Fort Raim. View from the shipyard on the Syr Darya
Taras Shevchenko. Fort Raim. View from the shipyard on the Syr Darya. Watercolour (20,5 × 29,8 cm). [Raim]. [19.VI – 25.VII] 1848. Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. g – 264.
In the picture on board the boat ink signature and date: Shevchenko, 1848.
Date within the year specified according to time spent expedition in Raim according Maksheev: "June 19 in the morning, leaving the trucks, I went forward in Raim… " [A. Maksheev, Traveling on the Kyrgyz steppes and Turkestan, St. Petersburg, 1896, p. 43] and Butakov: "July 25. At 7 pm we leave Raim pier, having served farewell prayer, with schooners Constantine and Nicholas raised my pennant-braid on the first" ["Day notes of navigation A.I. Butakov on the Aral Sea in 1848 – 1849 years", Tashkent, 1953, p. 13].
About fort Raim Shevchenko says in the story "Gemini".
This fort mentions Maksheev:
"Raim fort was built in the form of an irregular polygon, on the cape of highland coast Syr Darya River, which rises steeply to 17 fathoms spills over the river, which form the east and west of the cape lakes Raim and Jalan Gach, and from the south – flow between them, the breadth of more than half a mile and depth more than 1 fathom" [A. Maksheev, Traveling on the Kyrgyz steppes and Turkestan, St. Petersburg, 1896, p. 44].
According to the literature, watercolor was donated by G.V. Obruchev to Russian Museum in St. Petersburg with the inscription: "Fort Raim. View from the shipyard on the Syr Darya".
Other landscapes of fort Raim see number 10, 12, 148.
A copy of this watercolor (made perhaps by O. M. Butakova) is in an Obruchev's album [Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. g – 790].
Mentioned in the literature under the names: "Raim fortress from the sea" ["Product painting art Shevchenko, exhibited in galleries", Kharkiv, 1934, p. 29], "Aral Sea" [A. Novitsky, Shevchenko, K., 1930, Tab. XIX].
Storage areas: property Obruchev, State Russian Museum, Leningrad, Institute of Taras Shevchenko, Kharkiv – Kyiv, Gallery of pictures Shevchenko, Kharkiv.
K. V. Chumak
After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1962, vol. 8, № 9 (image), p. 8 – 9 (notes).