A panoramic view of the port in Sebastopol, with the image of Malakhov Kourgan, a monument to Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev (1788-1851), Russian naval commander, admiral, Knight of the Order of St. George of the fifth class, commander of the Black Sea Fleet (the monument was erected in 1867, demolished in 1928), a four-story building of customs (in 1877 this building became an ornament of the embankment of the Southern bay, built by engineer Fedor Nikolaevich Yerantsev) and the yacht of Emperor Alexander III "Livadia" standing on the quay. In the picture, the Imperial yacht "Livadia", which was laid down on March 25, 1880 at the "Elder and Co" factory in Glasgow, instead of the lost yacht of the same name. On October 3, 1880, Livadia left the Greenock raid for Sebastopol. Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich came on board in Brest. The yacht under the general-admiral flag went further through the Bay of Biscay, where it hit a severe storm. The wave’s strokes over the flat ship’s bottom were terrible and shook the whole ship’s hull. As a result, a leak appeared in the bottom of the pontoon, the double bottom filled with water, and it was necessary to change course and go to the Spanish port Ferrol. There, a five-meter hole with ruptures and cracks in the skin sheets was found in the nose part of the pontoon bottom. The maintenance had to be carried out afloat. Only after seven and a half months, "Livadia" continued its journey to Sebastopol, where later the yacht was put into dock. The commission, which examined it, confirmed the opinion that had been formed in Ferrol: the hull of the ship's pontoon was not capable of withstanding strong waves. It was a death sentence. In May 1881, the yacht once transported the Admiral-General and his brother, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich with his family from Batum to Sebastopol, and then, having received the name "Experience" in 1883, was used as a floating barrack and warehouse.

(A.L. Larionov, From the History of Imperial Yachts. // Russian Imperial Yachts, End of the 17th and early 20th centuries, St. Petersburg, Ego Publishing House, 1997. P.21)

minimize...