In its building policy towards Crimea, envisioned together by Catherine and
Potemkin, the garden was a dominant motif, as it was for much thinking about the
empire in this century. A malleable symbol, a garden can represent heavenly Edenic
blessing, connote a space in which subjects can be free and or in which they can be
transformed and controlled by design. Catherine envisioned Crimea as a garden
that demonstrated the bounty of nature (orchards were to be planted, gardens
crafted) and a landscape that showcased the multiplicity of her peoples. Crimea’s
rich landscape of cultural edifices was to be respected. There was no overt policy of
dismantling Muslim structures, although many were destroyed in the brutal
conquest campaign before 1783 and in plundering for building materials after
that. On the contrary, Russian rulers identified and preserved buildings considered
of historic or community value, whether of Christian or Muslim, Greek, Armenian,
Tatar, or other communities.
Russia put its imperial stamp on the built environment in Crimea in two major
building complexes. On the site of afishing village Russia built the port city of
Sevastopol in European style. Russian plans for a new capital of Simferopol on the
site of a thriving Tatar city and khan’s palace produced more ambiguous results.
Although plans called for an orderly neoclassical urban blueprint, with a central
square and classical cathedral, it did not supplant the Tatar parts of the city.
Simferopol became bifurcated into separate Russian and native neighborhoods.
The Russian city featured classical Orthodox churches, government buildings, and
radial arteries connecting planned squares and urban townhouses of European
design, while the Tatar part of town retained winding streets, walled home
ensembles oriented towards courtyards, mosques in traditional design, and thriving
market culture. As Kelly O’Neill pointed out, the Kebir mosque“dominated the
visual space of the city”until the 1830s, when a grand Alexander Nevskii Cathedral
with rational classical lines was erected. Elsewhere, the Tatar religious and political
center of Bakhchisarai was preserved in all its oriental splendor, continuing on as
the heart of Tatar Crimea for decades.
The eighteenth century, in sum, displayed a more complex imperial imaginary
than did Muscovite times. Imperial architecture across the realm announced the
ruler’s European cultural turn, but complemented local styles as often as it con-
trasted. Less religious and pietistic, this century’s vision of power was action
oriented. Rulers were to serve their state for the common good and energize their
elites to do the same. In Peter I’s time, such service took the form of warfare,
conquest, and domestic reform. As the century developed, mercantilist economic
policies played a more important role. Rulers were to develop their empire’s
resources by encouraging trade and manufacturing, immigration, and settlement.
As French Enlightenment ideas joined German cameralism, a universalist vision of
the empire as harmonious community of God’s great creation took hold. Although
Russian religion and culture remained dominant in the rulers’self-presentation,
other creeds (save for splinter Orthodox sects) were allowed and ethnicities
embraced. At their core, however, Russia’s eighteenth-century emperors remained
patrimonial rulers in the Muscovite mold. They ruled autocratically—welcoming
advice, cultivating their elites, defining the law, but never yielding sovereignty,
292 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801