Shabo, Odessa Oblast

Shabo (Ukrainian: Шабо, Romanian: Şaba, population 7,100) is a town of the Odessa Oblast, Ukraine, situated at the Dniester Liman, some 7 km downstream of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi.

The Tatar village was established ca. 1500, called Acha-abag "the lower vineyards" (attested 1788). The name was subsequently simplified to Shabag and finally to Shaba / Shabo. After the conquest of Bessarabia by the Russian Empire, the region suffered a population drain to the Ottoman Empire. Shabo in 1812 had been deserted by all but three or four families. Alexander I decided to re-populate the region, in 1822 inviting Swiss settlers of Vaud to cultivate the vineyards of Shabo. The descendants of these settlers inhabit Shabo to the present day, and Shabo wine remains famous for its quality.

Gallery

• Shabo Swiss Graveyard.jpg

  Swiss Graveyard in Shabo.

• 

  Frédéric-César de la Harpe, Swiss teacher of Alexander I.

References

• Charles Upson Clark, Bessarabia: Russia and Roumania on the Black Sea (1927), chapter 8.

See also

• Ukrainian wine

External links

• (French) Şaba - un avanpost européen sur le Nistre by Ioan Papa
• (Russian) Шабо
• (Ukrainian) Торговая марка «Шабо» ("Shabo" wine)