The beautiful mosque which had been quickly stripped of its lead, to be sold, of course, for the benefit of the Russian officials, was thus abandoned to the mutilations of time and of the population, and soon became a mere ruin. In 1833, the ignorance of a civil governor, Kasnatcheief, completed this afflicting work of destruction, which extended at the same time to the great baths that still remained untouched. A fortnight's work with the pickaxe and gunpowder razed to the ground the two admirable monuments with which the Genoese and the Turks had adorned the town. When I visited Theodosia in 1840, the great square was still obstructed with their precious materials, which the local administration was eager to dispose of at a low price to whoever would buy them.
Of all the splendid edifices of the Genoese colony two churches alone have escaped the destroyer; art owes their preservation to the Catholics and the Armenians. For a very long time those two foreign communities struggled against the indifference of the government, and strove to obtain its aid for the repair of their edifices; but their applications were all unsuccessful, and it was by great personal sacrifices that they succeeded in recent times in themselves effecting the restoration of their temples.
If we turn our attention from the interior of the town to its environs, we are still afflicted by the same spectacle of destruction. All the thriving fields and orchards that encompassed the town in the time of the Tatars have disappeared. Two Muscovite regiments annihilated in a single winter all trace of the rich cultivation that formerly clothed the hills.
There is a museum in Theodosia, but except some Genoese inscriptions, foremost among which is that of the famous tower of Clement VI., it contains no remains belonging to the ancient Milesian colony. All the antiquities it possesses come exclusively from Kertsch (Panticapea), and were brought to Theodosia at a period when that town was still the chief seat of the administration of the Crimea. Dr. Grapperon, a Frenchman, is the director of the museum. He never fails to mystify the antiquaries who pass through his town, by exhibiting to them a pretended female torso, found in the heart of the Crimean mountains; but the cunning old man knows very well that his chef-d'oeuvre is only a lusus naturae.
Notwithstanding all the depredations of the authorities, and the stupid ignorance of a governor, Caffa has not been entirely metamorphosed into a Russian town. Its chief edifices have been demolished, its walls razed, its Tatar population expelled, and solitude has succeeded to its former animation, yet the general appearance of the city, its various private buildings, and its streets paved with large flags, all bespeak a foreign origin and a foreign rule. Long may the town preserve this picturesque aspect, which reminds the traveller of that of the little Mediterranean seaports.