Watermelons during a siegeSourced
The siege dragged on.
Soldiers started stealing watermelons.
During the 1853 siege of Ak-Mechet in what is now Kazakhstan, the slow advance left some troops bored. Accounts describe soldiers cooling off in the moat while Kalmyks with the expedition took watermelons from gardens near the fortress.
Even a siege
had idle hours.
Summary / translation: Unbubly · CC BY-SA 4.0
Source and reuse details
Siege of Ak-Mechet · Wikimedia contributors
Adapted, summarized and translated from the source. Adapted text is also available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Reviewed: 2026-10-01