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The Second Page - Around Crimea

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September 2005

My first visitor from the USA came to see me in September. I had to work, so we couldn't spend the entire two-week visit exploring, but we did take two long weekends to see some of the biggest attractions in Crimea. In one fast-paced Saturday we went all along the southern Yalta coast, which is the tourist destination in Crimea. We couldn't see everything, but we made a good go at it. (The following day, Sunday, we were exhausted and slept till noon.) The next weekend we went to Sudak, famous for its ancient Genoese fortress, and Bakchiserai, a town I'd heard a lot about from other volunteers.

This was probably the most "touristy" I've ever been in my life, going from site to site and fitting as much in as we possibly could. It was a lot of fun. These pictures are a small selection...

Foros    Foros was our first stop; we got there quite early in the morning, before the general crowd of tourists. The main attraction in Foros is a church, the Church of the Ascension of the Christ (according to my guidebook; the brochure at the church itself translates the name as the Church of Jesus Christ's Resurrection). The church was built in 1892, by order of Tsar Alexander III. As he and his family were returning from Crimea, their train crashed. By some miracle, the tsar's carriage remained on tracks and he and his family were saved. The church is built on the cliff, high above the sea.

Our bus dropped us off on the main. We took a taxi up the long, twisting road to the church. Our taxi driver was thrilled to have Americans in his car, and just about talked our ears off. When we reached the top, he got out and walked around with us, explaining the history of the place, pointing out the highlights of the view, and trying to get us to spend our entire day in Foros. I pretended to understand far more than I did. One story I did get was of the tourist who got too close to the edge of the cliff. A strong wind picked her up and carried her off to her death.

We decided to walk down the hill instead of going down with the taxi driver; it looked like a pretty walk, with good photo opportunities. Both the pictures to the left were taken on the walk down. The top picture shows the church, perched on its rocky ledge. The bottom picture looks down to the sea, where a rain storm made beautiful patterns on the water. I never thought this shot would turn out as well as it did.

Luckily, our friendly taxi driver rescued us before the rain got us truly drenched. He took us back to the bottom of the hill and helped us flag down the bus that dropped us off in Alupka....

Alupka    Alupka is the site of the Vorontsov palace (better known as the Alupka palace), which is "created in the Tudor style, combining the romanticism of the medieval knightly palace and the luxury of an English private residence." (According to my fabulously awful Crimean guidebook. I love it.) Our bus dropped us off on the main road, once again far from anyplace of interest. I asked a random man which way to walk, and he--astounded that any bus had dropped us there--flagged down a car and bundled us into the back. They drove us right to the gates. (Again, thrilled to have Americans onboard.)

OK, now I'm going to be honest. (This will surely reveal my lack of culture.) I'm not particularly interested in seeing grand houses. I mean, they're fun to wander quickly through, admiring the architecture, but I could do without all the other tourists that keep me from wandering as fast as I'd like to. But the Alupka palace has some beautiful woodwork. For all my woodworking friends out there...well, you'd be interested.

For me, though, the highlights were the stone lions outside. There are four of them (my favorite pictured), each different, looking out over the grounds and the sea. We could have spent all day wandering through the park (great place for a picnic), but instead we hurried on to....

Ai-Petri    Ai-Petri is the name of the mountain that overlooks the Yalta coast. My trusty guidebook says of Ai-Petri, "Majestic and mysterious Ai-Petri Mountain towers above the palaces and parks (1,234 meters). It's teeth are like a ruined palace. The best way to ascend it is a rope way." Another short bus ride took us to the base of the mountain, where the "rope way" takes you quickly up the mountain--it a thrilling ride, not least for those afraid of heights.

From the top, the view is fabulous--and not just the view down the mountain. It looked almost like a county fair. All the roads in Crimean tourist spots are lined with booths selling souvenirs, and Ai-Petri was no exception. There were also booths renting costumes, and "wild" animals ready to pose for pictures. People here enjoy dressing up in costumes and posing for pictures, much like the "Old West" photo booths I remember seeing as a kid. In other cities I've seen people walking around with birds, lizards, monkeys, and other unusual animals. On Ai-Petri, there were young bears and a wild cat.

Another volunteer had told us that Ai-Petri was a great place to have lunch. She was wonderfully right: the main "county fair" aisle was lined with small restaurants. The food was all Crimean Tatar, which I adore. (It has a lot more spice than Ukrainian food, and unfortunately I don't get much of it in my town.) Men lined the streets, cooking the food in the open for tourists to smell and see. As you walk by, the cooks call to you, "inviting" you to their restaurant. It all looked fabulous. We chose one restaurant and went in. I ordered pretty much one of everything on the menu--options are limited, so that's not as extravagant as it sounds. Lagman (a noodle soup), shashlik (shish kabobs), lavash (a delicious flatbread), and a steamed dumpling dish whose name I can't remember. The wine man came by and we sampled several of the homemade wines, then bought a half liter to have with our lunch.

Full and slightly sleepy, we headed back down the mountain. We went to a few other places that day, but for me Ai-Petri (and lunch) was the highlight.

Sudak    One of my current favorite passages from my guidebook: "Frankly speaking, without the Genoese fortress modern Sudak would be not interesting at all in terms of history--very few things left from its magnificence in the past. But the fortress could be a great compensation for the non-availability of the other historical monuments."

I'm not sure why, but I was a bit disappointed by the fortress. Of course there were interesting bits, but really it felt too...far removed from its historical presence. (Maybe it was all the booths, hiding around random corners, renting chain mail and court dresses to the picture-obsessed tourists.) My favorite part was the overturned truck.

Smack-dab in the middle of the fortress was a truck that had somehow tipped over. When we got there the back was empty, but I can only guess that at some point the back of the truck had been overloaded with dirt and rocks. Eventually, they managed to get the truck back on its tires, but the back was seriously torqued and would not sit flat.

(It also seems like something underneath must have twisted, too. I wonder if the truck was drivable?)

Bakchiserai    Bakchiserai is now my favorite town in Crimea. (Possibly excepting Sevastopol, but that's a city, not a town.) There are three main places of interest here, and I'll just mention them in the order we visited them.

First is the Sviato-Uspenskiy Monastery and church. It is built into the side of a cliff, carved out of the rock during the 8th century (according to guidebook). It has a feeling of age and holiness. Though it's a tourist attraction, it feels more like a working church than most. (And not just because there was a service in progress when we were there.) I felt uncomfortable walking around. We didn't stay in the church too long, but moved on to Chufut Kale, the Cave City.

Chufut Kale, AKA Cave City, is an ancient fortress settlement on a plateau. In addition to ruins of buildings, there are many caves carved into the rock. It seems to have had many lives over the centuries; it was probably founded sometime in the 9th century as a military-administrative center for the Byzantine empire. It thrived for a bit, was deserted, then came back to prominence when the Golden Horde came to power in Crimea, and then after that as part of the Crimean khanate.

This I will quote, because it's interesting: "When the khan administration was moved to the new capital--Bakhchisaray--the fortress was left to Karaites' care. These changes were reflected in its name. Since the second half of the 17th century, the toponym Chufut Kale (Jewish fortress) has been established in current use and in official documents to denote the enclave with Karaite population that professed religion close to Judaic." (However, crosses on the walls of some caves have lead researchers to believe there was once a Christian monastery on the plateau.)

When Crimea became part of Russia, the population left and the place eventually became a tourist destination.

(All the above information about Chufut Kale comes from a short book I picked up at the site itself, Town-Fortress Chufut Kale, by A.V. Bely.)

Cave City is a bit of a hike from the monastery (especially when, like me, you have stupidly worn flip-flops instead of hiking shoes), but well worth it. It's a fabulous place. By some unexpected late-season luck, my friends and I managed to explore the place mostly unbothered by other tourists. When we reached an area, a previous group was just leaving; as we left, another bunch was arriving. It was wonderful to feel so alone in the place.

Both these pictures are from Cave City. The first is a view down from the plateau. This picture doesn't give a good idea of what the canyon looks like. It's truly majestic.

The second picture is looking down on the entrance to Chufut Kale--or one of them. There is another entrance to the east, but this is the one we came in.

We spent at least 2 hours wandering around, before heading back down, past the monastery, and to the Kahn's Palace, the third attraction in Bakchiserai. We were, however, pretty tired and not interested in paying the entrance fee for the Kahn's Palace. Instead, we walked around the grounds and then headed home.