Admiral Lazareff was educated in England, held a commission as midshipman in the British navy for several years, and served under Lord Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar.
There are imposing statues located in various parts of the city to Admirals Kornkioff and Nashkioff and several other heroes of the siege.
There is a memorial chapel for Prince Gorchakoff, commander-in-chief of the Russian forces during the siege. He died in 1861 and was brought there for burial at his own request.
There is a charming little museum of pure classic architecture, containing relics of the siege and of the men who were engaged upon the Russian side.
Each nation has its own cemetery, in which the dead of the Crimean War are buried. The Russian cemetery is the largest and occupies the slopes of a hill across the outer bay from the city. In the centre is a pyramid of stone 105 feet high, erected by the government in honour of the officers and soldiers who fell in the siege, and surrounding it are the graves of 38,000 soldiers.
The French cemetery contains 28,000 graves, and the British cemetery only about 1,800, nearly all of the bodies of the dead having been taken back to England. Several famous men are resting there, including Major-general Sir John Campbell, who, the inscription upon his monument tells us, was killed in action, June 18, 1855. His brother, Major-general Colin Campbell, was also conspicuous on the British side and afterward distinguished himself in the Indian Mutiny of 1857.
Sir George Cathcart, lieutenant-general, commanding the fourth division of the British army, was also killed in action. By a strange coincidence, he had served in the Russian army against Napoleon in 1813 and 1814, just as Admiral Lazareff had served with Nelson. Sir George Cathcart was killed at the battle of Inkerman, wearing upon his breast three decorations which had been bestowed upon him for bravery by the Russian czar when he was a young man.
A cottage in which Lord Raglan, commander of the British forces, died, overlooks the battlefield of Balaklava. It was the headquarters of the British army and was known as Vracker’s farmhouse, but it is now occupied and owned by a Russian named Maximovitch, who has a large vineyard. A sign on his gate reads: “Alpha Vineyard.”
A stone slab under a tree in the garden marks the place where Lord Raglan used to sit in his last illness, brooding over the unjust criticisms that were directed at his conduct of the campaign. In one of the rooms is a tablet inscribed: “In this room died Field Marshal Lord Raglan, G. C. B., Commander in Chief of the British army of the Crimea, 28th June, 1855.”
On the door of the house are the names of Raglan, Simpson, and Cedrington, the three officers who commanded the British army during the campaign.