Activity of the administrative bodies of the Livadia estate in development of the system of supply of fresh water in 1861–1909

Introduction. The Livadia estate, which by the end of the 19th century became the main of the Romanovs’ Crimean possessions, claimed to be on a par with Tsarskoye Selo and Peterhof. One of the main problems for gaining such a status was the issue of providing the palace complex with fresh water. Methods and materials. The historiography of the imperial residences of the Crimea is dominated by the works of art critics, architectural historians, and art historians, often leaving organizational, administrative, and economic issues in the shade. Synthesis and analysis of archival materials of institutions of the Ministry of the Imperial Court allow us to reveal the course of development of the system for supplying Livadia with fresh water as one of the problems in the history of this possession of the Romanov dynasty. Analysis. The problem of supplying drinking water was on the agenda almost immediately after the acquisition of the estate by the Department of Appanages in 1861. The initial calculation of using their own sources did not materialize, and until the beginning of the 20th century, this problem was solved by attracting sources belonging to other owners. At the same time, when interacting with the Tatar community of the village of Gaspra and the Ministry of Agriculture and State Property, contractual methods were used, and when the sources of the Oreanda estate were included in the water supply system of Livadia, administrative levers within the Court Department were also used. However, with exhaustion by the 1900s and opportunities for extensive development, the managers of the estate turned to the development of a project to improve the entire water supply system. Prepared by engineer I.K. Sikorsky, the plan was rejected for several years by the leaders of the specific department, and only thanks to the persistence of the head of the Livadia-Massandra Appanage administration, V.N. Kachalov, when the decision on the complete reconstruction of Livadia was approved in 1909, it was included in the list of works and the complete reconstruction of the water supply.