The disturbing secrets of Snake Island. The forbidden place that Romanians saw was the new “Mount Athos” in the Black Sea

Until the middle of the 20th century, when Serpilor Island was still considered a territory of Romania, it had become a legendary place, which people were warned not to approach.

Snakes and scolopendras made it a less welcoming place for tourists, but the more than 90 years in which it belonged to Romania, until it was ceded to the Soviet Union after the Second World War, the Black Sea island sparked the fantasy of many amateurs of trips.

“Besides the numerous islands that make the Danube picturesque, Romania also has an island in high seas, located at a distance of 30 kilometers from the mouth of Sulina, Serpilor Island. This name is of recent date, caused by the invasion of snakes which resulted in its abandonment by the threatened inhabitants”. informs, in 1945, the Journal of Science and Travel.

The island, the site of an ancient temple

In Antiquity it had other names, the publicists pointed out: Leuke or Levki, the island of Achilles, Faena, meaning bright, shining, because of the appearance of the shores, the island of Achilles, of the happy, of the heroes, the deserted island. The island was also called Leuke (white in Greek), because it has a resemblance to the white limestone of Dobrogea.

A temple dedicated to the mythical hero Achilles would have existed on the Island of Serpents, according to some historians and archaeologists. The archaeological excavations carried out on the island were rare and did not have consistent results.

Written sources from Antiquity revealed that a temple dedicated to the god Apollo was built on the rocks of an island at the mouth of the Danube. Ancient historians claimed that the earthly remains of the heroes of the Iliad, Achilles and Patroclus, were brought here to be kept in a mausoleum, and the place was called the island of Leucos or Leuke.

Another legend informed that the Greek hero Achilles would have destroyed the Amazons on the island of Leuce. The sacred place from Antiquity also appeared in Romanian folklore under the name of the Church with nine altars. However, it remained a mystery how the vestiges of the mentioned ancient temple disappeared, if indeed the Island of Serpents had been the legendary island of Leuce.

Few archaeological remains from the IV-V centuries BC. BC were discovered here.

“In the Middle Ages the island was also found to have numerous godfathers. Some baptized it Selina, from where the name of the city of Sulina could have remained, Cacearia, from the Chazaro who ruled it, Roșia, with a Russian meaning, Rubra, after the color of the rocks; Fedonxi, as found on a 12th century map used by the Genoese and Venetians; Isle de la Foy, to the French of the 17th and 18th centuries”, informed the Journal of Sciences and Travels, in 1945.

The Greeks called the island Fidonisi, or Snake Island, during the time when it was under the occupation of the Ottoman Empire.

The island occupied by snakes

In the interwar years, Snake Island was a sea travel destination. Excursions started from Sulina, with small boats, and travelers covered the distance of about 35-40 kilometers to the island in about three hours.

The route crossed the yellow waters due to the silt near Sulina, then the green waters of the sea and finally the blue waters around the island.

“Close to Snake Island the sea is blue when the sky is clear. Landing on the island is a picturesque picture. It is dangerous. Ships anchor offshore because the island lies underwater and no vessel can approach it. We then travel to the island in lifeboats, which are quickly released into the sea and carry small groups of 10-15 people. At the “pier” we are greeted by all the inhabitants, eight in number, among whom I mention Stefan Petrov, the mayor of the island, Gh. Tabaricov, the foreman and the head of the lighthouse, whose name escapes me, who has been living on this small island for 28 years republic and birds and snakes”informed, in 1925, the newspaper Adevărul.

The island had the shape of Romania’s coat of arms and was perfectly distinguishable from the height of its lighthouse. It also had a small cemetery, where three soldiers who died during the war were buried after the German cruiser bombarded the island and destroyed its old lighthouse.

“In 1917, after the destruction of the old lighthouse, a Russian ship collided with the rocks during the night and sank so fast that the crew could not save their lives and perished in the waves. The remains of this ship can still be seen today. You cringe at the sight of his huge stern crushed by the rocks“, the Adevărul newspaper said in 1925.

The new lighthouse of the island had been equipped with prismatic mirrors of several tons, placed on balls, which could be handled very easily by sailors. Snake Island was cut off from civilization, instead, the seven or eight locals made sure that its lighthouse, rebuilt after the war, worked all the time, to protect ships from shipwrecks.

“On foggy nights, when the lighthouse cannot be seen, they fire dynamite every ten minutes. A guard fired a burst of dynamite in front of us, which produced a deafening boom like a cannon shot“, the Adevărul newspaper pointed out.

Around the lighthouse, there was only one house, used to shelter its few occupants. The white rocks of the island gave the island a spectacular appearance.

“The waves of the sea crash furiously against the rocks and grind them down day by day. Some engineers are of the opinion that in two thousand years the Snake Island will disappear, being eaten by the waves, but instead the Danube Delta will increase a lot, plugging a new portion of the Black Sea“, informed the newspaper Adevărul, in 1925.

Snakes and scolopendras kept the tourists away

In the following decades, the island remained an almost deserted place, occupied by a few fishermen and soldiers who took care of the lighthouse, but mostly by countless snakes and seagulls.

“The snakes that have invaded the island are black, — coluber hydrus (no water snakes), — no more than two meters long, with a small head and a white belly. Foul at sight, they run away from humans and do not attack them unless their lives are threatened; the bite has a weaker effect than that of a bee sting. They feed on fish or seagull eggs. Today they also disappeared, destroyed by the hedgehogs that were brought to the island for this purpose”informed the newspaper Sciințelor si Calătorilor, in 1945.

Some historians claimed that the snakes were eradicated from the island in the second part of the 20th century, when Soviet troops were stationed here.

The island in the Black Sea consists of hard and siliceous sandstones and has no fresh water springs. It is poor in vegetation and fauna, and among the animals that populated it was the weasel or the house snake. The seagulls that laid their eggs here populated it in such large numbers in the past that it was also called the White Island.

“The most dangerous animal on the island is Scolopendre cingulata, an insect with many legs, which bites man, causing dangerous wounds“, informs the Journal of Sciences and Travels.

The Romanians wanted to turn it into a new “Mount Athos”

In the 1940s, a few Romanians inhabited the island, on which there was an old lighthouse from 1847. A piece of its land was cultivated with rye, and a few goats and sheep grazed on its plateau.

The island was a reconnaissance point for ships coming from the south towards Sulina and Odessa.

At the end of the 1930s, the Bishoprics of Balti, Lower Danube and Tomis proposed the establishment of a hermitage on the island.

“A soul of poetry enlightened the thoughts of a few chosen sailors and priests, who decided to build a monastery on Snake Island. In the solitude between the sky and the waters, the holy spiers would rise higher than the lighthouse, which itself would become a bell, ringing over the stormy waves the voice of salvation and flickeringly watching over the fate of the poor sailors and fishermen who in dark nights seek their port . It is almost surprising how bitterly for centuries, the barren island had remained only a shelter for snakes, when in legendary antiquity the place was heralded by its altars… pagans”Universul newspaper reported in 1937.

In the following years, some monks settled here, along with the border guards from the island.

“The monks without race on the island, sailors or watchmen, who in the old days only felt connected to the rest of the world by the flashes of the Sulina lighthouse, today have a radio gifted by public subscription on the initiative of the Romanian Naval League, and now behind the lighthouse, on oil days, now electric, it was equipped with a radiogoniometric transmitting station, which makes the lighthouse visible even with… the ears”informed the Journal of Sciences and Travels.

The climate on Snake Island was considered good, and over time, during the years when it belonged to Romania, it was proposed to use it as a place of deportation for political prisoners, as a place of worship after the construction of a nunnery here, which would it also includes a sanatorium or as a place of entertainment, by building a casino, the authors of the 1945 article pointed out.

“None of them were realized, the island remaining the same navigation sentinel post, protecting those who travel on the Black Sea waters stirred by currents and often shrouded in fog from the dangers of the Danube banks. And with the advance of the bank from Sulina, it is not surprising that the island of Serpents without snakes will merge with the land, not be an island anymore”, stated the Newspaper of Sciences and Travels, from 1945.

Snake Island, the strategic territory in the Black Sea

Serpilor Island, a strategic territory in the Black Sea, located offshore, about 45 kilometers from the coasts of Romania and Ukraine, has a turbulent history. For over three centuries it was the territory of the Ottoman Empire, then, from the beginning of the 19th century, it was occupied by the Tsarist Empire.

From 1858 until the middle of the 20th century, the 17-hectare island belonged to Romania. A lighthouse and a sailor’s house for the few locals on the island were erected here, but the rocky island, with no sources of drinking water, could not be permanently inhabited.

After the Second World War, although the Paris Peace Treaty between Romania and the Allied and Associated Powers of 1947 left Serpilor Island to Romania, a year later the island was ceded to the Soviet Union by the Petru Groza Government.

The head of the first communist government signed, in Moscow, a protocol regarding the state border line between Romania and the USSR, which included Snake Island. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Island became part of the Chilia District of the Odessa Region of Ukraine.

The maritime area, rich in natural resources (hydrocarbons) around it, was the object of long negotiations between Romania and Ukraine, continued with a trial opened in 2004, by Romania, at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

The object of the dispute was the delimitation of the maritime spaces of the two parties – continental shelf and exclusive economic zones – from the north-western part of the Black Sea, the disputed area being approx. 12,200 square kilometers.

By the 2009 decision of the Hague Court, Romania was entitled to a maritime territory of about 9,700 square kilometers. Snake Island was not discussed in the process, because in the political treaty between Romania and Ukraine from 1997 there was a provision that established the fact that Snake Island belonged to Ukraine.

Since 2022, Snake Island has been the site of several Russian military operations amid the Ukraine War.