Constantinogorsk Fortress: Russia’s First Permanent Fortification in the Pyatigorye Region

History

Constantinogorsk Fortress in Pyatigorsk, Russia, was founded by the Russian Empire between 1780 and autumn 1783 as the first permanent Russian military defensive installation in the Pyatigorye region. It was an earthen fortress created during the expansion of Russian power in the North Caucasus and became an important position for controlling the Podkumok valley and nearby routes.

Origins and construction

A temporarily fortified camp stood near the foot of Mount Beshtau in 1769 under General De Medem, whose forces conducted campaigns toward the upper Kuma and Podkumok rivers. The location was probably identified during reconnaissance for a permanent fortification. On 23 July/4 August 1779, Astrakhan Governor-General Lieutenant-General Ivan Varfolomeyevich Yakobi and General Staff Colonel Ivan German von Fersen surveyed the area and proposed an additional fortress near the Beshtau Mountains. Their proposal was submitted to Prince Grigory Potemkin. That year, Lieutenant-General Yakovlev also informed Catherine II that a fortress should be built there.

The fortress was named Konstantinogorskaya in honor of Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, Catherine II’s grandson, who was born in 1779. Catherine II was empress of Russia from 1762 to 1796. The surrounding mountains retained the older local names Beshtau and Pyatigorye, while the fortress preserved the Konstantinogorsk name. Although construction is dated to 1780 through autumn 1783, surviving documentary references to the building work begin only in 1783. The site may first have been an entrenched field camp before developing into a permanent fortress. A settlement grew beside it, and the nearby mineral springs began to be used permanently.

Strategic role and military service

Constantinogorsk was the first fortress of the Podkumok Line, a related defensive chain along the Podkumok River, which was planned perpendicular to the Azov–Mozdok Line. The latter was a chain of Russian military fortifications established across the North Caucasus after Russia’s territorial expansion following the 1774 Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji. The fortress was intended to strengthen the central North Caucasus, separate eastern and western areas of resistance, control the Podkumok valley, and protect routes linking the mountain districts, the upper Kuban, Transkubania, and the plains.

A reconstruction planned for 1793 was intended to double the fortress’s size and increase its armament from 12 to 22 guns. Another attribution connects a rebuilding and enlargement with Major-General Friedrich Fere in 1793, describing a new extensive rampart, a northward expansion that nearly doubled the earlier area, and provision for 20 guns. The extent to which these works were carried out remains uncertain. A Cossack settlement was also planned nearby, with its own ditches, ramparts, and bastions.

The fortress did not undergo an attack or siege, but its garrison participated in military operations. In 1790, Cossack units and fortress garrisons fought the army of Batal Pasha near present-day Cherkessk. The later settlement of Batal-Pashinskaya, now Cherkessk, developed in connection with that event. The 16th Jäger Regiment, a light-infantry unit trained for mobile operations and field service, was formed on 17 May 1797 and stationed at Constantinogorsk from 1798.

In 1798, Caucasus Line commander Lieutenant-General Count I. I. Morcov and his official A. F. Rebrov visited the fortress. Major-General Peter Gavrilovich Likhachev commanded both the fortress and the regiment. He later became known for his role in the 1812 Patriotic War, Russia’s major conflict with Napoleon’s invasion. In 1802, Engineer Second Lieutenant P. Mastygin, also recorded as Matygin, prepared a plan of the fortress and its government works. From May to July 1809, General of Infantry Bulgakov maintained a camp nearby for operations in the center of the Caucasus Line and to secure visitors to the Mineral Waters.

Administration, trade, and the garrison

Constantinogorsk also served as a place for negotiation and regulated exchange. On 23 May/4 June 1805, the Kabarda official I. P. Del Pozzo met Kabardian rulers and uzdens, members of a privileged or service-holding class in parts of the North Caucasus. On 4/16 February 1811, orders from A. P. Tormasov organized barter trading at the fortress. This later developed into a barter yard serving trade with Transkubanian, Kabardian, Abaza, and Karachay communities.

From 8–12/20–24 August 1810, the fortress garrison fought mountaineers. Epitaphs on gravestones in the nearby military cemetery commemorated the fighting. After the 1812 war, 300 Polish prisoners of war were held at the fortress. In April 1813, it became the headquarters of the Suzdal Infantry Regiment. In autumn 1819, the Tenginsky Infantry Regiment, reinforced with personnel from the Suzdal Regiment, occupied the fortress under Colonel I. F. Maximovich.

On the orders of General A. P. Yermolov, a garrison artillery company was stationed there in 1821 and kept in combat readiness. The succession of commandants included Second Major Brandt; Major-General Peter Gavrilovich Likhachev, from 1797 to 1812; Colonel Ivan Danilovich Kurnatovsky in 1813; Colonel Mikhail Mikhailovich Veryovkin in 1814; Colonel I. F. Maximovich from 1816 to 1820; and Lieutenant-Colonel Yakov Mikhailovich Tikhotsky from 1820 to 1826.

Decline and later remembrance

Disease posed a continuing problem for the garrison. The surrounding waters were considered breeding grounds for malaria, while the unfamiliar climate contributed to rheumatism and skin diseases. Soldiers were among the first people to use the mineral springs of the Caucasian Mineral Waters in practice, applying the springs for therapeutic bathing and drinking treatments.

By the end of the 1820s, Constantinogorsk had gradually lost its direct military importance, and buildings began to spread across its territory. Part of the Tenginsky Regiment helped form the 3rd Caucasian Line Battalion in 1834, after which the battalion headquarters moved to Kislovodsk Fortress. The fortress was abolished in the 1830s as military operations shifted toward the higher Caucasus. Its territory was subsequently built over and deteriorated, while the settlement beside it became part of the developing city of Pyatigorsk.

The garrison cemetery remained in use until the 1830s and also received participants in the 1812 war who died at the hospital established at the Mineral Waters in 1815. It was still a protected area in the early twentieth century before later abandonment. Several gravestones could still be seen in the 1960s. One gravestone is now held by the Pyatigorsk Museum of Local History, and fragments without inscriptions have been found among the burial mounds. Local historians estimated that the cemetery contained 60–70 gravestones in the early twentieth century and probably several hundred burials.

Fortress ramparts and ditches could still be traced in the 1960s. Construction of a monument on the former northern bastion began in 1965, and the monument was installed in 1968. It was fully restored and reconstructed in 2010. The original fortress is now regarded as lost, while this monument preserves the location of part of its defensive perimeter.

Remains

Constantinogorsk occupied a plain at the confluence of the Zolotukh, also called Zolotushka, and Podkumok rivers, on the so-called Dry Line of the Caucasus Line. The fortress stood on a terrace above the floodplain, beside a sharp drop toward the Podkumok. Floodplains surrounded it on three sides and became difficult marshes beyond the spring floods. The nearby Beshtau massif approached the Podkumok valley, allowing the fortress guns to cover the valley toward the foot of Beshtau. The site lay approximately 5 versts west of Mount Mashuk and 4 versts south of Mount Beshtau, on the present territory of Novopyatigorsk.

Fortification layout

Ramparts, bastions, and gates

The original fortress covered about three desyatinas, historical Russian units of land area, and had the form of an irregular quadrilateral. It was an earthen work with ramparts, bastions, and triangular half-bastions rather than a stone fortress with towers. A bastion was a projecting fortified platform designed to provide flanking fire along a rampart, while a half-bastion was a smaller or partial projecting work. These positions carried artillery and firing points. The initial armament consisted of 12 guns. The proposed 1793 reconstruction called for 22 guns, while the alternative account of the enlargement specifies 20.

Three gates served the fortress. The Water Gate opened toward the Podkumok, the Kislovodsk Gate stood on the southern side toward Kislovodsk, and the Georgiyevsk Gate occupied the northern side. The 1802 plan depicts a polygonal work with corner bastions and records the internal arrangement of the regimental barracks, church, and infirmary. Ramparts and ditches remained traceable in the 1960s, and the monument on the former northern bastion now occupies part of the site on Palmiro Togliatti Street in the Novopyatigorsk district of Pyatigorsk.

Interior buildings

Most of the interior buildings were wooden. Construction timber was brought from the upper Shkakun River beyond Kislovodsk, where suitable structural wood was available. A wooden church was built inside the fortress in 1783. The 1802 plan shows a regimental church within an adobe regimental barracks, which also contained an infirmary. The plan therefore preserves the arrangement of the principal internal buildings even though the original structures no longer form the surviving fabric of the fortress.

Military cemetery

Burial mounds and graves

The cemetery was established within ancient burial mounds because the fortress stood in a marshy area with a high groundwater level. One large Novopyatigorsk mound in the Novopyatigorsk Garden and six smaller mounds on Palmiro Togliatti Street formed the burial area. The mounds themselves were ancient, while the military cemetery occupied their embankments.

Both officers and soldiers were buried there. Officers’ graves were generally marked with stone gravestones, while soldiers’ burials were mainly identified by wooden crosses. One gravestone survives in the Pyatigorsk Museum of Local History, and separate uninscribed fragments have been recovered from the mounds. Epitaphs also preserve the memory of the fighting between the garrison and mountaineers in August 1810.

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