Panorama of Sevastopol

Panorama "Defense of Sevastopol 1854 — 1855 yy." was opened on May 14, 1905, to commemorate the 50-th anniversary of the famous event. The uniquely designed round building with a dome, crowned with rotunda, was constructed under the project of a military engineer O.I.Enberg and an architect V.A.Feldman. The building with equal diameter and height of 36 m, has a classical 2-columns portal, revetted with local white Inkerman's stone, and decorated with busts of heroes, who fought bravely during the 349 days of the defense.

The impressive canvas (115m in length, 14m in height, with the total area of 1610 sq.m) and  the so-called subject plan of 900sq.m are located on a scaffold. According to the plan of the painter, visitors can watch the canvas from an observation platform, as though they are in the middle of the war actions, and can see the whole battlefield from the top of Malakhov Kurgan (a hill in Sevastopol), on the day of June 6, 1855. The most dramatic events of the war - a massive French storm which ended in the first serious defeat of the united French-English army, are drawn on the canvas.

A 100 years later, during the Great Patriotic War, German bombs hit and partially destroyed the Panorama building. The unique canvas was set on fire. Taking great risk, Soviet soldiers and the museum workers managed to rescue a part of the canvas, by transporting it away from the devastated city by boats.

After Second World War, the Panorama was reconstructed by Soviet painters. The creative group of 17 people, studied the war events by documents, as well as the rescued fragments, photos, and old booklets, the painters recreated the picture and the subject plan.

In 1974 in outside niches of a building the marble sculptural portraits of the admirals V. A. Kornilov, P. S. Nakhimov, V. I. Istomin, A. I. Panfilov, F. M. Novosilskiy, captain 1 rank G. I. Butakov, general S. L. Hrulev, staff-captain A. V. Melnikov, glorified sailors Petr Koshka and Ignatiy Shevchenko, favorite of the defence counsels of city Dasha Sevastopolskaya (Mihaylova), "of the wonderful doctor" P. I. Pirogov, great Russian writer L. N. Tolstoy are established.

Panorama “Defense of Sevastopol in 1854-1855” museum, picture gallery
Istoricheskiy Ave, Sevastopol
Tel: (0692) 52-05-15

Back to Sevastopol City page

Back to Autonomous Republic of Crimea page