The Sevastopol Federal District was established around what was once the top secret Russian naval base by the same name.  Known to the west as Sebastopol, the city/base was established by Catherine the Great in the late 1700s as the home for the Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet link to photo of Sebastopol.  It was from this port that the Russian Tsars hoped to accomplish their dream of capturing the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and Constantinople, thereby establishing unrestricted access to warm ocean waters.  In the 19th century, the British and the French supported the Ottoman Empire in order to thwart Russia’s attempts at this endeavor.  In the early 1850s, the allies (English, French, and Turkish forces) declared war on Russia, fought several set battles in Bulgaria, notable around Varna, and interior Crimea at the Alma River, Inkerman Hills, and Traktir Bridge, and laid siege to the city of Sebastopol for nine months.  Perhaps the most infamous, and least significant of the set engagements was the Battle of Balaclava.  In his  "The Charge of the Light Brigade", Tennyson colorfully  tells the story of a brigade of British cavalry that attempted to dislodge a large force of Russians who held commanding positions on the hills surrounding North valley. 

The Light Brigade consisted of five regiments of cavalry totaling roughly 700 led by the flamboyant but largely incompetent Lord Cardigan.  Light Brigade regiments included the 4th  and 13th Light Dragoons, the 8th and 11th Hussars, and the 17th Lancers.  At the time, a rather significant number of British military strategists argued that no defensive position, however well defended, could withstand the full charge of swift light cavalry.  The Light Brigade valiantly charged through the North Valley into intense artillery and musket fire.  British losses were more than 50% and they failed to take their objective.  They did, however, gain everlasting glory courtesy of British Poet Laureate Alfred, Lord Tennyson.  As history reveals, the battle was of no strategic or tactical significance.  Interestingly, it is also a battle that Russians never talk about even through they won a victory.  No Russian or Ukrainian I met could or would take me to the North Valley, the so-called "Valley of Death" and no one had ever heard of Traktir Bridge, the focus of the British charge that day long ago in 1853. I found the locale myself. 

A battle of far greater importance was that of the Inkerman Hills.  This battle may have been Russia’s last real chance to claim a victory in the Crimean War.  In this battle, the bravery of Russian soldiers proved no match for modern allied weaponry.   The British rifled muskets using the French Mine’ ball decimated Russian regiments armed with smoothbore muskets of Napoleonic vintage.  After Inkerman Hills, the Russians under Admiral Nakimov fell back to the fortress city of Sevastopol, sank several large ships to block their harbor entrance from the British fleet, and settled in for a lengthy siege.  After some nine months, the allied losses from disease and  other illnesses was so great that they were forced to abandoned the field and leave the region.  The Russian victory, however, was pyrrhic.  The city was largely in ruins.  Thousands of soldiers and citizens had starved to death or died of diseases.  Finally, the magnificent harbor had been badly.  Both sides paid a heavy price for what amounted to a strategic stalemate. 

Russia maintained a large fleet at Sevastopol throughout the 19th century and up to the time of the 1917 October Revolution, which brought the Communist Party into power.  The Soviet Navy continued to use the naval base  after the revolution.  The city was besieged by the German Wermacht led by General von Manstein in 1942.  After a siege of several months, the city fell with losses of over 150,000 soldiers and even more citizens.  The city was almost demolished.  In fact, evidence of this destruction can be seen to this day!  After the war, the Russians re-established an even larger naval base in the city and a submarine base at Balaclava.  Severe travel restrictions excluded virtually all foreigners and most Soviet nationals.  Our group was the large foreign contingent in the region since the October revolution.  During our visit, the first NATO ships (British) ever to port at Sevastopol spent two days in the City.  I found it odd talking to British sailors inside of a Russian naval port.  I suspect they felt the same way and said as much.