Kochak

Taras Shevchenko. Kochak. Stained paper and pencil (16.6 × 31.4 cm). [VIII 1851]. Taras Shevchenko National Museum, inv. g – 533.

Lower left – pencil inscription by hand Shevchenko: 40. Kochak.

Top right ink marked: Number 117 – 61.

Kochak or Kochak-Saga – bay of the Caspian Sea on the north coast of the Mangyshlak peninsula.

By order of the commander of the Orenburg Corps this place has been identified as a supply base expedition food products:

For food for the next few months your honor will send monthly camels consisting at your party from the place of coal development to the Kochak gulf, where it will be delivered by mail boats or "Kama" steamship and fetched the shore in a comfortable place where they will be kept in custody a special team that has to be directed from Novopetrovsk fort, composed of one officer, one non-commissioned officer, and 25 ordinary infantry" ["From the prescription of the Orenburg Corps commander to Lieutenant Antipov on the 28th March 1851 at number 309", Central State Historical Archive in Leningrad, fund 44, 1850, case 30, fol. 93 – 94].

As figures number 99 and 103, this pattern suggests that Shevchenko went from station at the well Tarla to food base in the gulf Kochak. During the journey he performed three figures numbered in series: 39, 40, 41. By number 42 again designated view the valley Tarla (see number 104).

On the beach – tents and two men figure. Images of similar tents see number 87, 101, 102.

Another image of the same bay see number 103.

Storage areas: collections of A. A. Kozachkovsky, V. P. Kakhovski, S. D. Brazol, V. Tarnowski's Chernihiv museum of ukrainian antiquities – № 296, Chernihiv Historical Museum, Gallery of pictures by T.H. Shevchenko (Kharkiv).

I. M. Verykivska

After publication: Taras Shevchenko Complete Works in 10 volumes. – Kyiv: ed. Academy of sciences of UkrSSR, 1964, Vol. 9, № 100 (image), p. 54 (note).