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Imperiia: a spatial history of the Russian Empire

Disease on the Black Sea

Disease presented a major obstacle to Kherson's development, compounding existing labor and supply issues. At the very end of his November report to the admiralty, Ivan Gannibal mentioned that he was having trouble obtaining oak lumber due to an infectious disease that had broken out in Poland over the summer leading to a sustained closure of the border. While he mentioned reports indicating that that particular disease was waning, the summer and autumn months always threatened pestilence.¹
1783 was a particularly bad year. Between the first of May and the first of October, the port lost 245 admiralty servants to disease with another 70 to follow over the first week of that October.² Kherson’s new commander, Vice Admiral Klokachev himself would fall to disease on October 26 of that year.
The threat of infectious disease was addressed with quarantines, either on a large scale--as in the case of the closed Polish border--or on smaller scales. When the ship Khotin arrived at Kerch on October 14, 1782, two of its crew were diagnosed with typhus or "rotting fever" and determined to be contagious. Brigadier Kozlianinov ordered the ship back to the Black Sea in quarantine where it was later observed to be damaged and leaking and, after five days, was escorted to a more sheltered position.³ A month later, the same Kozlianinov ordered the yet-to-be-named frigate number 10 into quarantine in Kerch Bay, where it was to stay until "no doubt remained" that the disease had run its course. No numbers are provided for the Khotin, but 18 people died on frigate number 10 while it was in quarantine.⁴

1. Ivan Gannibal, "Vypiska iz doneseniia Ganibala admiralteistve-kollegii, 1780 goda noiabria 17," Materialy dlia istorii russkago flota VI, 720.
2. "Vedomost' o chisle umershikh zarazoiu s 1-go maia po 1-e oktiabria 1783 goda," Materialy dlia istorii russkago flota XV, 23.
3. Kozlianinov, "Vypiska iz doneseniia Kozlianinova Kaslivtsovu, 1782 goda oktiabria 21," ibid., 600.
4. Kozlianinov, "Kopiia s raporta brigadira Kozlianinova kniaziu Potemkinu, 1782 goda dekabria 10," ibid., 600.

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An Imperfect Realization As Kherson made the transition from imperial vision to concrete reality, expectations had to be tempered. In May 1779, less than a year after the city received its name (if not its location), General of Artillery Ivan Gannibal, who had been given the responsibility of developing Kherson and its fortifications, oversaw the start of construction on Kherson’s first 66-gunner, named in honor of Catherine II. His initial, cautiously optimistic assessment that four ships could be built every year quickly soured when he found that Kherson’s ship master, Selyaninov, had inexplicably increased the draft of the Slava Ekateriny by over a foot. Dismissed from his post for being “unreliable,” Selyaninov was far from the last of Gannibal’s problems. In fact, Kherson would not launch the Slava Ekateriny until the end of 1783, constantly hindered by the harsh realities of developing such a large project on a newly acquired frontier ex nihilo. To explore some other issues facing Kherson during its early years, follow the links below:
Labor Issues
Supply Issues
Disease
Kherson's days as the main shipyard and headquarters for the Black Sea Fleet were numbered. The subsequent Russo-Turkish War (1787 - 1792) brought the western bank of the Bug river under Russian control and new possibilities for naval expansion. The city of Nikolaev (Mikolaiv) was founded as a shipyard in 1789 and quickly grew to supplant its predecessor on the Dnepr as the Black Sea Fleet's headquarters were transferred to the city in 1796.