History of Yeysk

Yeysk is a relatively young town by Kuban standards: it was founded in 1848 as a sea port on a sandy spit. The history of these lands, however, reaches deep into the centuries. The unique combination of the Sea of Azov, a saltwater liman, and the mouth of the Yeya River drew nomads, Nogai tribes, and Russian military engineers here for ages. The town’s very name comes from the Yeya River, which lent its name to the whole Azov region.

Before the city: the Khan’s Town and the Yeysk Fortification

The first Russian outpost in these lands was the Yeysk Fortification, built in 1774 after the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca. A small redoubt covered the empire’s southern borders and at the same time served as an anchor point in the tricky relations with the Crimean Khanate. Several years later, in 1777–1778, the so-called Khan’s Town appeared near the modern city center. This was the temporary residence of the Crimean Khan Şahin Giray — a protégé of Saint Petersburg. The town was conceived as a “backup capital” of the khanate in case the situation in Crimea itself slipped out of control.

The story of the Khan’s Town, however, proved to be brief. In 1783 Crimea was incorporated into the Russian Empire. It was here, by the walls of the town, in the presence of Alexander Suvorov’s regiments, that the manifesto on the annexation of the peninsula was solemnly read out. From that moment on the Khan’s Town lost its political significance: it quickly emptied and was eventually dismantled. For several decades the Yeysk Spit again turned into a quiet shore where life flowed at an even pace: fishing camps, chumak caravans carrying salt, and the occasional Cossack patrol.

The 1848 Decree and the First Decades

By the middle of the 19th century the Azov region had become an important trading hub. The Kuban stanitsas were increasing their output of grain, wool, and lard, but shipping these goods through Rostov or Taganrog was economically inefficient. In 1847 Grigory Rashpil, appointed ataman of the Black Sea Cossack Host, proposed a plan to establish a port town on the Yeysk Spit. This would give the Cossacks direct access to the sea and concentrate the trade of the southeastern Azov region in a single place.

The idea won the emperor’s approval: on March 6, 1848, Nicholas I signed Decree No. 22058 “On the Establishment on the Sea of Azov, by the Yeysk Spit, of a Port Town Named Yeysk.” The official founding date of the town is August 19 (31), 1848 — the day of the ceremonial laying. The first acting head of the town was Pyotr Litevsky, and in 1849 he was succeeded by Prince Alexander Golitsyn. Under him a strict rectangular grid of streets was laid out, the Pokrovsky prayer house was built, and construction of the first stone buildings began.

The rational layout — wide longitudinal streets, convenient descents to the water, a spacious market square, and a port — matched the standards of the seaside towns of the Nicholaevan era. Yeysk quickly grew attractive to entrepreneurs: merchants from Rostov, Taganrog, and Mariupol streamed in, along with Greek, Armenian, and Jewish families. Within a few years the town’s population passed ten thousand.

The first serious trial for Yeysk was the Crimean War. In 1853–1856 the Sea of Azov turned into a theater of military operations: the Anglo-French squadron raided coastal towns, destroying food warehouses and port infrastructure. In October 1855 the enemy fleet attacked Yeysk: naval artillery and a landing party inflicted serious damage on the town — according to eyewitness accounts, about ten percent of all structures were destroyed or burned.

Rebuilding Yeysk after the war took almost two decades. By the 1860s the piers and warehouses had been rebuilt, the coastline reinforced, and trade turnover restored. By the 1870s the town was again developing confidently: a customs office, a quarantine post, gymnasiums and schools were operating, and the first printing shops were opening. And in 1875 regular street lighting appeared on the main streets of Yeysk — a rarity for a district town of the time.

Late Imperial Heyday

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries Yeysk was going through a noticeable upswing. The Kuban lands were yielding record harvests, and the town itself became one of the key grain ports on the Sea of Azov. In 1904 a large-scale reconstruction was launched here: the approach channel was deepened, stone piers were built, and mechanical loaders were installed. Seven years later, in 1911, rails appeared, and the railway through Starominskaya linked the town to the wider country. Shipping grain, fish, hides, and flour became fast and cheap, once and for all displacing the slow horse-drawn cartage.

Alongside its industrial growth, Yeysk discovered a new facet of itself — as a resort. From 1912 the town began to gain fame as a health resort: people came here to be healed by the medicinal muds and brine of Khan Lake. By then Yeysk was already ready to receive guests: hydropathic clinics and bathhouses were operating, cozy hotels received visitors, and in the evenings brass bands played on the embankment.

Revolution, Wars, and the Soviet Era

The February and October events of 1917 reached Yeysk with the delay that was usual for the Kuban. On February 2, 1918, Soviet power was established in the town for the first time. The following year, however, turned out to be a time of constant upheavals: from April 30 to May 1, 1918, the young Red Guard repelled the first assault by White units, but by July 12 the Volunteer formations had taken the town. Yeysk remained in the White zone for almost two years, and the definitive return of the Bolsheviks took place in March 1920.

The beginning of peaceful life is linked to the opening on May 5, 1920, of the town’s history and regional studies museum — one of the oldest in the Kuban. In 1921 the Yeysk sanatorium began its work, using the muds of Khan Lake and sea brine to treat rheumatism as well as skin and joint diseases. Modern Yeysk balneology is usually dated from this point: the mud spa and its branches have been operating almost without interruption for more than a century now.

The 1920s and 1930s brought the town a new specialty — aviation. In 1931 the Naval Aviation School named after I. V. Stalin (later named after the pilot-cosmonaut V. M. Komarov) was relocated here. Over the decades of its existence the school trained more than 250 Heroes of the Soviet Union. Aviation is still noticeably present in the townscape and in the memory of the residents. In 1939 Yeysk received the status of a town under krai jurisdiction and became the center of Yeysk District.

The Great Patriotic War came to Yeysk in the summer of 1942, when German forces were pushing to break through to the Caucasus and its oil fields. On August 9, 1942, the town was occupied. Six months of occupation left a heavy memory: on October 9–10, 1942, the punitive squads took about 214 children out of Orphanage No. 2 — mostly sick children from the Simferopol orphanage who had been evacuated to Yeysk. They were killed in gas vans and buried near the khutor of Shirochansky. This tragedy became one of the most terrible pages in the town’s history.

On February 5, 1943, Yeysk was liberated — Soviet troops returned during the general offensive in the Kuban. Restoration work began immediately: repairs to the port, the railway station, industrial enterprises, and residential buildings. German prisoners of war worked side by side with the townspeople, helping to rebuild what had been destroyed.

Post-War Yeysk and Its Transformation into a Resort

The post-war decades were a time of gradual but steady return of Yeysk to peaceful life and the strengthening of its resort specialization. In 1949 Ivan Poddubny — the famous wrestler, “champion of champions,” who spent the last years of his life in Yeysk — died in the town. He was buried in the town park, which was later given his name. The Poddubny house-museum and the monument at his grave became important symbols of the town’s memory. Today the Ivan Poddubny Park — the largest in Yeysk — is one of the main points of attraction.

In the 1950s–1970s the town developed through the fishing and food industries, ship repair, and machine building, and also became an important base of military aviation. The beaches of the Yeysk Spit drew ever more summer visitors: new sanatoriums, pioneer camps, and holiday centers appeared on the Dolzhanskaya Spit. By the 1980s Yeysk had firmly established itself as a family resort on the Sea of Azov, with a shallow warm sea, medicinal muds, and affordable holidays.

Official recognition of its status as a resort of krai significance came in 2006, by a decree of the head of the administration of Krasnodar Krai. By that time the population of Yeysk was about 80,000, dozens of hotels, guest houses, and sanatoriums were operating in the town, and the annual flow of visitors was counted in the hundreds of thousands.

Today Yeysk is a small southern town with a population of about 81,000, sharply divided between the resort season and the off-season. In summer the embankment, the spit, and Poddubny Park live to the rhythm of leisure and entertainment, while in winter the town returns to the life of a district center with its port, air garrison, and Khan Lake beyond the horizon. The historical axis of Yeysk — from the 18th-century Khan’s Town, through the Nicholaevan port and the Soviet aviation school, to the modern resort — is not always obvious at first glance, but it is precisely this axis that explains the town’s uniqueness and its difference from its neighbors along the Azov coast.