The millers – the don cossacks

When you hear the name of the town Millerovo or Millerovsky Region you can be surprised because it sounds quite unusual among the other cossack villages. As a matter of fact, the Millers contributed much into the history of our native land.

The name of their family was mentioned for the first time in the chronicles about the coup d’etat which led Elizaveta Petrovna to the Russian throne. In 1741 a German physician in ordinary Abraham Miller together with Shetardy and Lestok participated in this historic event.

But after mounting the throne Elizaveta took all the measures in order to reduce the influence of the foreigners in Russian policy and sent almost all her former supporters to the suburbs of the country. So Abraham Miller was appointed a doctor in one of the Don armies. He settled in Cherkassk, married a relative of the ataman Efremov, changed his religion into Orthodoxy and thus gave a birth to the new Cossack kin. His son Ivan became a Colonel of the Don Army, and the grandson, Feodor, being in the detachment of ataman Platov participated in the attack of Ismail. Many other descendants of this kin served in the Don Cossack Army defending their Motherland - Russia.

The Millers’ kin gave also a number of outstanding engineers, scientists and lawyers. Mikhail Miller, for example, was an archeologist and in 1926-1932 he organized several expeditions on the shores of the Azov Sea. Since 1934 he was a professor of the Rostov State University and the Teachers’ Training Institute. Many of his investigations dealt with the history of the Don land. After the World War II he became one of the founders of the Munich Institute which studied the USSR and since then his work was conducted in Germany. Professor Miller was elected the honoured member of several other foreign Academies and Societies. In 1963 M.A. Miller died. He stayed in the history as a Don Cossack of German origin, a great patriot and an outstanding historian.

Vocabulary

1. coup d’etat – государственный переворот

2. a physician in ordinary – (истор.) лейб-медик

3. kin – род

4. to mount the throne – взойти на престол

5. descendant – потомок

TEXT 5

The Fortress Named after St. Dmitry Rostovsky

The beginning of the history of our city is connected with the construction of Temernik Custom and the Fortress named after St. Dmitry Rostovsky. During the period of the Azov wars of 1695-1696 Peter I being on the territory of modern Rostov searched for a place for a future fortress. He liked the abrupt bank of the river Don near Bogaty Spring. However this plan had not been realized as after the defeat in 1711 Russia had to destroy some important fortresses in the South and to give Azov back to the Turks.

The presence of the Turks, the Tatars and other hostile peoples on the left bank of the Don made the Russian government found the St.Ann’s fortress. It was built in 1731 on the island situated between the Don and Aksay. But in due course the Russian government decided to find a more strategically convenient point on the Don territories as the location of the St.Ann’s fortress had been considered disadvantageous.

In summer 1749 the leader of the Don Army ataman Daniil Efremov received the decree of the Russian empress Elizaveta Petrovna, the daughter of Peter I, to found a custom-house in Cherkassk – the main town of the Don Cossack Army. But free-loving Cossacks were against this order as it limited their own trade with Russian and foreign merchants. They wrote a letter to the empress reminding about special privileges for the Cossacks: duty- and tax-free trading. And as the Don Army played an important role in the defense of the Southern borders of the country she changed her mind. On 15-th of December, 1749 it was decreed to build the custom up the river Don, near Bogaty Kolodetz. Bogaty Kolodetz was the name of a rich spring of fresh water around which a small settlement appeared. However, the construction started only in March 1750 and quite at the other place: on the left bank of the Temernik. So this custom was called Temernitskaya. Later different buildings appeared around it and in 1761 the Russian government decided to build a fortress at its place which was called then in honour of St.Dmitry Rostovsky. By this time in 1761 according to the decree of Katherine II the St.Ann’s fortress had been dismantled.

On September 23, 1761 the ceremonial laying of the foundation-stone of the St.Dmitry Rostovsky‘s fortress took place. The fortress was called so in honour of St.Dmitry, the metropolitan and a wonder-worker from Rostov the Great. The new fortress was situated on the steep right bank of the Don near the settlement of Bogaty Kolodetz («Rich Spring»), located near the mouth of the Temernik river. The fortress was built under the supervision of the engineer-colonel Alexander Rigelman, its constructor and a commandant. Major-general Somov was appointed the first commandant of the St.Dmitry’s fortress. All the soldiers, offices and guns of the St.Ann’s fortress were transferred to the new one.

The St.Dmitry’s fortress was very important at that time. In the first place, it defended the Russian border from the nomadic tribes, and in the second place, it was a trade point connected with the South of Russia. And at the same time with the help of its soldiers the Russian government could control the Don Cossacks. The territory occupied by the fortress was limited by present day Krepostnoy by-street in the East, Chekhov street – in the West, M. Gorky street – in the North and Stanislavsky street – in the South. It was built in the form of a sixteen-pointed star opened from the side of the Don so the enemies were always under the fire. A deep moat ran around the fortress which had six gates. It occupied the highest part of the right bank of the river and that was very important from the strategic point of view. The area of the fortress was about 1 sq. km. In the middle of the fortress there was a church of the Robe of Our Lady (the church has been recently built in this place). There were also seven longitudinal and seven transverse streets inside of the fortress. The central street got the name Bogotyanovskaya (now Kirovsky avenue).

By 1835 the fortress had lost its military importance because it was already located deep inside the Russian lands. The troops were sent to Anapa and the fortress was dismantled. Now only the Krepostnoy Lane reminds us by its name about the existence of the fortress, which had given the name to our city.