Malakhov Kurgan is a strategic height in the southeastern part of Sevastopol that was the decisive battleground of the Crimean War Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55). The hill was the cornerstone of the Russian defences, and its capture by French forces in September 1855 triggered the Russian evacuation and ended the siege. Today it is a memorial park containing bastions, earthworks, and monuments from both the Crimean War and World War II.
The hill is preserved as a museum and memorial complex. You can walk the original earthworks, inspect the Kornilovsky Bastion where Admiral Kornilov was mortally wounded, and see the spot where Admirals Kornilov and Nakhimov both fell. The park is dotted with plaques, monuments, and old cannon. It gives the best sense anywhere in the city of the scale and nature of the 19th-century defences.