Kili, Mehmed Sipahi Câmii

Pershotravneve (Hasan Sipahi) Village is located 25 km west of Kilia, between Kilia and Ismail. It is understood from a request in the Ottoman archives dated 1085 (1674) written by Ali alAsiri, the Qadi of Kilia, for the appointment of an imam and a preacher to the mosque, that Mehmed Sipahi was the founder of the work. With the withdrawal of the Ottomans from the Danube basin, Pershotravneve Village, like the surrounding villages, was abandoned by the Turks. The new Ukrainian inhabitants of Karalar Village asked Dimitrie, the deputy bishop of Bender and Akkerman, for permission to convert the old mosque in the village into a church, and after the permission granted on February 20, 1813, the Mehmed Sipahi Mosque was converted into an Orthodox church affiliated to the Russian patriarchate. The church in the village today must have been built on the site of the old mosque, as in other examples in Kilia.