which lasted for 250 days before it fell in July 1942. The city was intended to be renamed to "Theodorichshafen" in case of a German victory against the Soviet Union, and like the rest of the Crimea was designated for future colonization by the Third Reich. It was liberated by the Red Army on May 9, 1944 and was awarded with the Hero City title a year later.
In 1957, the town of Balaklava was incorporated into Sevastopol.
During the Soviet era, Sevastopol, became a so-called "closed city". This meant that any non-residents had to apply to the authorities for a temporary permit to visit the city. It was directly subordinate to the central Russian SFSR authorities rather than the local oblast and later (after 1978) to the Ukrainian SSR administration.
On December 11, 1992, the President of Ukraine called the attempt of "the Russian deputies to charge the Russian parliament with a task to define the status of Sevastopol as an imperial disease". On December 17, 1992, the office of the Ukrainian presidential representative in Crimea was created, which caused a wave of protests a month later. Among the protesters who organised the unsanctioned rally were the Sevastopol branches of the National Salvation Front, the Russian Popular Assembly, and the All-Crimean Movement of the Voters for the Republic of Crimea. The protest was held in Sevastopol on January 10 at the Nakhimov Square.
On July 10, 1993, the Russian parliament passed a resolution declaring Sevastopol to be "a federal Russian city". At the time, many supporters of the president, Boris Yeltsin, had ceased taking part in the Parliament's work.
On April 14, 1993, the Presidium of the Crimean Parliament called for the creation of the presidential post of the Crimean Republic. A week later, the Russian deputy, Valentin Agafonov, stated that Russia is ready to supervise the referendum on Crimean independence and include the republic as a separate entity in the CIS. On July 28, 1993,
