There are probably very few residents of Sloboda Ukraine and Kharkiv who haven’t heard of Sharivka.
Without a doubt, it is the most famous landmark in the Kharkiv region. This beautiful architectural site, located not far from our city, attracts crowds of tourists, photographers, and newlyweds every year who come there for photo shoots. Some are drawn to Sharivka by romantic (and completely unrealistic) tales about the “stone of love,” sugar slides, and the Koenig barons. Others are drawn by the estate’s astonishing beauty and scale. Still others are drawn by the enchanting park with its rare tree species. It seems as though “Sharivka Castle” (as the estate is often called) has always existed in the form that visitors see it today. However, this is not the case at all. After all, before Sharivka became the property of the Koenig family, it had a history that was no less remarkable and glorious. To begin with, let’s find out what happened there from the 18th century to the early 19th century. At least three very detailed descriptions have survived to this day.
In the 1732 document titled “Census of the Akhtyr Regiment” (part of which is available at http://www.otkudarodom.ua), in addition to information on the number of residents, we read the following:
The village of Sharivka, named after Matvey Sharov, the former regimental Yesaul of Okhtyrka, and his widow, Grafena…
In total, the village of Sharovaya has 23 households, 28 houses, and 69 people.
She has been living on the purchased land for 10 years; she has no debts, and she performs all kinds of work. On November 19, 1732, the Okhtyrka Regiment of the village of Sharivka, at the request of the former Okhtyrka regimental captain Matvey Sharov, granted his wife, the widow Agrafena Matveyeva, the daughter of Little Russians, Ataman Vasily Ivanov, upon request, testified that in the aforementioned village of Sharivka, Little Russians had been settled on Great Russian-owned, purchased settlement land for the past 10 years, and those Little Russians do not impose any monetary, grain, or other levies on the said widow Agrafena, but merely perform all manner of labor… days; and if I, the ataman, have stated anything false in this report or concealed any expenses, and am subsequently exposed for doing so, may Her Imperial Majesty order that I be put to death without mercy. To this report from the town of Seno… Joseph Prokofiev, in place of Ataman Vasily Poprotsky at his request, affixed his signature…
The “Economic Notes on the Krasnokuts’k District” for the year 1785 provide a more detailed description of the area itself:
The village of Sharivka, with church-owned land, is part of the estate of Captain Savva and Gavriil Vasilyev, sons of Olkhovsky.
Distance from the county seat: 18.
Number of households: 57.
Population according to the census: men—179, women—180.
Present: men—163, women—179.
Arable land—543 desyatinas.
Hayfields—163 desyatinas.
Timber forest: 500 desyatinas.
Firewood forest: 350 desyatinas.
Unproductive land: 99 desyatinas.
Total: 1,667 desyatinas and 1,162 sazhens.
The estate is situated on the slopes on both sides of the Shturmovaya and Sharivka streams, and the estate extends along both banks of those rivers and the Mokry Merchik River, as well as along both sides of the Dovzhik and Khvoshchevaty peaks, the Antonov ravine, and the Blinkov and unnamed ravines—and that river… The streams within this estate, at their shallowest points during the hot summer months, are half an arshin deep and eight sazhens wide, while the river almost completely dries up during the hot summer months. The rivers contain fish—pike, perch, crucian carp, and roach—which are used for the landowner’s household needs; in that village there is a wooden church dedicated to the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God, which was built… A plot of land belonging to the estate in the village of Sharovki has been demarcated and is marked on the map with the letter “CZ”; it is situated on both sides of the mouth of the Khvoshchevaty ravine. The soil is black earth and arable land; it is suitable for haymaking. There is a wooden manor house, adjacent to which is a small garden with cherry and apple trees, the fruit of which is harvested for the landlord’s personal use. Furthermore, in that village, mulled wine is produced and sold at market price. During the hottest part of summer, the river is a quarter of an arshin deep and five sazhens wide in its shallowest spots; residents catch small fish there, and the water in the rivers and wells is safe for people and livestock. On the aforementioned Shturmovaya River in the village, there is a flour mill with one millstone; it operates during the spring season and yields an annual income of ten rubles to the landowners. On the Shurova River, there are three ponds dammed up for livestock watering; the soil is black earth and partly sandy; of the grains sown there, rye, wheat, and barley yield the best harvests, while other crops yield average results. The hay meadows yield poorer grass than in other settlements; the forest consists of oak, maple, and alder trees, half an arshin in diameter and 3 to 4 sazhens tall, and in addition to this, there are firewood trees of the same species; as well as linden and walnut, which are unsuitable for potash. The wildlife includes bears, wolves, and hares; birds include hawks, kites, nightingales, thrushes, starlings, quails, wagtails, bullfinches, siskins, titmice, and wild ducks. The Cherkasy subjects engage in trade and have no other occupations, but make their living from farming and livestock raising
Here is what we can learn about Sharivka from the “Economic Notes on the Bohodukhivsky District, 1804.”
The village of Sharivka, owned by Major Savva Vasilyev, son of Alkhovskiy.
Distance from the city: 14.
Population according to the census: 249 men and 236 women.
Pastureland: 12 desyatinas and 1,162 sazhens.
Arable land: 543 desyatinas.
Hayfields: 163 desyatinas.
Forests: 500 desyatinas.
Unarable land: 99 desyatinas.
Total: 1,167 desyatinas and 1,162 sazhens.The estate is situated on a hillside on both sides of the Shturmovaya and Sharivka Rivers, and the summer residence extends along both banks of those rivers as well as the Mokroye Merchik River, the peaks of Dolzhik and Khvoshchevaty, and the Zhitko Ravine. In this village there is a wooden church dedicated to the Annunciation of the Most Holy Mother of God, as well as a wooden manor house; a mill on the Sharivka River with a single millstone, which is operated during the rainy season exclusively for the manor’s use; a distillery with two vats, which produces 4,000 buckets of wine per year; the soil is black earth, with a small portion being sandy; the forest consists of firewood and timber—oak, linden, and birch; the peasants cultivate the land for the landowner and for themselves; their standard of living is moderate” (spelling partially preserved—Ed.).
In the first half of the 18th century, Sharivka suffered from raids by Anton Mikhailovich Tanskiy, a former colonel from Belotserkov. He, along with other immigrants from Moldavia (Colonel Kigich, officers Zhiyan and Vedryaga, as well as rank-and-file Cossacks and Poles), was ordered to settle in Murafa and establish a horse breeding farm there. However, the landowners began to mistreat the local population. For example, in 1720, Captain Zhiyan beat up a priest from Murafa and his son. Osipov, the brigadier of the Sloboda regiments, wrote at the time that the Vlachs (Moldovans) were committing brazen robberies, inflicting injustices, and ruining all the residents of Murafa. In 1724, Akhtyr Colonel Lesevitsky complained that “Colonel Tansky had seized many lands, forests, and people; he inflicts beatings and injustices with impunity; and he ruined and burned down the newly built settlement of Sharivka.” In 1748 and 1749, complaints were again filed against Tanskiy. He and his gang threatened the very existence of the Murafovo Cossack sotnia, once again ravaged the settlement of Sharivka, and beat up the Krasnokutsk ataman. Be that as it may, by the mid-18th century, Sharivka was already owned by Vasily Alkhovsky (also spelled Olkhovsky). Thanks to the document “List of Nobles of the Akhtyrsk Province in 1767,” we learn that the village of Sharivka passed to the landowner, nobleman, and retired premier major Nikolai Abaza. The progenitor of this illustrious family was Ilya Andreevich Abaza (1655–1727), a Moldavian boyar and voivode of Butushai, who took Russian citizenship.
By a charter issued by Tsar and Grand Duke Peter Alekseevich in 1718, Ilya Abaza, as a colonel, was granted an estate located in the Kharkiv Regiment, in the village of Dvurechny Kut.
Sharivka became the property of this family as a result of the second marriage of Vasily Alkhovsky’s widow, Tatyana (née Kovan’ko), to Nikolai Abaza.
About the son from Tatyana Ivanovna’s first marriage — Savva Vasilyevich Alkhovsky, who owned Sharivka in the 1770s—the “Genealogical Book of Hereditary Nobles of the Kharkiv Governorate” reveals that he was born in 1750. He entered military service in 1763, became an ensign in 1766, a second lieutenant in 1769, a lieutenant in 1770, and a captain in 1771. In 1777, he was discharged from service with the rank of second major.
Dmitry Bagaley offers a very interesting characterization of him in his writings. “He was the type of impetuous warrior who was unwilling to part with his military habits and mannerisms, even in a peaceful rural corner.” The historian even compares Savva Vasilyevich to Anton Tanskiy, whom we already know: “Newcomers to Sloboda Ukraine under Catherine, such as Alkhovskiy, are, as it were, direct successors to Tanskiy and his company.” Unable to break away from the habits inherited from ceaseless wars, treating the local population—which had submitted to them as subjects—with arrogance, quarrelling and feuding with their landowner neighbors, and being unprepared for peaceful agricultural pursuits, they constituted a restless and unruly element within local Ukrainian society. Sloboda Ukraine was undergoing a transitional period in its historical existence: the old Cossack-military way of life was gradually being replaced by a civilian one. New government institutions weakened the influence of local ones, but they themselves, in turn, failed to adapt to an environment whose forms were alien to them. Bureaucratic procedures, the complexity of legal norms, and the written handling of cases gave the stronger and bolder hope of impunity. The new landowners still had military contingents at their disposal, which they used against their personal enemies. As we shall see later, this is exactly what Alkhovsky did.”
Such “flattering” descriptions come as no surprise. Savva Alkhovsky was said to have the temperament of a bandit: with a band of armed men, he would raid his neighbors and seize their lands. It was said that people rotted in chains in the cellars of Sharivka, and that the estate’s lands had expanded through robbery. Traveling through Savva’s lands was considered extremely dangerous and was undertaken with great fear. In short, all manner of horrors were told about Alkhovsky at that time. The owner of Sharivka also became notorious for waging, in the truest sense of the word, a real war against his neighbor, Nazar Karazin, the owner of the village of Kruchik. For example, one night in January 1775, Alkhovsky sent his steward, Danila Meshcheryakov, with a force of more than 20 armed men to Karazin’s mill, which was located within the boundaries of his estate on the Merle River. They smashed the doors and windows of the hut, beat up four of Karazin’s serfs, and took them with them to Sharivka. In August of that same year, on Alkhovsky’s orders, his stewards Grigory Vasilyev and the serf Mitka, along with subjects from Sharivka and Murafovo, seized seven haystacks which had been harvested by Karazin’s people on his own land, and the following night they took six haystacks from Karazin’s farmstead. In 1776, Alkhovsky again attacked Karazin’s farmstead at night. Several dozen people were injured during the raid. What is most interesting here is that on that occasion, Savva’s mother, Tatyana Abazina, assisted him. The outcome of this clash is highly controversial and is described in detail by Dmitry Bagaley himself in the article “Nazariy Alexandrovich Karazin and His Bell,” published in the journal *Kyivska Starina* in 1892.
According to the Karazins themselves, they emerged victorious. Savva Alkhovsky, having lost many of his men in battle, was taken prisoner and brought to Krasnokuts’k—then still a county town—where he was placed under house arrest. However, the guards watching over the prisoner were treacherously drugged with vodka laced with opium, allowing Savva to escape. According to another account, Savva was, after all, the victor in this “battle.” Be that as it may, Nazariy Karazin subsequently ordered, as an act of revenge against Alkhovsky, that a bell be cast bearing the following inscription “This bell is the blood crying out to God for the people of the village of Kruchik and the hamlet of Osnovintsy, slain by Savva Vasilyevich, son of Alkhovsky, on August 15, 1776.” Also, by Karazin’s order, a striking hammer was attached to the bell, which struck the hour at the mention of Savva’s name. It goes without saying that the courts of that time were inundated with all manner of complaints against Savva and counter-accusations by Alkhovsky against his neighbors and enemies. If one wishes, many such cases can be found in the State Archives of the Kharkiv Region. But for me personally, something else is far more important here. Nowadays, the figure of the legendary owner of Sharivka, Savva Vasilyevich Alkhovsky—the man who first began construction of the stone palace on the estate—has been forgotten by most people.
And instead of gripping true stories about a man whose life and deeds could easily serve as the plot for an adventure novel or movie, on tours in Sharivka—much to my regret— they just repeat the same old myths about barons and mountains of sugar.
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