The Chesme Column, a monument

Categories / Tsarskoe Selo and town of Pushkin. The digital chronological reference book/Monuments of history and culture
The town of Pushkin, the Catherine Park, the Great Lake.

Architect: Antonio Rinaldi (1709-1794)
Sculptor: I. Schwartz
It was built in 1771-1778
Materials: Olonets pink and white marble for the column stern with rostrums; Olonets gray marble for the pedestal; red marble for the base; Serdobolsk granite for the foundation; bronze for the eagle, spoils of war, bas-reliefs; brass for letters.


Inscriptions were made with letters on the plaque from the southern side of the foundation:
“In the memory of sea victories achieved in the archipelago between Asia and Chio Island on 24 June 1770 when ten Russian Navy ships and seven frigates under the heading of General Count Aleksey Orlov and Admiral Frigory Sviridov defeated and put to flight the Turkish Captain-Pasha Zhefir-bey with sixteen battleships. There were more than a hundred frigates, galleys, brigantines and small ships of the Turkish fleet.
All this fleet was burnt in the port of Chesma by Rear-Admiral Greyg with a sent squadron of the victorious fleet from 2 to 4 November of 1770 at the presence of Russian troops under the leadership of General Count Aleksey Orlov landed on Mitilina Island in the Mediterranean Sea. During putting in flight the enemy and capturing a suburb, the admiralty and surroundings the residuary of the Turkish Navy , two seventy cannons battleships and storehouse for different supplies and tacking , were burnt.
The monument was devoted to the victories of the Russian Navy Fleet in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774 at Khios, Mitilina and especially the famous military event as burning the Turkish Fleet in the Chesma Bay on 25-26 June 1770. Episodes of the Chesma battle were painted by the painter F. Gakkert in the series of pictures ordered by Catherine II for the Great Peterhof Palace. A road palace near Petersburg was named the Chesma Palace. The Chesma Obelisk was erected in Gatchina in the estate of Count G.G. Orlov, a brother of the hero of Chesma battle. In the palace the Chesma Gallery was placed.
The construction of the foundation for the column erected in the center of the Great Lake in Tsarskoye Selo was done under the direction of the architect A.F. Vist. The water in the pond was let out. The sculptor details of the monument was made of bronze according to the sculptor I. Schwartz’s model. The column was decorated with six marble rostrums , symbols of sea victories. The monument was crowned with the bronze figure of an eagle , the symbol of speed, power and courage. On the foundation there are cast bronze high relieves picture: the battle of Khios , on the eastern side, and the battle of Chesma , on the northern side, and the battle of Mitilena Island , on the west side. The Chesma Column was poetized by A.S. Pushkin:

Over strong mossy rock
The monument was raised.
A young eagle with extended wings is landing there.
And heavy chains, and crushing arrows
Were wound three times round the menacing column
Around the foundation noising gray waves settled in bright foam.
During World War II the high relieves of the foundation were lost. They were restored in the 1990s.
The high of the monument is 14 metres. Catherine II, Empress
Orlov Grigory Grigorievich, Count
Pushkin Alexander Sergeevich
Rinaldi Antonio
Wist Alexander Franzevich
Ekaterininsky Park/Pushkin, town Большой пруд