How they rested in Crimea in the 19th century
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Whoever says anything about the motives of his trip to the Crimea today, just as then, at the beginning of the 19th century, at the dawn of the formation of the Crimean resort business, the main attraction for the majority of visitors, of course, was the Black Sea.
And although today the extreme beneficialness of sea bathing for the human body is already undeniable, it must be said that once there were skeptics here too ... So, one of the first travelers in the Crimea V. Bronevsky (by the way, in the past - a naval officer) in his records referred to this occupation with undisguised sarcasm.
And this is forgivable: the Russian people, more accustomed to swimming in rivers and lakes, in contact with the little-known sea element, of course, demanded a certain historical time for its development. Gradually getting used to, the resting public, arriving for the most part from the Central Russian plains, from the beginning considered sandy beaches and a shallow bottom near Evpatoria and Feodosia to be the best place for bathing. Many did not like swimming on the South Bank because of the uncomfortable rocky coast, and the same because of the significant dangerous depths.
Until the 70s of the XIX century. the public bathed in open water directly from the beach, as is done today, which caused considerable concern for the guardians of public morality (what would be interesting, they said after visiting our beaches? ..) To undress on the shore to underwear and then publicly swim in it was considered wildly patriarchal and worthy of all condemnation even by doctors. With the development of resorts, baths began to come into use, which gradually became an indispensable attribute of any self-respecting resort area. These were wooden pavilions on stilts near the seashore, and their main task was to hide from prying eyes the very moment of dressing, and the “open” bathing suit, and immersion in water in it. Baths, of course, were divided into women's and men's. Those wishing to swim changed inside the pavilion, then they went down a special ladder from its part hanging over the sea into the water, and having bathed, they returned back in the same way. This business required a certain skill and was unsafe - on wet and slippery steps and bridges, not everyone could resist ...
The baths were run by private individuals, and visitors were charged a fee for their use. Both that, and another were a constant topic of discussion of vacationers. Tourist D. Sokolov declared in 1869: “There are no well-arranged baths in Yalta, however, they take a good fee in bad ones: 20 and 25 kopecks, therefore, bathing 4 times a day, you have to spend 1 ruble” (this was a significant amount of money). But gradually there were more and more baths and the prices for their services fell accordingly. In 1902 visitors to Yalta could already use four baths for 5-7 kopecks. per session. There was also a free city bath (but in the women's section, bathers were often annoyed by local teenagers, "throwing sticks, diving, grabbing their legs and generally behaving obscenely").
The relatively small Yalta Bay also had one more drawback, which vacationers complained about: "... the water near the baths is often polluted with garbage from ships docked in the bay." In those places where there were no baths, in order to avoid a close meeting of representatives of different sexes, the coast was divided into special sectors. In Koktebelat the beginning of the XX century. the coast, for example, was divided into three parts - for ladies, for men, and for ... horses. Where the beaches were small, as in Alupka and other coastal villages, before the construction of baths there, local authorities established a time visit to the beach. Men swam in the morning, and closer to the middle of the day - ladies. Many beach goers were very dissatisfied with the fact that they had to go to the beach during the hottest time and could not "take a morning sea bath". In addition, entire groups of local male residents shamelessly came to see the bathing ladies.
Bathing. Ancient engraving
Like any ritual, bathing required its own costume and even ... shoes (especially in Yalta, where hot stones annoyed the bathing public). The most “decent” beach shoes were like camel socks with ribbons, and the most common were straw sandals that looked a lot like bast shoes. They were sold right there in the baths and constituted an indispensable (very comical in today's opinion) attribute of resort amenities. One of the travelers K. Zhukov clearly recalled with pleasure in 1869: “After bathing in shoes prepared for 75 kopecks. for a pair of bath watchmen, we drank tea in the garden. It was easiest in Evpatoria: here “women bathed in costumes, but not in benleises depicted in the paintings of bains de mer, truville, etc., but simply in linen or colored shirts. Others are even simpler - in sheets ... Men, on the other hand, bathe without any hesitation in Adam's suit ”(swimmed, of course, on separate beaches). In more crowded resort areas, bathing suits were subject to more stringent requirements.
According to current concepts, a bather of the 90s of the XIX century. was a rather outlandish sight: in a long woolen shirt without sleeves, with fasteners on the shoulders; hair, moistened from overheating with fresh water, is hidden under an oilcloth cap or a wide-brimmed straw hat; on the feet are cloth or straw shoes with a rope sole, and in the ears are cotton wool soaked in oil (as recommended in the guidebooks). Since the XX century special lighter and more elegant bathing suits began to come into use. Ladies - in the form of short fitted dresses or pantaloons to the knees, decorated with numerous frills, ribbons and lace. The men's costume was simply "borrowed" from circus athletes and consisted of cotton tights, usually in blue and white or red and white stripes. By the way, neither the men themselves liked these men's "swimsuits", nor medical professionals. “Any bathing suit,” declared Professor Kovalevsky, “is harmful, and bathing without any suit is much better; but in view of the categorical ban on swimming in the baths without a suit, one has to obey this rule. Some doctors generally sharply opposed joint bathing and swimsuits. In their opinion, the proximity of the sexes when bathing "in our nervous age is certainly undesirable", as well as the burden of the body in the water with tissues.
So, as you can see, holidays with the family in those days on the Black Sea coastwas peculiar: often the head of the family sunbathed and bathed separately from his wife and children. We met and shared our impressions already at dinner. By the way, staying on the beach for a long time was generally not accepted, since tanning was not welcome. Another thing is the evening promenade along the embankment or along the seashore against the backdrop of a setting and already safe luminary. Only in Koktebel at Maximilian Voloshin in his house, built on the very beach, a different life went on all summer. From Moscow and St. Petersburg, a rather daring bohemian audience gathered in experiments, and their own fashion was established for bathing suits: short tunics for men (like Roman ones) and the same tunics, but with silk harem pants, for women. At the same time, everyone went barefoot. At the owner of the house, not only the beach, but also the summer suit in general was extremely original: he preferred to walk like an Assyrian priest, in a long, below the knee, shirt, sandals and with a wormwood wreath on his head. Such a way of life shocked not only summer residents who were vacationing nearby in Feodosia, but also peasants from a neighboring village, but what else could be expected from educated people, but at the same time calling themselves a “tribe of idiots” and bawling some nonsense hymns on the shore?
In the end, the state intervened in the struggle between supporters and opponents of bathing suits, decisively taking the side of the former. In 1915 The Yalta mayor Dumbadze issued a special and mandatory decree “On observance of decency ...” in the subordinate towns of the South Coast, where, in particular, it was said: “Every male and female person, starting from 10 years old and wishing to swim from the shore or from the baths, is obliged to wear a bathing suit. a suit that would perfectly suit its purpose. The next paragraph forbade "persons bathing from the shore ... to remain out of the water for recreation, etc., if they do not wear a wearable dress." Thus, it was possible to be on the beach only in ordinary walking clothes and nothing else. However, this did not seem to be either extreme or despotic on the part of the local authorities, since, again, I repeat,
These are how unusual and amazing the Crimean beaches of the 19th century would appear to today's holiday-goers, and vice versa ...
Author: Julia Samarina