130 years ago, from September 23 to October 12, 1887, Kharkiv found itself at the center of attention throughout the entire Empire at that time. It was during that time, over the course of 20 days, that the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition took place on an area of more than 20 hectares in the University Garden and on the adjacent vacant lot of the Veterinary Institute.
It was the first event of its kind held in the province. Fifty-one pavilions were built specifically to house all the exhibits and ensure visitors’ comfort.
Among the pavilions were those of the Poltava Zemstvo, the Zmiiv Agricultural Society, Count Ribopier, Pilström, the Tile Manufacturing Pavilion, the Fruit-Drying Pavilion, the Kyiv Pavilion, the Tobacco Pavilion, the Music Pavilion, the Agricultural Products Pavilion, the Handicrafts Pavilion, and the Agricultural Product Processing Pavilion, the Gelfreich-Sade Pavilion, Kenig, Bergenheim, the machinery pavilion, the horticulture, forestry, and winemaking pavilion, the dairy and cheese-making pavilion, as well as the police pavilion, Delpesh’s restaurant, a second-class restaurant, a seltzer water stand, a sausage stand, and a bakery.
Over the course of the event, more than 100,000 people visited the Kharkiv exhibition. You can read about the event itself in an article I wrote earlier.
Given that a total of 97 gold, 162 large and 274 small silver medals, 368 bronze medals, and 320 certificates of commendation, we would very much like to recognize the residents of our city and region who distinguished themselves at such a significant event.
By the way, even today you can find copper and silver tokens for sale online that read “In Commemoration of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition in Kharkiv, 1887.” Their prices range from 190 to 260 currency units.
Without exaggeration, the enormous exhibition was divided into 9 thematic sections and numerous subsections. Of course, it’s completely impossible to cover all of Kharkiv and Sloboda Ukraine achievements from that period in a single article. To start with, today we’ll look only at the awards for beekeeping, fruit and berry beverages, and beer.
In the beekeeping section, 27 exhibitors from 9 provinces presented a wide variety of beehives, honey, and beeswax. Although 14 beekeepers from the Kharkiv province participated in the exhibition, our fellow countrymen, alas, were unable to win the top prizes. However, they certainly did receive awards.
Adrian Matveyevich Kirillov, a resident of Kharkiv at Klochkivs’ka Street, 32 presented two beehives he had built himself, as well as a vertical hive and a horizontal hive to which he had made his own modifications. The high quality and practicality of his creations caught the attention of the commission.
During Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna’s visit and tour of the beekeeping department, Adrian Matveyevich had the honor of presenting her with a glass vase containing a mound of honeycomb slices in snow-white honeycombs. For his advanced beekeeping methods and the excellent quality of the honey on display, Adrian Matveyevich was awarded a small silver medal by the expert commission.
Platon Ponomarev, a priest from the village of Molodovoye in Vovchans’ky County, was also honored with this award. He submitted two beehives of his own design to the exhibition—placed side by side on a shared stand and covered by a single lid—along with comb honey.
Semyon Aleksandrov, a resident of Chuhuiv, set up several beehives of his own design and produced honey of excellent quality.
The expert commission awarded certificates of commendation to the following members of our community for managing their apiaries on their farms using advanced methods.
Ivan Andreevich Antonov, a resident of the city of Izyum, who provided a colony of bees—a cross between the Caucasian breed and a local breed—in a Berlepsch-style hive that he had modified and improved. The innovations Antonov implemented were simple and inexpensive, yet they completely prevented ants and mice from entering the hive itself.
Varvara Nikolaevna Kukol-Yasnopolskaya, a resident of the town of Bilopillya, also demonstrated an improved beehive. Thanks to this, the honey in the combs turned out “exceptionally beautiful.” How wonderful that a woman, even as a beekeeper, remains a woman nonetheless.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Ivanovich Kostin, a resident of the village of Komarovka in the Izyum District, presented a modernized beehive… completely devoid of bees. However, experts noted in their reports and conclusions: “The honey provided by exhibitor Kostin is excellent in every respect.”
Few of the beekeepers participating in the Kharkiv exhibition at that time could outdo the widow of Adjutant General Vera Ivanovna Annenkova, who lived on the Bobrovo estate in Lebedynsky District, in terms of the number of exhibits she presented. This charming woman presented six Berlepsch hives with bees and two without, honey syrup in small barrels, a machine for making artificial honeycomb, a bee-proof net, a knife for cutting open honeycomb cells, a wire strainer for filtering, and a tub. Of course, all of these items had been improved upon. Although the commission deemed everything she submitted to be unremarkable and of ordinary design, a certificate of commendation was nevertheless ceremoniously presented to the general’s widow.
There were a few mishaps as well. For example, Fyodor Lvovich Baboshko, a resident of the Sharivka station, contributed his beehive and honey to the exhibition. However, the expert committee was unable to examine and evaluate them: the boy assigned to guard them was so zealous in protecting the beehive and honey that he wouldn’t let anyone near them.
Ivan Mikhailovich Kabeshov, the manager of Count M. M. Tolstoy’s estate in the Sumy District, provided an observation hive with bees for the exhibition. It was crafted in the shape of an elegant book. On the door was a striking inscription that caught many people’s eyes: “Learn from the bee,” which regularly drew mocking remarks from the public.
The exhibits presented at the exhibition by Father Ioann Ioannovich Levandovsky, a resident of Kup’yans’k, drew admiration not only from the members of the expert committee but also from ordinary visitors. Beehives, frame stands, screens, cages—there was hardly anything this talented beekeeper hadn’t touched, improved, or perfected. The comb honey displayed by Ioann Ioannovich in boxes and frames was so delicious that, despite the high price, practically all of it was sold out. However, all these numerous and outstanding exhibits were, alas, excluded from the competition, since Levandovsky served on the exhibition’s expert committee for the beekeeping section.
On September 22, Ivan Ivanovich Karazin, chairman of the commission of the aforementioned department, submitted a special statement to the exhibition’s Organizing Committee.
Among the items on display in the beekeeping section, the exhibits belonging to Father Ioann Ioannovich Levandovskiy deserve special attention, as they comprise a complete collection of beekeeping equipment: beehives used by the exhibitor, a scientific collection, samples of comb honey and extracted honey, and seeds of honey plants. All of the above items stand out for their exceptional qualities. Since Father Ioann Levandovsky, as an expert, exhibited his items outside of the competition, I consider it fair to ask the Committee to award him an honorary commendation, both for the exhibited items and for his work in the field of rational beekeeping.
On October 3, the Executive Committee resolved:
“Petition by the Chairman of the Expert Commission, I. I. Karazin, to award the exhibitor, Priest Ioann Levandovskiy, for his work in the field of rational beekeeping and for the beekeeping items on display—with an honorable mention from the Committee—is hereby granted.”
The section featuring fruit and berry beverages—including alcoholic ones—attracted considerable interest and attention from all visitors to the exhibition. All of the items on display, presented by 112 exhibitors from 28 provinces, were divided into 6 groups:
- fruit kvass
- fruit wines
- Regular grape wines, not champagne
- Grape wines, champagnes, or sparkling wines
- liquids
- equipment used in winemaking.
Of these, the largest number came from the Taurida Governorate—26—and the Bessarabia Governorate—21. From our own Kharkiv Governorate, only four exhibitors took part. Yet each of them distinguished themselves in their own way.
The Slobozhans were unable to win the top award in the fruit wines and nalivkas category. However, based on the judges’ evaluation, the bronze medal (awarded for second place) went to Prokofiy Semenovich Grinenko. His distillery, located in the city of Sumy, had a special department where authentic Ukrainian fruit liqueurs were produced. The fruit used for these liqueurs came mostly from Prokofy Semenovich’s own three orchards, located in the Bogodukhov and Sumy districts. Grinenko sent samples of cherry, black currant, plum, raspberry, and rowan nalivka to the exhibition in Kharkiv.
Nikolai Alekseevich Zheverzheev, a well-known merchant from Kharkiv, ran an extensive grape wine trade, purchasing wine from winemakers in the Don region, Crimea, Bessarabia, and the Caucasus. Then, in the 1870s, Zheverzheev opened his own sparkling wine production facility.
At the exhibition, Nikolai Alekseevich presented samples of his own production—the “Tsarskoe” and “Tsimlyanskoye” champagnes. However, despite receiving high marks from the experts, they did not win any awards. The reason was extremely simple: Nikolai Alekseevich himself served as an expert in the winemaking section at the exhibition.
Nikolai Vasilyevich Maslennikov, a resident of our city, submitted samples of no fewer than ten varieties of fruit kvass! And it’s very likely that he would have won a prize for them if he hadn’t been the only one out of 112 participants in the first group.
Ivan Petrovich Miroshnichenko, who lived in the Zmiyevsky District at the Sokolovs’ summer cottage in the village of Salov Kut, submitted a cherry fruit wine to the exhibition, which he himself called “cerazorov.” It was displayed in the pavilion of the Zmiiv Agricultural Society; however, since the wine had been sent too late, it was not subjected to expert evaluation. Ivan Petrovich himself was not discouraged by this and graciously shared with everyone the method he used to make his wine.
The entire agricultural processing industry represented at the exhibition was divided into five distinct groups. The fourth group included spirits: grain and potato spirits, at least 1 bucket each; beer, porter, and mead, with at least five bottles of each variety; as well as 2 pounds of compressed yeast. Thirty-five exhibitors participated in this group, 11 of whom were from Kharkiv and the province.
Many of us love to visit the estate in Stary Merchik. But few people know that, in the fall of 1887, its owner was awarded one of the exhibition’s top honors.
In 1872, Yevgeny Mikhailovich Dukhovsky built a distillery in Stary Merchik, which he rebuilt in 1881. Dukhovsky’s goal in building the distillery was extremely simple—to process his own harvest. At an exhibition in Kharkiv, Yevgeny Mikhailovich showcased spirit and vodka from his distillery. A panel of experts determined that the spirit produced by the Merchik Distillery was of good quality and that the vodka was exceptionally well-refined. Consequently, the commission awarded Yevgeny Mikhailovich a gold medal specifically for the vodka.
The following of our fellow townspeople received the second-most prestigious award, namely the large silver medal.
Leopold Koenig — for the grain-and-potato-based alcohol produced at the Trostyanets Distillery.
According to the expert commission, the purified potato alcohol produced by the plant owned by Pavel Vasilyevich Goloperov, a resident of Bohodukhiv, is distinguished by its high quality.
Anastasia Egorovna Podolskaya, a resident of the city of Sumy, exhibited vodka and grain alcohol at the fair, both produced by her distillery in the village of Preobrazhenskoe in the Okhtyrsky District. The quality of the alcohol was so exceptional that it was for this very product that Anastasia Egorovna received a medal.
Two well-known Kharkiv brewers, Alexei Petrovich Olkhovsky and Ivan Yegorovich Ignatishchev, also took part in the exhibition, presenting samples of porter, beer, mead, and malt. Each of them received a large silver medal, which would later take pride of place on the labels of the bottles of beer they produced.
The “Ukrainka” beer and mead brewery (owned by Ivan Kirillovich Grishchenko) had not even been in operation for a year when the exhibition took place. Nevertheless, the brewery’s founder took a chance to make a name for himself by displaying his products in an exceptionally luxurious and elegantly arranged separate display case. By decision of the expert commission, the beer produced by Ivan Kirillovich was awarded a small silver medal.
However, the most interesting part of “Ukrainka” was just getting started back then. Just like for you and me: after all, in the coming weeks we’ll learn new stories about Kharkiv’s victories in 1887.
- About the military pilot school and the airfield in Kharkiv… - 04.11.2020
- Kharkiv Artisans and the 1887 Exhibition - 17.08.2020
- Nikanor Savich—A Political Career by Mistake - 13.07.2020