Highlights of the Crimea

The mountains of the Crimea protect the landscape from the cold northern winds thus preserving a sub-tropical Mediterranean climate on the south coast around Yalta with a rich diversity of flora and fauna. Since the fall of the House of Romanov Yalta has remained the preferred holiday destination on the Black Sea for both Russians and Ukrainians, as evidenced by Gorbachev’s dacha, numerous ‘sanatoriums’ and a few resort-style hotels.

Major landmarks include the cliffside Swallow’s Nest castle, symbol of the Crimea and Livadia Palace, summer residence of the last Russian Tsar. Erected in just seventeen months in Italian Renaissance style amidst magnificent gardens overlooking the sea, it was later site of the 1945 conference between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill.  Roosevelt stayed at Livadia Palace with the British delegation accommodated in the palace at Alupka of Count Vorontsov. Built in Tudor style like an English private residence with splendid terraces and gardens, it made Churchill feel quite at home! In 1980, Sir Hugh Casson, renowned artist and President of the Royal Academy (and whose paintings have graced our brochures) recorded in his journal that he visited Livadia Palace but saw no sign of the Tsar. The imperial apartments have now been re-opened for visitors – as in fact has the Crimea following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  The Tartars ruled the peninsula for over 300 years from the 14th century and a visit to the great palace at Bakhshisary, one-time capital of the Crimean Khanate, is a step away into Oriental and Ottoman splendour. View the Harem and the ‘Fountain of Tears’, commemorating a Polish princess abducted by the Khan which inspired the ballet by Zakharov and a poem by Pushkin.

The Crimea marked a crossroad in the life and works of numerous Russian composers, artists and writers including Tolstoy, Pushkin and Chekhov. The latter came here for his health and settled at the ‘White Dacha’, now a museum created by his sister Maria, where he wrote ‘Three Sisters’ and ‘The Cherry Orchard’.

The war in the Crimea allied Britain with France and Turkey against Russia in her attempt to create a threat to British sea routes and spheres of influence. The Allies defeated the Russians at the Battle of the Alma and besieged Sevastopol establishing a naval base at Balaclava. On 17 October the assault on Sevastopol commenced and on 25 October the Russian cavalry was halted by the 93rd Highlanders, described by The Times correspondent as “A thin red streak tipped with a line of steel”, and then driven back by the Heavy Brigade. An examination of the battlefield helps to explain the subsequent misdirected ‘Charge of the Light Brigade’ that inspired the remark of the French general who helped to cover their retreat: “C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre”.