Understand
Izmail is the largest Ukrainian port on the Danube Delta. As such, it is a center of the food processing industry and a popular regional tourist destination. It is also a base of the Ukrainian Navy and the Ukrainian Sea Guard units operating in Danube. The World Wildlife Fund's Isles of Izmail Regional Landscape Park is located nearby.
The current estimated population is around 85,000, with ethnic Russians forming about 42.7% of that total, 38% being Ukrainians, 10% Bessarabian Bulgarians, and 4.3% Moldovans.
History
The fortress of Izmail was built by Genoese merchants in the 12th century. The town was first mentioned under the the name Ismailiye, derived from name of an Ottoman Empire Grand Vizier Izmail. From the end of the 14th century, Izmail was under the rule of Moldavia, but it was later reconquered by the Ottomans, and became a protectorate until Russian general Nicholas Repnin took the fortress in 1770, it was heavily refortified, so as never to be captured again. The Sultan boasted that the fortress was impregnable, but during the Russo-Turkish War of 1787-1792 the Russian Army commander Alexander Suvorov successfully stormed it, an achievement hailed in the country's first national anthem, "Let the thunder of victory sound!". After the assault nearly every Muslim man, woman, and child in the city had been killed in the three days of uncontrolled massacre, 40,000 Turks dead, a few hundred taken into captivity.
At the end of the war, Izmail was returned to the Ottoman Empire, only to be returned to Russia along with the rest of Bessarabia in the 1812 Treaty of Bucharest. But Russia was then forced to secede to Moldavia, After Russia lost the Crimean War. During World War II, it was again occupied by the Soviet Red Army and included in the Ukrainian SSR. Since 1991, Izmail has been part of independent Ukraine.