnificent Age” - Catherine II TL
- Thread starter alexmilman
- Start date
I was thinking more about Sakhalin as Qing control and claim on the island is very theoretical.
Russia could build a trade port in the north half of the island to logistically connect it to Siberia and Okhotsk. Then build a southern port on the western half of Aniva bay to facilitate trade with Tokugawa Japan and Joseon Korea.
Russia trying to build Port Arthur or even Vladivostok more then a 100 years early does sound like a terrible idea.
But what was there in Sakhalin worth of capturing in the 18th century?
To trade with what?
Putting aside Tokugawa’s regime restrictions on a foreign trade, the obvious question is: trade with what? Even in the early XX century Russian-Japanese trade, outside fishing concessions for Japan, was minimal because neither side was too interested in the goods of other. The Russian interest, IIRC, started only after foundation of Vladivostok: for a while Japan was supplying Russian “Primorie” with food, construction materials and other items.
It was a terrible idea 100 years later as well so this is, let’s say, “a stable factor”.
-Local fur,
-fishing for substance
-ingredients used in traditional Asiatic medicine
-whaling for meat, ivory, and oil.
-Timber for ships.
-Livestock and local agriculture (mostly for self-sufficiency)
-coal
Ultimately, I’m not proposing Russia would conquer all of Sakhalin, just establish a few ports that are warmer and better placed than
Russian precious metals of which there is a significant deposit of gold in magadan. A Siberian gold rush would suck manpower from other endeavors in the area for a time but would ultimately expand development of the Far East. Gold from A possible Magadan mine or from other Russian precious metal mines could very well grease the wheels of initial trade. don’t forget the while Japan is hardly industrializing, her Economy and population have been growing since there hundred year Civil War and could find an appetite for Russian resources.
I have doubts That the Matsumae of Ezo or the clans of Mutsu Province would obey Edo’s isolation dictates. Culturally they would be less inclined to resist Russian trade and exchange in the way the more developed southern clans would. The Japanese in the south had to deal Portuguese slavers, Spanish zealots, and rebellious Japanese Catholic Lords. They are determined to maintain order by maintaining the pro Dutch status quo.
The clans of northern Japan and rural isolated and poor it could probably be convinced that Russian trade and exchange could fill their coffers and strengthen their forces.
Were Russia a Latin speaking westernized Catholic state launching inter-oceanic mercantile and missionary expeditions from the shores of Europe to Japan trying to secure a concession they would fail.
Should all else fail on these clans slavishly enforce Edo law Russia could just use the Anui or even tungusic peoples as an intermediaries.
This all sounds tempting but missing few facts:
1. Russia never was too much into the sea-/oceanic trade. Even when its rulers tried to encourage it, it was not happening in any significant volume so build up any major schema based upon it is unrealistically optimistic.
2. Serious development of the Russian Pacific was impossible without the adequate inter-continent land communications and it is excessively optimistic to imagine a functioning TransSib in the XVIII or even mid-XIX century.
3. XX century mining industry on Magadan and other similar places was triggered by combination of the massive forced labor and reasonably modern technologies. And available practical communication toward Pacific coast (TransSib to Vladivostok, icebreakers, etc.).
4. In the late XVIII - XIX there was no need to look for the gold in Magadan because there was a gold boom in the much easier accessible areas of Siberia and in the earlier times there was close to nothing and why would anybody start looking for it so far away where the Russian population was practically absent?
5. Items for trade with Japan make sense only if there is a considerable Russian population on the Pacific coast, so see #2.
6. Russian fishing on the Pacific started in any noticeable volume only in the late 1920s if not later: prior to that it was in the Japanese hands.
7. Coal was not much used in Russia until after 1860s: metallurgy was charcoal based.
8. The sources of furs for trade were Siberia, Far East, Alaska so what in the terms of new valuable items Sakhalin could offer?
9. Most of the furs went to China, which was offering valuable items. Japanese tea, silk and porcelain never picked up a serious interest in Russia even in the early XX. BTW, China was for a while the main source of the rhubarb, the only “Eastern medicine” which Russia picked up and was re-exporting to the west.
44. Raise of Novorossia #2. “How to cure pain in the butt”
New
44. Raise of Novorossia #2. “How to cure pain in the butt”
Russian Empire, 1775. What was supposed to be “Novorossia”. When Catherine and her “Grishenka” made their plans for turning the newly-obtained region into a prosperous part of the Russian Empire, they somehow missed something, which both of them knew quite well: that implementation of their ideas will be impossible without elimination a problem called “Zaporizhian Sich” (blue on the map below) [1]. It was just in between the “main” empire, cutting communications between them, and new lands and, even under the most modest scenario, a big part of it had to become Novorossia. Which meant that the planned development, which involved large scale migration from North to South and secure communications, was going to be problematic at best.
The Sich was a rather unique social entity. Its territory was populated exclusively by the males [2] who were not engaged in agriculture or any manufacturing activities unrelated to production or repairs of the weapons (not sure if production of a booze qualified as a “manufacturing”).
The main sources of income for the Sich were: looting and robbery during campaigns, foreign and domestic trade, wine sale, tribute from transportation, grain and monetary salaries coming from the government. At the time of peace they were doing fishing and hunting. Well, and looting of the merchants passing through their land (in the cases of the foreign merchants, the state was ending up paying the compensation).
Another considerable part of their peace time activities was litigation with their neighbors (territories of “Novaya Serbia” and “Slavyano Serbia” ) over who is entitled to which piece of land, which did not make them darlings of the Military Collegium forced to deal with the never ending complaints and a volume of a demagoguery rather unexpected from self-proclaimed “simple warriors”. These conflicts, besides the litigious component, included regular raids (on both sides) and even armed confrontation with the regular troops stationed on the borders to keep things under at least some control.
Allegedly, they were not even beyond a slave trade, which would be rather unsurprising taking into an account that the popular folklore personage, Cossack Mamai, has Tatar name.
Their “self-assessment” was as one of the semi-independent state entitled to its own political maneuvering. As far as the demographic was involved, obviously this purely male entity could not maintain its numbers by the “conventional means” and relied upon influx from outside of the new people of all (Jews excluded) ethnicities and backgrounds. Procedure of acceptance, as presented in a highly idealized description of Sich habits involved a simple interview conducted by one of the Sich officials:
Q: Do you drink vodka?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes, I do.
At that point candidate was accepted and could chose the unit (“kuren”) to serve in.
Their man claim to the usefulness was defense of Tsardom’s/Empire southern borders but throughout the time record on that account was rather checkered because their raiding activities not always (to put it mildly) were taking into a consideration existing peace treaties thus often causing political embarrassments and a need to apologize. Usually, these were relatively minor accidents with no major consequences but this changed recently: the Ottoman War had been triggered at a moment very inconvenient for Russia by Zaporizhian raid on Balta. To add cherry on the top of a cake, finding out about the coming Crimean raid (the 1st major operation of the war), Sich made a neutrality agreement with the Khan thus guaranteeing security of his right flank. Taking into an account that during that raid Rumyantsev (governor-general of Malorossia) had huge problems with turning the Ukrainian Cossacks into at least some meaningful force [3], the raided area was left practically undefended, except for few small garrisons of the regular troops, and more than 1,000 people had been captured by the Crimeans, not to mention stolen cattle, destroyed property, etc.
To be fair, when after this fiasco the Zaporhizians joined Rumyantsev’s army, he managed to use them very effectively by creating the mixed detachments of the regular and Cossack troops operating under command of the competent Russian generals (Weisman, Suvorov, etc.) and used for the raiding operations. On the numerous occasions the Cossacks were performing great and Rumyantsev was never forgetting to compliment them, provide the monetary awards and to ask Catherine for the “moral” one, the commemorative medals (for the leaders, the gold and bejeweled ones). At the same time, their regular commanders had been under the orders to keep a close eye on their out of a battlefield activities and prevent looting and violence against the local population. Policy of an iron fist in a velvet glove worked quite well during the war but now the war was over and the Cossack were back to their business as usual.
Well, initially, things were seemingly going well. Governor-general of Novorossia had numerous and rather friendly contacts with the Cossacks during the war and immediately after it the relations remained visibly cozy. Potemkin even got a Zaporhizian “Cossack name”, “Gricko Nechesa” (“Gricko” - “Grigory” and “Nechesa”, if I understand correctly, referenced to his favored disordered hair style), was routinely pestered with the standard requests for some favors, exchanged some jokes, etc.
However, all these niceties did not change two fundamental facts:
Zaporozhye Cossacks, together with their pseudo-state, created mostly for robbery, simply did not fit into the new Russian province. They did not want to work for the benefit of the state, they did not want to go to a specific tsarist service with its strict discipline either, they had no thoughts of moving anywhere - and what was it necessary to do with such "freethinkers", especially, well-armed and aggressive? Add to this that this pseudo-state was ruled by its own laws, mostly contradicting to the imperial ones and its freeman are completely uncontrollable, and, moreover, insatiable, accustomed for several centuries of its existence only to raid and take away everything that can be taken away from others. And given the innate tendency of the Cossack leaders to violate the oath, or even direct treason, how could the centralized authorities maintain at least some harmony here?
Not that the internal situation in the Sich was all peace and harmony. The leadership (starshina) was not an example of integrity - the theft of state money sent to maintain the army was systematic. This led to uprisings of the Sich poor. Koshevoy Kalnyshevsky was forced to flee the Sich twice and suppress the uprisings with the help of regular troops. One of the instigators of the uprising, Kalnyshevsky personally whipped to death. Many of the starshina managed to make giant fortunes: only the scribe Globa (not the most important face in the Sich) had 14 thousand heads of cattle. The leadership was getting rich, the fighting capacity of the Cossacks was falling, then Ataman Kalinishevsky entered into secret negotiations with the Turkish sultan.
The last straw was a new decision of the Sich’ leadership to coerce the married serfs from the neighbor areas to settle on the Sich territory (without becoming the Cossacks) and start ploughing land. Was this a plain stupidity, arrogance or expectation of the government’s stupidity, nobody knows but from the Sich “statehood” point of view this was a very creative form of a suicide.
Catherine, slightly later, wrote in her Manifesto:
“Starting their own farming, they dissolved the basis of their dependence on Our Throne and of course expected to form a completely independent region, under their own erratic management, in the hope that the tendency to depraved life and robbery would, with inner abundance, constantly renew and multiply their number.”
Drinking with Potemkin did not produce the desirable result: he was too intelligent and knew Catherine's phobias quite well. So it was he who spelled out the need to deal with the unruly entity. The trend towards liquidation of the Sich caused the strongest concern of the senior Cossacks. General Judge Anton Golovaty appealed to Potemkin with a proposal to preserve the Sich by reorganizing it in the style of the Don Army. However, Potemkin was so tired of sorting out the complaints and disputes of the Cossacks with his neighbors, that he replied in his hearts: "You can't stay; you’re too unruly." Realizing that it was useless to expect mercy from the Governor-General, the Cossacks at the end of 1774 sent a delegation to St. Petersburg headed by a popular starshina member Sidor Bily. Catherine graciously accepted the delegation and... immediately sent an order to liquidate the Sich.
On June 5, 1775, for the Trinity week, the troops of Lieutenant General Peter Tekeli, together with the Wallachian and Hungarian regiments of Major General Fyodor Chobra, consisting of five regiments of lancers cavalry, hussars, Don Cossacks and ten thousand infantry, approached Zaporozhye at night.
The Cossacks celebrated green Christmas, the sentry slept, the Oryol infantry regiment with a squadron of cavalry passed unnoticed through the entire suburb and occupied the Novosechensk retranchement without shots. The sudden action of the Russian troops demoralized the Cossacks. Tekeli read out an ultimatum, and the kosh Peter Kalnyshevsky got two hours to give an answer. There was a heated meeting in which the ordinary Cossacks demanded to resist but starshina and and local clergy convinced them to surrender. Four companies of infantry entered the inner settlement and put guards at the powder cellar and at all military installations.
Tekeli reported: “For tomorrow, starshina, atamans and Cossacks were gathered outside the fortification in the field, and when the declaration of Your Supreme Imperial Majesty of their people was written, they put down their guns.”
Treasury and archive had been confiscated and fortifications leveled to the ground. Tekeli on the spot issued not only passports for the right to go to work, but also protective certificates to the starshina and rich Cossacks, so that to their estates, and personally to them nobody "make any insults with ruin and anger". Most of them got nobility status and estates. Some of the Cossacks fled immediately, some disappeared and went by the Dnieper to the Turkish possessions. Beyond the Danube, the former Cossacks formed the so-called "Unfaithful Zaporozhye Army".
Historic Intermission. 85-year-old Kalnyshevsky with some of the starshina were arrested and exiled to Solovki. There he sat in the casemate for 12 years. He was released three times a year - for Easter, Christmas and the Savior. Then he was "allowed to go to church and talk to others." It went on for another 13 years. In 1801, the former ataman was released but refused to leave the monastery and lived there until his death in 1803 at the age of 112. It should be noted that the God-fearing koshevoy, in order not to get bored, took six carts with property into exile, including many valuable things like the silver-bounded Gospel weighting 34 pounds. The daily ration of the ataman was 1 ruble from his own brought treasury, which was more than hospitable for the Solovetsky hermits.
However, a number of Cossacks expressed readiness to serve. Under the leadership of Sidor Bily they were relocated to the Bug-Dniester border area to form “Faithful Zaporozhye Army”. So there were the former Sich members on both sides of a border. Other had been permitted to serve in hussar and dragoon regiments.
Territory was now open to colonization…
_____________
[1] Disclaimer: Coloring on the map (probably) has nothing to do with the current politics, even if the map is Ukrainian. Anyway, it is absolutely irrelevant to the issue. The same goes for the proper English spelling of the name: the used is seemingly one to which Google does not object and I don’t care beyond that. 😜
[2] They could have families outside but females were not permitted on Sich territory.
[3] On paper, the Ukrainian Cossacks Host should provide something close to 20,000 experienced and well-armed warrior. After Rumyantsev’s reports about the real situation, the Council lowered the number first down to 16,000 and eventually to 6,000 with a wise provision “or as many as you’ll manage to assemble”. Rumyantsev eventually managed to raise between 2 and 3,000, mostly inadequately armed and definitely inadequately trained, so he had to address these issues during the campaign, which he did with surprising success. A byproduct was a complete reorganization of the whole system.
“You see a problem, I see a potential.”
‘My blue heaven’
“The empire is a power, the main and perhaps the only goal of whose policy is to make all external enemies internal!”
“When the only tool at your disposal is a hammer, then everything around seems to be nails...”
“Anyone who points out your shortcomings is not always your enemy. The one who talks about your merits is not always your friend.”
“It is not so much enemies that prevent easy life as the idea that it is enemies that prevent easy life.”
“Nothing distracts from global problems more than solving small problems.”
“I always forgive my enemies and treat them with love. All people have their own problems, and my enemies also have me.”
“It is better to solve problems not as they arrive, but before they appear.”
“In Russia, problems are not solved, but new ones are invented, which will eclipse the previous ones...”
“When he was sitting on the bank of the river and waiting for the enemy's corpse to swim by, the enemy sneaked up from behind...”
“Purchased loyalty is more dangerous than undisguised hostility. You know what to expect from the enemy, and the one who was bought can always be bought.”
“While we're sleeping, the enemy doesn't sleep... Sleep more - wear out the enemy!”
“If someone has what you need, declare them an enemy and take everything.”
“The Holy Scripture teaches us to forgive our enemies, but nothing like that is said about friends.”
Unknown authors
‘My blue heaven’
“The empire is a power, the main and perhaps the only goal of whose policy is to make all external enemies internal!”
“When the only tool at your disposal is a hammer, then everything around seems to be nails...”
“Anyone who points out your shortcomings is not always your enemy. The one who talks about your merits is not always your friend.”
“It is not so much enemies that prevent easy life as the idea that it is enemies that prevent easy life.”
“Nothing distracts from global problems more than solving small problems.”
“I always forgive my enemies and treat them with love. All people have their own problems, and my enemies also have me.”
“It is better to solve problems not as they arrive, but before they appear.”
“In Russia, problems are not solved, but new ones are invented, which will eclipse the previous ones...”
“When he was sitting on the bank of the river and waiting for the enemy's corpse to swim by, the enemy sneaked up from behind...”
“Purchased loyalty is more dangerous than undisguised hostility. You know what to expect from the enemy, and the one who was bought can always be bought.”
“While we're sleeping, the enemy doesn't sleep... Sleep more - wear out the enemy!”
“If someone has what you need, declare them an enemy and take everything.”
“The Holy Scripture teaches us to forgive our enemies, but nothing like that is said about friends.”
Unknown authors
Russian Empire, 1775. What was supposed to be “Novorossia”. When Catherine and her “Grishenka” made their plans for turning the newly-obtained region into a prosperous part of the Russian Empire, they somehow missed something, which both of them knew quite well: that implementation of their ideas will be impossible without elimination a problem called “Zaporizhian Sich” (blue on the map below) [1]. It was just in between the “main” empire, cutting communications between them, and new lands and, even under the most modest scenario, a big part of it had to become Novorossia. Which meant that the planned development, which involved large scale migration from North to South and secure communications, was going to be problematic at best.
The Sich was a rather unique social entity. Its territory was populated exclusively by the males [2] who were not engaged in agriculture or any manufacturing activities unrelated to production or repairs of the weapons (not sure if production of a booze qualified as a “manufacturing”).
The main sources of income for the Sich were: looting and robbery during campaigns, foreign and domestic trade, wine sale, tribute from transportation, grain and monetary salaries coming from the government. At the time of peace they were doing fishing and hunting. Well, and looting of the merchants passing through their land (in the cases of the foreign merchants, the state was ending up paying the compensation).
Another considerable part of their peace time activities was litigation with their neighbors (territories of “Novaya Serbia” and “Slavyano Serbia” ) over who is entitled to which piece of land, which did not make them darlings of the Military Collegium forced to deal with the never ending complaints and a volume of a demagoguery rather unexpected from self-proclaimed “simple warriors”. These conflicts, besides the litigious component, included regular raids (on both sides) and even armed confrontation with the regular troops stationed on the borders to keep things under at least some control.
Allegedly, they were not even beyond a slave trade, which would be rather unsurprising taking into an account that the popular folklore personage, Cossack Mamai, has Tatar name.
Their “self-assessment” was as one of the semi-independent state entitled to its own political maneuvering. As far as the demographic was involved, obviously this purely male entity could not maintain its numbers by the “conventional means” and relied upon influx from outside of the new people of all (Jews excluded) ethnicities and backgrounds. Procedure of acceptance, as presented in a highly idealized description of Sich habits involved a simple interview conducted by one of the Sich officials:
Q: Do you drink vodka?
A: Yes, I do.
Q: Do you believe in God?
A: Yes, I do.
At that point candidate was accepted and could chose the unit (“kuren”) to serve in.
Their man claim to the usefulness was defense of Tsardom’s/Empire southern borders but throughout the time record on that account was rather checkered because their raiding activities not always (to put it mildly) were taking into a consideration existing peace treaties thus often causing political embarrassments and a need to apologize. Usually, these were relatively minor accidents with no major consequences but this changed recently: the Ottoman War had been triggered at a moment very inconvenient for Russia by Zaporizhian raid on Balta. To add cherry on the top of a cake, finding out about the coming Crimean raid (the 1st major operation of the war), Sich made a neutrality agreement with the Khan thus guaranteeing security of his right flank. Taking into an account that during that raid Rumyantsev (governor-general of Malorossia) had huge problems with turning the Ukrainian Cossacks into at least some meaningful force [3], the raided area was left practically undefended, except for few small garrisons of the regular troops, and more than 1,000 people had been captured by the Crimeans, not to mention stolen cattle, destroyed property, etc.
To be fair, when after this fiasco the Zaporhizians joined Rumyantsev’s army, he managed to use them very effectively by creating the mixed detachments of the regular and Cossack troops operating under command of the competent Russian generals (Weisman, Suvorov, etc.) and used for the raiding operations. On the numerous occasions the Cossacks were performing great and Rumyantsev was never forgetting to compliment them, provide the monetary awards and to ask Catherine for the “moral” one, the commemorative medals (for the leaders, the gold and bejeweled ones). At the same time, their regular commanders had been under the orders to keep a close eye on their out of a battlefield activities and prevent looting and violence against the local population. Policy of an iron fist in a velvet glove worked quite well during the war but now the war was over and the Cossack were back to their business as usual.
Well, initially, things were seemingly going well. Governor-general of Novorossia had numerous and rather friendly contacts with the Cossacks during the war and immediately after it the relations remained visibly cozy. Potemkin even got a Zaporhizian “Cossack name”, “Gricko Nechesa” (“Gricko” - “Grigory” and “Nechesa”, if I understand correctly, referenced to his favored disordered hair style), was routinely pestered with the standard requests for some favors, exchanged some jokes, etc.
However, all these niceties did not change two fundamental facts:
- Geographically and administratively the Sich was an obstacle to the imperial policy in the region.
- With the borders moved and Crimea being absorbed, the Sich ceased to be needed. And no one was going to feed this "villous" pseudo-state within the Empire for free.
Zaporozhye Cossacks, together with their pseudo-state, created mostly for robbery, simply did not fit into the new Russian province. They did not want to work for the benefit of the state, they did not want to go to a specific tsarist service with its strict discipline either, they had no thoughts of moving anywhere - and what was it necessary to do with such "freethinkers", especially, well-armed and aggressive? Add to this that this pseudo-state was ruled by its own laws, mostly contradicting to the imperial ones and its freeman are completely uncontrollable, and, moreover, insatiable, accustomed for several centuries of its existence only to raid and take away everything that can be taken away from others. And given the innate tendency of the Cossack leaders to violate the oath, or even direct treason, how could the centralized authorities maintain at least some harmony here?
Not that the internal situation in the Sich was all peace and harmony. The leadership (starshina) was not an example of integrity - the theft of state money sent to maintain the army was systematic. This led to uprisings of the Sich poor. Koshevoy Kalnyshevsky was forced to flee the Sich twice and suppress the uprisings with the help of regular troops. One of the instigators of the uprising, Kalnyshevsky personally whipped to death. Many of the starshina managed to make giant fortunes: only the scribe Globa (not the most important face in the Sich) had 14 thousand heads of cattle. The leadership was getting rich, the fighting capacity of the Cossacks was falling, then Ataman Kalinishevsky entered into secret negotiations with the Turkish sultan.
The last straw was a new decision of the Sich’ leadership to coerce the married serfs from the neighbor areas to settle on the Sich territory (without becoming the Cossacks) and start ploughing land. Was this a plain stupidity, arrogance or expectation of the government’s stupidity, nobody knows but from the Sich “statehood” point of view this was a very creative form of a suicide.
Catherine, slightly later, wrote in her Manifesto:
“Starting their own farming, they dissolved the basis of their dependence on Our Throne and of course expected to form a completely independent region, under their own erratic management, in the hope that the tendency to depraved life and robbery would, with inner abundance, constantly renew and multiply their number.”
Drinking with Potemkin did not produce the desirable result: he was too intelligent and knew Catherine's phobias quite well. So it was he who spelled out the need to deal with the unruly entity. The trend towards liquidation of the Sich caused the strongest concern of the senior Cossacks. General Judge Anton Golovaty appealed to Potemkin with a proposal to preserve the Sich by reorganizing it in the style of the Don Army. However, Potemkin was so tired of sorting out the complaints and disputes of the Cossacks with his neighbors, that he replied in his hearts: "You can't stay; you’re too unruly." Realizing that it was useless to expect mercy from the Governor-General, the Cossacks at the end of 1774 sent a delegation to St. Petersburg headed by a popular starshina member Sidor Bily. Catherine graciously accepted the delegation and... immediately sent an order to liquidate the Sich.
On June 5, 1775, for the Trinity week, the troops of Lieutenant General Peter Tekeli, together with the Wallachian and Hungarian regiments of Major General Fyodor Chobra, consisting of five regiments of lancers cavalry, hussars, Don Cossacks and ten thousand infantry, approached Zaporozhye at night.
The Cossacks celebrated green Christmas, the sentry slept, the Oryol infantry regiment with a squadron of cavalry passed unnoticed through the entire suburb and occupied the Novosechensk retranchement without shots. The sudden action of the Russian troops demoralized the Cossacks. Tekeli read out an ultimatum, and the kosh Peter Kalnyshevsky got two hours to give an answer. There was a heated meeting in which the ordinary Cossacks demanded to resist but starshina and and local clergy convinced them to surrender. Four companies of infantry entered the inner settlement and put guards at the powder cellar and at all military installations.
Tekeli reported: “For tomorrow, starshina, atamans and Cossacks were gathered outside the fortification in the field, and when the declaration of Your Supreme Imperial Majesty of their people was written, they put down their guns.”
Treasury and archive had been confiscated and fortifications leveled to the ground. Tekeli on the spot issued not only passports for the right to go to work, but also protective certificates to the starshina and rich Cossacks, so that to their estates, and personally to them nobody "make any insults with ruin and anger". Most of them got nobility status and estates. Some of the Cossacks fled immediately, some disappeared and went by the Dnieper to the Turkish possessions. Beyond the Danube, the former Cossacks formed the so-called "Unfaithful Zaporozhye Army".
Historic Intermission. 85-year-old Kalnyshevsky with some of the starshina were arrested and exiled to Solovki. There he sat in the casemate for 12 years. He was released three times a year - for Easter, Christmas and the Savior. Then he was "allowed to go to church and talk to others." It went on for another 13 years. In 1801, the former ataman was released but refused to leave the monastery and lived there until his death in 1803 at the age of 112. It should be noted that the God-fearing koshevoy, in order not to get bored, took six carts with property into exile, including many valuable things like the silver-bounded Gospel weighting 34 pounds. The daily ration of the ataman was 1 ruble from his own brought treasury, which was more than hospitable for the Solovetsky hermits.
However, a number of Cossacks expressed readiness to serve. Under the leadership of Sidor Bily they were relocated to the Bug-Dniester border area to form “Faithful Zaporozhye Army”. So there were the former Sich members on both sides of a border. Other had been permitted to serve in hussar and dragoon regiments.
Territory was now open to colonization…
_____________
[1] Disclaimer: Coloring on the map (probably) has nothing to do with the current politics, even if the map is Ukrainian. Anyway, it is absolutely irrelevant to the issue. The same goes for the proper English spelling of the name: the used is seemingly one to which Google does not object and I don’t care beyond that. 😜
[2] They could have families outside but females were not permitted on Sich territory.
[3] On paper, the Ukrainian Cossacks Host should provide something close to 20,000 experienced and well-armed warrior. After Rumyantsev’s reports about the real situation, the Council lowered the number first down to 16,000 and eventually to 6,000 with a wise provision “or as many as you’ll manage to assemble”. Rumyantsev eventually managed to raise between 2 and 3,000, mostly inadequately armed and definitely inadequately trained, so he had to address these issues during the campaign, which he did with surprising success. A byproduct was a complete reorganization of the whole system.
If only monarchs were handing out titles today, oh well at least we have modern medicine
Well, unless you are an a—hole who has an “idea” and power to implement it, which quite often was the case.
Take Nogays. Potemkin got an idea that it would be cute to move them beyond the Ural with the resulting uprising and emigration into OE and experiments of that type continued all the way into the reign of AII who got rid of the most of those who left because the good lands had to be populated by the ethnic Russians. All that regardless the fact that the Nogays remained quite loyal.
45. Raise of Novorossia #3. Potemkin at large
New
45. Raise of Novorossia #3. Potemkin at large
“The peasant is always going to get rich next year.”
“What are the main obstacles to agriculture? There are four of them: spring, summer, autumn and winter.”
old sayings
“When Potemkin came into power, he remembered one of his village friends and wrote him the following poem:
Dear friend,
If you have time,
Come to me:
If it's not like that,
.........
Lie in .....
A dear friend hurried to come for an affectionate invitation.”
Pushkin, “Table Talk”
"It is now impossible to destroy the bureaucracy, because the same bureaucrats will have to destroy it. But even after destroying the old bureaucracy, they will immediately give rise to a new, even more voracious, more hardy and tenacious..."
Potemkin
"Sometimes he [Potemkin] displayed the genius of the eagle, sometimes the frivolity of a child"
Count de Ségure.
“The Empress is in admiration for such an increment of Russian forces. Prince Potemkin is currently omnipotent, and you can't imagine how everyone takes nice to him.”
Emperor Joseph II
"I owe everything to Prince Potemkin. I hope no one will call him lazy now."
Catherine II
“In addition to fools and roads, there is another trouble in Russia: fools indicating which way to go.”
Boris Krutier
Catherine was extremely pleased with how Potemkin handled the Sich problem: the refuge of the dangerous elements was liquidated without a shot being fired and disloyal part of its population fled to the Ottoman Empire sparing a need of dealing with them while the loyal segment went on the government’s service on the conditions defined by the government, giving up their old privileges. With a huge territory of the former Sich is now open to colonization and communications between the old imperial territory and “Novorossia” became secure.
Now the decisions had to be made about two main questions:
The second question was economic orientation of these lands and so far Catherine still was sticking to the same mantra she had at the time of her Codification Commission: the most important thing is to have more peasants working on the fields producing more exportable agricultural products. She was not approving the “obrok” practice by which peasant could work somewhere or even, a complete horror, create his own business, on condition of paying the owner agreed upon amounts of money. On the top of all of the above she did not like the “machines” in manufacturing and, while encouraging creation of various manufactures, held a firm opinion that the fewer of these evil contraptions are being used, the better.
However, at least as far as “obrok” issue was involved, a growing percentage of the landowners did not share her views because “obrok” provided them with the ready and reasonably stable cash flow while traditional “barschina” was giving only agricultural products which they had to sell at the fluctuating prices.
Anyway, as initially intended, Novorossia would have to become a big breadbasket with some showcase cities which Potemkin would have to build from the scratch. The agricultural part was not too easy because the newcomers had to adjust to the conditions seriously different from those they had been accustomed to. Here is some statistics: In 1778, 115,209 quarters [1] were sown in the region and 796 quarters of different bread were harvested; in 1779, 148,200 were sown, 365 were harvested; in 1780, 125,187 were sown, 236,816 were harvested; in 1781, 195,215 were sown, 241,45 were harvested and in 1782, 146,804 were sown, 677,187 quarters harvested.
The showcase part was definitely Potemkin’s strong point and he got a lot of applause for it.
Kherson - some of the contemporary impressions:
I.I.Henmitzer (popular poet of that time):
“You can't imagine that so much could be done at the space of three years. Imagine a perfect steppe, where no twig, not to mention a home, could be found. Now it's a fortress, and a fortress is important, such as what of the best we've seen in the Netherlands. The structures in it is mostly made of hewn stone.”
K.G. Razumovsky (former Hetman):
”On the terrible desert of the steppe, where in recent times barely scattered huts were found, along the Kherson way, starting from Kremenchug itself, I found big villages in versts 20, 25 and further, mostly near abundant waters. What belongs to Kherson, imagine multitude of the stone buildings, which numbers are growing every hour, a fortress that closes the citadel and the best buildings, the Admiralty with ships under construction and already built, a vast suburb inhabited by merchants and various burghers. On the one hand, the barracks to accommodate 10,000 soldiers, on the other hand, in front of the suburbs a pleasant island with quarantine structures, with Greek merchant ships and with canals carried out for the benefit of these ships. I still can't get out of bewilderment about that imminent return to the place where only a winterer [2] was found so recently. This city will soon flourish with wealth and commerce, as you can see from the enviable beginning of it...”
It was definitely impressive to see a reasonably big city built practically out of nothing within a short period of time. Of course, none of these travelers had a crystal ball and none of them was a specialist in any applicable area to make a judgement based upon anything but the emptions. The fortress was a huge waste of money because it proved to be useless. Mentioning of a bare steppe was correct, but it meant that there was no adequate fuel nearby, and the town did not become either a shipbuilding center (transportation of the materials there was too costly and Dnieper too shallow for building the big ships) or a major port (too far upriver). Huge money were wasted on the things which eventually had to be transferred elsewhere. However, it became a capital of the Kherson gubernia.
Ekaterinoslav - had an ambitious destiny to become Russia’s “third capital”.
On April 23, 1776, the Azov governor submitted a report to Potemkin, where he reported: "In pursuance of the command of your lordship, I [send] a project to build the provincial city of Ekaterinoslav on the river Kilchene, near its confluence with the Samara River, with the attached plan, profiles, facades and estimates... I believe that the construction of the provincial city, as estimates can be, one hundred thirty-seven thousand one hundred and forty rubles thirty-two kopecks and a half..." [3] February 2, 1777 G. A. Potemkin issued a warrant in the name of V. A. Chertkov, where he pointed out that the plan of the provincial city was approved by him and sent to the construction site. The city was to occupy the entire coast of Samara and its small tributaries. The fortress was supposed to be built at the mouth of the Kilchene, where the territory was the most protected; the same document stated: "...continue construction of these buildings, trying to ensure that no unnecessary costs would be followed in excess of the assigned amount." The first buildings were the governor's house, the provincial government, military barracks, wooden and adobe houses. In 1778, the Holy Spirit Church was consecrated. At the same time, the city fortress began to be built. On July 20, 1778, the Government Senate issued a decree on the transfer of the management bodies of the Azov province to Ekaterinoslav.
Potemkin, planned to build the city with buildings in the Greek and Roman style, to establish a university, a conservatory, and a theater, and of course chambers for the sovereign. It was also planned to develop the industry - cloth and silk factories. But, after the first surge of an enthusiasm, Catherine decided that even for the huge Russian Empire two capitals are more than enough and funding dwindled. However the city was already functional. In 1781, there were more than 200 houses in the provincial city and there were "270 merchants, 874 burghers and shopkeepers; 1,050 people of different ranks, a total of 2,194 souls." In 1782, doctor Schengofel arrived from St. Petersburg to Ekaterinoslav, who in his reports called this area "harmful to human health, inconvenient and disastrous for the well-being of residents". Also, navigation in Samara turned out to be very difficult, and the waterway was then the most profitable for supplying various goods and food.
On January 22, 1784, Empress Catherine II issued a decree on the transfer of Ekaterinoslav to the right bank of the Dnieper River. Big part of the population left and the process lasted all the way to 1794. Of course, Potemkin took the task with a great enthusiasm producing even more ambitious plan for the new city. “A court like ancient basilicas, a semicircle shop like Propylaea or the eve of Athens with a stock exchange and a theater in the middle. The chambers of the sovereign, where to live and the governor, in the taste of Greek and Roman buildings, having a magnificent and slot canopy in the middle... Cloth and silk factories. The university in combination with the Academy of Music or the Conservatory." Ekaterinoslav was to occupy an area of 20 versts in length, 15 versts in width, total 300 square versts. It was assumed that the main streets of the city would be 60-80 meters wide. The plan was prepared by a famous French architect and looked great on a paper but was missing some trifles. For example, there were no traditional market, cathedral, hay and other squares. The project also did not take into account the anhydricity of the mountain chosen for the construction of the central part of Ekaterinoslav. Water supply was supposed to be used with wells, water lifting mechanisms, pools and fountains. The next project, prepared by the Russian architect, was making city even bigger and a water supply uphill was organized by a series of the underground canals feeding a pool 30 meters deep (in which quite a few citizens fell while walking during the night). To make that logistical nightmare possible, 12 regiments had been deployed on the city construction. But the system did not work well, anyway. However, in 1780 the city became an official center of Novorossia.
By 1796 a cloth factory was already operating in the city, 11 stone houses were erected, among which the jewel of the city was Potemkin's palace, 185 wooden houses, the population was 6 thousand people. The city kept growing in a natural pace adding the candle, leather, bricks and soap factories and eventually a brewery.
Sevastopol.
Unlike two major projects listed above, this one was not screwed up and fully grew up to the expectations. Well, strictly speaking, it did not because the initial idea was to make it both a naval base and a commercial port. Both Catherine and Potemkin just loved the great ideas but of what use the place could be as a major commercial port if it was on a far end of a nowhere? Even before Catherine got it, Potemkin opted for the practical part of the task. “To Sevastopol for the fleet it is necessary to transfer from Kherson 50 thousand poods of wood; I believe this transportation will be carried out by ordinary carts. Residents of Oleshkin will deliver the mentioned timber to Perekop, and from there to Sevastopol to make transportation on the local carts, which make an outfit and dispose of it in such a way that one does not have an excessive burden in front of the others. I ordered to pay 20 kopecks per pood, which will have to be divided by calculating the payment by distance.”
He also ordered colonel Korsakov to make a detailed study of the Crimean coast and present recommendations regarding its defenses. Regarding Sevastopol Korsakov wrote: “In Sevastopol, the place under the fortress is the most advantageous, which your lordship yourself appointed during your time. It is touched by the very course in the harbor, battery or blockhouse on the opposite side of the strait is closer to it and you can defend the Kherson harbor, which you have determined for merchant ships. This place can be protected from bombing and inside it can be placed the docks for the retipped ships, as well as all the main stores, water in it, although through a remote distance, but it is possible to bring, and on top of that, I do not lose hope not to obtain it within city walls through the wells. Where there is old Chersonesos, there may be a merchant district, both for the convenience of unloading goods and supply in fresh water.
In Balaklava, in order to protect the harbor, there is an need to build a battery of eight cannons.”
All this well qualified Sevastopol as the main fortress on the peninsula. The price tag of the planned construction, which included the fortress, Admiralty, naval stores, sea wall, and three outlying forts was 4,628,474 rubles and 37.25 kopecks. [4] The whole construction was expected to take 9 years and, rather not typical for the Russian grand projects, its “zero stage” consisted of building housings for the workers (soldiers commandeered for the job) and the brick-making facilities.
However, in a quite ”traditional“ style Potemkin had been busying himself not just with the main projects but also with the countless minor issues which in a better organized administrative apparatus should not even reach him: fishing permissions, monetary requests of the low-ranking officers and non-coms, minor supply contracts, etc. Of course, bureaucracy was an evil but why the top-ranking state official had personally handle the issues which could be resolved by a low level bureaucrat? Small wonder that the paper trail of the expenses tended to be below any imaginable standards and the things had been made worse by the fact that his secretary tended to act as something of an “independent entity” leaving even fewer financial documents.
His tastes in food were rather simple. Sauerkraut was #1 but here are Scrambled eggs "A la Potemkin". To make this dish, you will need: 3 eggs, 2 slices of bread, 1/2 cup of milk, cheese, ham and greens to taste.
Cooking process: Shake the broken eggs with milk, add salt, add chopped bread to the mixture, pour into a frying pan with heated butter. Add finely chopped ham and cheese. Stir. Fry until cooked, decorate with greens.
Bon apetit! 😉
________
[1] quarter («четверть») is approximately 80 kg (as much as I could make it out of the weird system of the definitions).
[2] «зимовник» - place where the nomadic people were staying for a winter with their herds.
[3] A standard rule for making financing estimates believable is to never use the rounded numbers.
[4] see [3] 😂
“The peasant is always going to get rich next year.”
“What are the main obstacles to agriculture? There are four of them: spring, summer, autumn and winter.”
old sayings
“When Potemkin came into power, he remembered one of his village friends and wrote him the following poem:
Dear friend,
If you have time,
Come to me:
If it's not like that,
.........
Lie in .....
A dear friend hurried to come for an affectionate invitation.”
Pushkin, “Table Talk”
"It is now impossible to destroy the bureaucracy, because the same bureaucrats will have to destroy it. But even after destroying the old bureaucracy, they will immediately give rise to a new, even more voracious, more hardy and tenacious..."
Potemkin
"Sometimes he [Potemkin] displayed the genius of the eagle, sometimes the frivolity of a child"
Count de Ségure.
“The Empress is in admiration for such an increment of Russian forces. Prince Potemkin is currently omnipotent, and you can't imagine how everyone takes nice to him.”
Emperor Joseph II
"I owe everything to Prince Potemkin. I hope no one will call him lazy now."
Catherine II
“In addition to fools and roads, there is another trouble in Russia: fools indicating which way to go.”
Boris Krutier
Catherine was extremely pleased with how Potemkin handled the Sich problem: the refuge of the dangerous elements was liquidated without a shot being fired and disloyal part of its population fled to the Ottoman Empire sparing a need of dealing with them while the loyal segment went on the government’s service on the conditions defined by the government, giving up their old privileges. With a huge territory of the former Sich is now open to colonization and communications between the old imperial territory and “Novorossia” became secure.
Now the decisions had to be made about two main questions:
- With whom to populate the new lands?
- What to do on these lands?
The second question was economic orientation of these lands and so far Catherine still was sticking to the same mantra she had at the time of her Codification Commission: the most important thing is to have more peasants working on the fields producing more exportable agricultural products. She was not approving the “obrok” practice by which peasant could work somewhere or even, a complete horror, create his own business, on condition of paying the owner agreed upon amounts of money. On the top of all of the above she did not like the “machines” in manufacturing and, while encouraging creation of various manufactures, held a firm opinion that the fewer of these evil contraptions are being used, the better.
However, at least as far as “obrok” issue was involved, a growing percentage of the landowners did not share her views because “obrok” provided them with the ready and reasonably stable cash flow while traditional “barschina” was giving only agricultural products which they had to sell at the fluctuating prices.
Anyway, as initially intended, Novorossia would have to become a big breadbasket with some showcase cities which Potemkin would have to build from the scratch. The agricultural part was not too easy because the newcomers had to adjust to the conditions seriously different from those they had been accustomed to. Here is some statistics: In 1778, 115,209 quarters [1] were sown in the region and 796 quarters of different bread were harvested; in 1779, 148,200 were sown, 365 were harvested; in 1780, 125,187 were sown, 236,816 were harvested; in 1781, 195,215 were sown, 241,45 were harvested and in 1782, 146,804 were sown, 677,187 quarters harvested.
The showcase part was definitely Potemkin’s strong point and he got a lot of applause for it.
Kherson - some of the contemporary impressions:
I.I.Henmitzer (popular poet of that time):
“You can't imagine that so much could be done at the space of three years. Imagine a perfect steppe, where no twig, not to mention a home, could be found. Now it's a fortress, and a fortress is important, such as what of the best we've seen in the Netherlands. The structures in it is mostly made of hewn stone.”
K.G. Razumovsky (former Hetman):
”On the terrible desert of the steppe, where in recent times barely scattered huts were found, along the Kherson way, starting from Kremenchug itself, I found big villages in versts 20, 25 and further, mostly near abundant waters. What belongs to Kherson, imagine multitude of the stone buildings, which numbers are growing every hour, a fortress that closes the citadel and the best buildings, the Admiralty with ships under construction and already built, a vast suburb inhabited by merchants and various burghers. On the one hand, the barracks to accommodate 10,000 soldiers, on the other hand, in front of the suburbs a pleasant island with quarantine structures, with Greek merchant ships and with canals carried out for the benefit of these ships. I still can't get out of bewilderment about that imminent return to the place where only a winterer [2] was found so recently. This city will soon flourish with wealth and commerce, as you can see from the enviable beginning of it...”
It was definitely impressive to see a reasonably big city built practically out of nothing within a short period of time. Of course, none of these travelers had a crystal ball and none of them was a specialist in any applicable area to make a judgement based upon anything but the emptions. The fortress was a huge waste of money because it proved to be useless. Mentioning of a bare steppe was correct, but it meant that there was no adequate fuel nearby, and the town did not become either a shipbuilding center (transportation of the materials there was too costly and Dnieper too shallow for building the big ships) or a major port (too far upriver). Huge money were wasted on the things which eventually had to be transferred elsewhere. However, it became a capital of the Kherson gubernia.
Ekaterinoslav - had an ambitious destiny to become Russia’s “third capital”.
On April 23, 1776, the Azov governor submitted a report to Potemkin, where he reported: "In pursuance of the command of your lordship, I [send] a project to build the provincial city of Ekaterinoslav on the river Kilchene, near its confluence with the Samara River, with the attached plan, profiles, facades and estimates... I believe that the construction of the provincial city, as estimates can be, one hundred thirty-seven thousand one hundred and forty rubles thirty-two kopecks and a half..." [3] February 2, 1777 G. A. Potemkin issued a warrant in the name of V. A. Chertkov, where he pointed out that the plan of the provincial city was approved by him and sent to the construction site. The city was to occupy the entire coast of Samara and its small tributaries. The fortress was supposed to be built at the mouth of the Kilchene, where the territory was the most protected; the same document stated: "...continue construction of these buildings, trying to ensure that no unnecessary costs would be followed in excess of the assigned amount." The first buildings were the governor's house, the provincial government, military barracks, wooden and adobe houses. In 1778, the Holy Spirit Church was consecrated. At the same time, the city fortress began to be built. On July 20, 1778, the Government Senate issued a decree on the transfer of the management bodies of the Azov province to Ekaterinoslav.
Potemkin, planned to build the city with buildings in the Greek and Roman style, to establish a university, a conservatory, and a theater, and of course chambers for the sovereign. It was also planned to develop the industry - cloth and silk factories. But, after the first surge of an enthusiasm, Catherine decided that even for the huge Russian Empire two capitals are more than enough and funding dwindled. However the city was already functional. In 1781, there were more than 200 houses in the provincial city and there were "270 merchants, 874 burghers and shopkeepers; 1,050 people of different ranks, a total of 2,194 souls." In 1782, doctor Schengofel arrived from St. Petersburg to Ekaterinoslav, who in his reports called this area "harmful to human health, inconvenient and disastrous for the well-being of residents". Also, navigation in Samara turned out to be very difficult, and the waterway was then the most profitable for supplying various goods and food.
On January 22, 1784, Empress Catherine II issued a decree on the transfer of Ekaterinoslav to the right bank of the Dnieper River. Big part of the population left and the process lasted all the way to 1794. Of course, Potemkin took the task with a great enthusiasm producing even more ambitious plan for the new city. “A court like ancient basilicas, a semicircle shop like Propylaea or the eve of Athens with a stock exchange and a theater in the middle. The chambers of the sovereign, where to live and the governor, in the taste of Greek and Roman buildings, having a magnificent and slot canopy in the middle... Cloth and silk factories. The university in combination with the Academy of Music or the Conservatory." Ekaterinoslav was to occupy an area of 20 versts in length, 15 versts in width, total 300 square versts. It was assumed that the main streets of the city would be 60-80 meters wide. The plan was prepared by a famous French architect and looked great on a paper but was missing some trifles. For example, there were no traditional market, cathedral, hay and other squares. The project also did not take into account the anhydricity of the mountain chosen for the construction of the central part of Ekaterinoslav. Water supply was supposed to be used with wells, water lifting mechanisms, pools and fountains. The next project, prepared by the Russian architect, was making city even bigger and a water supply uphill was organized by a series of the underground canals feeding a pool 30 meters deep (in which quite a few citizens fell while walking during the night). To make that logistical nightmare possible, 12 regiments had been deployed on the city construction. But the system did not work well, anyway. However, in 1780 the city became an official center of Novorossia.
By 1796 a cloth factory was already operating in the city, 11 stone houses were erected, among which the jewel of the city was Potemkin's palace, 185 wooden houses, the population was 6 thousand people. The city kept growing in a natural pace adding the candle, leather, bricks and soap factories and eventually a brewery.
Sevastopol.
Unlike two major projects listed above, this one was not screwed up and fully grew up to the expectations. Well, strictly speaking, it did not because the initial idea was to make it both a naval base and a commercial port. Both Catherine and Potemkin just loved the great ideas but of what use the place could be as a major commercial port if it was on a far end of a nowhere? Even before Catherine got it, Potemkin opted for the practical part of the task. “To Sevastopol for the fleet it is necessary to transfer from Kherson 50 thousand poods of wood; I believe this transportation will be carried out by ordinary carts. Residents of Oleshkin will deliver the mentioned timber to Perekop, and from there to Sevastopol to make transportation on the local carts, which make an outfit and dispose of it in such a way that one does not have an excessive burden in front of the others. I ordered to pay 20 kopecks per pood, which will have to be divided by calculating the payment by distance.”
He also ordered colonel Korsakov to make a detailed study of the Crimean coast and present recommendations regarding its defenses. Regarding Sevastopol Korsakov wrote: “In Sevastopol, the place under the fortress is the most advantageous, which your lordship yourself appointed during your time. It is touched by the very course in the harbor, battery or blockhouse on the opposite side of the strait is closer to it and you can defend the Kherson harbor, which you have determined for merchant ships. This place can be protected from bombing and inside it can be placed the docks for the retipped ships, as well as all the main stores, water in it, although through a remote distance, but it is possible to bring, and on top of that, I do not lose hope not to obtain it within city walls through the wells. Where there is old Chersonesos, there may be a merchant district, both for the convenience of unloading goods and supply in fresh water.
In Balaklava, in order to protect the harbor, there is an need to build a battery of eight cannons.”
All this well qualified Sevastopol as the main fortress on the peninsula. The price tag of the planned construction, which included the fortress, Admiralty, naval stores, sea wall, and three outlying forts was 4,628,474 rubles and 37.25 kopecks. [4] The whole construction was expected to take 9 years and, rather not typical for the Russian grand projects, its “zero stage” consisted of building housings for the workers (soldiers commandeered for the job) and the brick-making facilities.
However, in a quite ”traditional“ style Potemkin had been busying himself not just with the main projects but also with the countless minor issues which in a better organized administrative apparatus should not even reach him: fishing permissions, monetary requests of the low-ranking officers and non-coms, minor supply contracts, etc. Of course, bureaucracy was an evil but why the top-ranking state official had personally handle the issues which could be resolved by a low level bureaucrat? Small wonder that the paper trail of the expenses tended to be below any imaginable standards and the things had been made worse by the fact that his secretary tended to act as something of an “independent entity” leaving even fewer financial documents.
His tastes in food were rather simple. Sauerkraut was #1 but here are Scrambled eggs "A la Potemkin". To make this dish, you will need: 3 eggs, 2 slices of bread, 1/2 cup of milk, cheese, ham and greens to taste.
Cooking process: Shake the broken eggs with milk, add salt, add chopped bread to the mixture, pour into a frying pan with heated butter. Add finely chopped ham and cheese. Stir. Fry until cooked, decorate with greens.
Bon apetit! 😉
________
[1] quarter («четверть») is approximately 80 kg (as much as I could make it out of the weird system of the definitions).
[2] «зимовник» - place where the nomadic people were staying for a winter with their herds.
[3] A standard rule for making financing estimates believable is to never use the rounded numbers.
[4] see [3] 😂
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It is: I tried something close to this description (did not know about the “original” until yesterday) more than once. Actually, as you can see, the photo (yolks are whole) is not exactly up to the description but I could not find other with this name. Anyway, it seems that there are options (to which I came on my own, perhaps there is something about the great minds…). For example, you can put ham first, let it get brown, then add big pieces of bread soaked in a mixture of milk and eggs, let them get brown, them pour the rest of the mixture and add cheese on the top. Or you can just fry bread and ham in oil/fat, then add the whole eggs (as on photo) and then add cheese, grated or in pieces. In all cases I recommend to cover the pan to improve melting of the cheese. Enjoy.
Unfortunately, I could not find recipe of the eggs which Bernadotte liked (to a degree that it was recommended to the visitors to decline his invitation to share). 😢