Description of the attraction
The monument to the soldiers of the Sardinian kingdom at the foot of Mount Gasfort is one of the main attractions of Sevastopol, serving as a vivid reminder of the period of the Crimean War.
According to history, the soldiers of the Sardinian kingdom were part of the enemy coalition. The Italian corps, consisting of seventeen thousand Italian soldiers, stormed the Sevastopol fortifications on June 6, 1855. He also took part in the Chernorechensky battle. Under the leadership of Lieutenant General Marquis Alfonso Ferrero La Marmora, the corps landed at Balaclava, taking up positions at Telegraph Hill and Mount Gasfort.
During the war, the Sardinians lost more than two thousand people, and not in battles, but from diseases, in particular, from cholera, 2166 soldiers and officers died. They were buried in the villages of Kady-Koy and Kamry. In 1882, the Italians were allowed to reburial the dead in one place on Mount Gasfort. At the top of the mountain, an elegant Lombard-style chapel was erected, under which a crypt was equipped. A 40-meter well was dug next to the chapel. The remains of the Sardinians were reburied in a necropolis with an area of 230 square meters. Funds for the further maintenance of the cemetery and the chapel were allocated by the Italian government. Unfortunately, the Italian cemetery has been desecrated and robbed more than once.
During the fierce battles during the Great Patriotic War, the chapel and the necropolis were almost completely destroyed. After the war, deposits of flux limestone were discovered in Mount Gasfort, and the development began further destroyed the Italian cemetery. Only in 2004, by decree of the President of Ukraine, on the site of the former Italian necropolis, at the expense of the Italian side, a memorial was built in memory of the soldiers of the Sardinian Kingdom who died during the Crimean War. The monument, designed by the Kiev architect Y. Oleinik, was erected at the foot of the mountain. This is a four-sided stele, turning into an octahedron and ending in an octahedral pyramid. The monument is decorated with a Catholic cross. A memorial plate is installed on the monument, where it is written in Ukrainian and Italian: “To the eternal memory of those who died in the Crimean War of 1855-1856. soldier of the Sardinian kingdom. September 2004.
