Founded in the
5th century, Kiev is the mother city of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. All three
descended from
Kievan Rus, the Slavic super-state that existed from the 9th to the 11th centuries.
Since then, Kiev has survived Mongol invasions, devastating fires, communist
urban planning and the massive destruction of WWII. 
The
Old Town is concentrated around the north-eastern end of vulitsya Volodymyrska
and contains a number of Kiev's historic landmarks. The main attraction is
the 11th century St Sophia Cathedral, the city's oldest standing church, which
contains some of the country's greatest mosaics and frescoes. A few blocks
south of the cathedral is Kiev's main commercial promenade, the Khreshchatyk,
a bustling thoroughfare lined with shops. At the southern end of Khreshchatyk,
the aisles at the Bessarabsky Market are filled with fruit and vegetable vendors.
Old Town is within walking distance of central Kiev.
Andriyivsky
vzviz, Kiev's most charming street, winds its way north from Old Town to the
base of the Podil district, the historic merchants' quarter and river port.
Andriyivsky is lined with galleries, shops, restaurants and cafes.
The heart of Podil is the Kontraktova ploshcha, a park-like square named for the large, white arcaded Kontraktova Dim (House of Contracts) occupying the centre. Dating from 1817, the building is now filled with restaurants, galleries and businesses.
A few blocks
to the north-west is the chilling but fascinating Chernobyl Museum, where
exhibits document the worst nuclear disaster in history - bringing home the
fact that it happened only 100km (62mi) to the north. 
A few blocks west is the oldest standing structure in Podil, the 1631 Church of Mykola Prytysko. Its whitewashed, green-roofed exterior is a lovely example of early Ukrainian Baroque architecture.
South of Old
Town along the river is the Pechersk district, the historic ecclesiastical
centre and site of the Caves Monastery, founded in 1051. 
Spread
across wooded slopes above the Dnipro a few kilometres south of the city centre,
the monastery is a collection of gold-domed churches, underground labyrinths
lined with mummified monks, and elegant monastic buildings turned into museums,
one of which is packed with Scythian
gold. The Dormition Cathedral, part of the monastery complex, dates from the
late 11th century. Despite being partially destroyed by the Red Army during
WWII, it's one of the country's greatest Baroque religious buildings.
To the north
of the cathedral is the Historical Treasures Museum, devoted mainly to ar
tefacts
and precious stones and metals from Ukraine. The highlight is the display
of Scythian goldwork from the 4th century BC. There's also a 12th century
model of Kiev and exhibits of richly ornamented goblets, crosses, chalices
and icons by Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian masters. City buses
connect the Pechersk district with downtown Kiev.
The Folk Architecture Museum is12km (7mi) south of thecity centre but well worth the trip. Spread out over scenic rolling hills dotted with groves of trees are a large number of 17th to 20th century wooden cottages, churches, farmsteads and windmills, many with beautiful gardens and preserved interior furnishings. The museum is divided into seven small villages representing regional traditions, and there are some good restaurants, a gift shop and special events. You can make the trip from downtown Kiev by city bus.
Perched on the
southern coast of Crimea, Yalta passed through many hands over the centuries
until Russia took control in the late 18th century. 
The city 
became
the Black Sea's classiest resort when Tsar Alexander II made nearby Livadia
his summer residence. Before the Russian Revolution the coast was peppered
with aristocratic estates, and though many of the palaces were briefly workers'
sanitoria after the revolution, most reverted to dachas for the
party elite.
The city centre stretches back from the eastern end of Yalta Bay, straddling
the Bystra River.
Everyone gravitates to the naberezhnaya Lenina, a vehicle-free waterfront
promenade with jetties, palms, pebble beaches, snack bars and art markets.
Some
of Yalta's best beaches lie along Yalta Bay west of the mouth of the Bystra.
Half way down the bay 
and
just back from the naberezhna is a chair lift that deposits riders at Darsan,
a temple-like lookout on the hill above the bay.
Just north-west of the lift is the Alexandr Nevsky Cathedral, a beautifully
composed piece of neo-Byzantine architecture built at the turn of the century.
Fans of Anton Chekhov will want to visit the Chekhov House-Museum, where the
great Russian playwright spent the last five years of his life. The house
features numerous editions of Chekhov's works, memorabilia like his pens and
medical kit, and a garden.
Odessa is a
curious mix of enticing seaside holiday retreat and polluted industrial port.
Long the shipping centre of the Black Sea region and the major urban centre
of southern Ukraine, the city is famous for its role in the 1905
revolution, when the mutinous battleship Potemkin Tavrichesky supported rebellious
workers.
Today it's best known for its excellent collection of museums.
The city centre is a few hundred metres south-west of the waterfront; it's
filled with beautiful low-rise buildings and tree-lined streets, and is home
to the elaborate and famous Opera & Ballet Theatre. Dating from the 1880s,
the theatre was designed by Viennese architects who gave it a Baroque cast
with a Renaissance twist. Nearby is the Pasazh, a lavishly ornate shopping
mall built in the late 19th century, boasting rows of Baroque sculptures.
The city centre is also the locale of Odessa's famous museums. One of the
most interesting is the Archaeology Museum. Dating from 1875, it contains
an excellent collection of artefacts from early Black Sea civilisations, including
a tempting display of jewellery and coins.
Across the road is the Museum of Maritime History, covering the history of
shipbuilding and navigation with lots of models and naval paraphernalia.
Nearby is the Literature Museum, where you can steep yourself in the lives
of Ukrainian masters like Shevchenko and Franko and Russian authors such as
Chekov, Pushkin, Tolstoy and Gorky. 
Don't miss one of Odessa's most famous sights - the massive Potemkin Steps,
immortalised in the 1925 Eisenstein film Battleship Potemkin.
The sandstone on which Odessa stands is riddled with about 1000km (620mi) of tunnels, known as the katakomby (catacombs). Quarried out for building in the 19th century, they have since been used by smugglers, revolutionaries and WWII partisans. In Nerubayske village on the north-western edge of Odessa, a network of tunnels that sheltered partisans in WWII has been turned into the Museum of Partisan Glory, where visitors are given guided tours (in Russian or Ukrainian) of relics of the partisan occupation. The catacombs are accessible by city bus.
Everybody has
it's favourite place and to visit them is always joy. One of such places for
us is the fortress in Sudak. You show not only love to such places, but also
jealousy. 
You
want everybody to see them, draw near these walls, made of rough grey limestone,
enter the gates, protected with two powerful towers, take at a glance the
desert slope, hiding under the ground the ruins of once flourishing trade
and handicraft town up to now, rise to Consul's Castle and then along the
steep path - higher to the top of Krepostnaya mountain, to the solitary Dozornaya
tower, which stands, where the wind blows.
The
castle leaves unforgettable impression - the traditional citadel, the fortress
in fortress. The inner yard is gloomy, loop-holes are made in such a way,
that anybody can be caught into fire, who dares to draw near, the remainders
of bridges, cogged wall from the castle to Georgievskaya tower and stone ground,
wide open into the seaside, protected with the wall... 
The firmness and despair - that is the image of citadel, which had been a refuge to a handful of people, who preferred death to captivity and slavery.
The
ancient chronicler melancholically and simply whote about local tower in 1312:
so, 1100 years elapsed from the time of it's erection till present. Any fussiness
on that background seemed to be stupid and indecent.
Surozh, Soldadiya, Soldaya, Sugdeya, Sugdak, Sudak are different names of one and the same - the town-fortress. Everybody can hardly believe now, that there was time, when the Black Sea itself was named Surozhskoye Sea, that the Alans, the Khazars, the Polovtsy, the Greeks, the Russians, the Italians, the Tatars and the Turks were fighting to death for the possession of this town and port.
Thetown,
having been "a mixture of all people and all beliefs", supplied merchants
with the world (Marko Polo's trade company was situated in Soldadiya), warriors
( tales about the heroes of Surozh are known in Russian epos), farmers (were
famous for excellent Surozh wines), builders, travellers and even saints.The
reflection of this flourishing was so strong, that after the joining the Crimea
to Russia in the 18 century they were intend
ed
to transfer the capital of Taurida. Soon they had forgotten about it, the
stones of ancient buildings were taken away for the building of barracks for
soldiers. The country fell into decay. Foreign trade came to an end.
There is a necessity to return to some places again and again, to recollect stories of 1500 antiquity, to define our attitude to them, to read and reread decodes of Latininscriptions on that slabs, cut from sandstone and decorated with Genoese coat of arms, to admire ponderous grace of towers, to marvel at bravity and skill of people, who erected them for centuries near the very edge of the precipice, to regret about death of paintings, made with tempera (at present).
SEVASTOPOL
It is the main moorage, a peculiar town emblem and architectural monument.
It was built together with the first buildings in Sevastopol. For the first
time it was an original boating moorage but in 1787 by Ekaterina the Second's
arrival a wide stone staircase and pier were built. In honour of the empress'
arrival it had been called Ekaterinskaya. But that name did not live long
as the name of the Third International (the name of the pier before the 
War).
And now the pier is called Count Pier. It is connected with the name, and
to be more exact, with the title of count Voynovich who was in command of
the Black Sea Fleet in the forties last century. The pier 
acquired
its present appearance only in 1846. There were four marble statues (only
two were preserved) in recesses of the portico and two marble lions in front
of the staircase; Italian architect Ferdinando Pellichio was their designer.
Count Pier has survived many historic events which a lot of memorial boards
talk about. One of them on the pier's wall reminds: "Conducting the fight
with its enemy the cruiser "The Red Ukraine" was lost here in 12 November,
1941". The soldiers of the second guards army forcing the Northern Bay disembarked
on the pier in 9 May, 1944.
Above Foros,
on the lone sheer Red rock, an elegant Church of Christ Resurrection is visible.
The temple was built in 1892, according to the design of
architect Academician N.M.Chagin. Mosaic works were made by a well-known workshop
of Italian Antonio Salviatti, and artists K.E.Makovsky, A.I.Korzukhin and
others painted the interior.
There exist several legends about the church origin. It had been already erected by the former owner of the Foros estate, by merchant Kuznetzov in memory of emperor Alexander III and his family's rescuing during the crash of the train, in which the tzar was returning to Petersburg. In 1924 the churchwas closed, the crosses were throwm down, the murals were painted over, the temple prior was sent to Siberia. The restaurant was open in the temple, then the mismanaged storehouse was situated here, and after the fire in the storehouse, the church was neglected at all. A few years ago restoration works.
A
tour of the cavern towns of Crimea offers an incredible glimpse into an era
richly filled with historical events. Cavern towns are surprising and original
monuments of medieval Crimean history and archaeology.
"Medieval cave towns" is a common name for monasteries, well-fortified
castles and towns.
They are found on the mesas of the inner ridge of the Crimean Mountains in
unique natural surroundings which in a small area concentrate numerous natural
wonders of mountains, woods gorges, and dizzy precipices.
In
ancient times, it was dangerous to live in fertile and convenient valleys
since the Crimean peninsula suffered from the constant raids of nomadic tribes.
Cavern towns are part of a defense structure enclosed with powerful fortification
walls with towers, caves, impregnable casemates, and natural obstacles such
as abrupt forbidding cliffs.
The cavern towns were built in the 6th-10th centuries by the multiethnic populations
which lived there.
Crimean cavern
towns have been divided by researchers into three groups:
The first comprises towns of considerable area: Eski-Kermen, Mangoop, Chufut-Kale, and Kyz-Kermen.
The second group
includes well fortified fortresses-castles which occupy small areas: Tepe-Kermen,
Bakla, Siuyren Fortress, Kalamita, Kyz-Kule and others. The
third group consist of Christian monasteries hewn into sheer cliff faces:
The Dormition Monastery, Chilter, Shuldan, Inkerman, Kachi-Kalyon, to name
a few..
The cavern town "Eski-Kermen" was established in 6th century A.D.
It was a firstrate
fortress for its time. Eski-Kermen combined the exceptional relief of the
surroundings with fortifications built by human hands.
One can see the ruins of this powerful fortifications walls, towers, and cavern
casemates
connected with each other by tunnels and staircases. Loop-holes arestill
visible 30 meters high from which arrows and rocks were hurled at theenemy.
Casemates
inside the cliffs in Eski-Kermen. |
A
narrow pass between rocks was a part of the defense structure
in the cavern town Eski-Kermen. |
Eski-Kermen
was not only a fortress, but also a
major center of trade, religion and commerce.
Agriculture, however, was the basis of its economy.
Fertile valleys
were used to cultivate vines, vegetables and fruit.
|
The ancient trade way along the Eski-Kermen's walls. |
Tracks of ancient
vehicles at the main street. Eski-Kermen. |
Its powerful
defense system, well developed economy for the time and advantageous position
made Eski-Kermen an important political and administrative center in South-Western
Crimea. It retained its significance until the late 8th century, when an insurrection
of the local populations in the mountains of the Crimea against the domination
of the Khazars drastically changed the fate of the town. The Khazars suppressed
the uprising and having no need for fortresses, they ruined the defense structures
of Eski-Kermen.
The
town continued to exist for another 500 years,
but was finally laid to waste in 1299 by the hordes of Emir
Nogai.
Its population was almost entirely annihilated. The
town never returned to life.
Monasteries.
These
had no special fortification structures. The caves contained monkscells,
churches, sacristies, burial vaultsand
other cult and husbandry premises.
The history of cavern monasteries is very interesting. They appeared at the
turn of 9th
century and their formation was to agreat
extent, an outward manifestation of the political struggle between Byzantine
secular powers and monasteries which had accumulated enormous property.
By accusing and
then condemning the monks as idol andimage worshipers, the big monasteries
were abolished, their property and lands passed to the state, and monks were
forced to marry or join the army.
These drastic measures provoked the resentment of the monks
and they escaped to remote corners of the empire or went abroad.
Many of the
fugitive monks gathered in the Crimea. It was they who founded monasteries
in the sheer cliffs along the rivers.
Cavern towns excite the interest of visitors and leave unforgettable impressions
because of the exotic location and appearance.
The
Crimea is blessed with some of the most awe inspiring caverns in the world.
For thousands of years nature has been at work slowly creating this magical
underworld. There are about 850 caverns already explored, and each year 10
or more are discovered.
Four caves presently are open 
for
public tours, and have been designed to offer an incredible glimpse into this
beautiful underground world.
Cement steps assure safety, and lighting is spaced throughout to enhance the
magical array of colors and formations nature has so cleverly hidden below
the earth for ages. Your guide will point out images that when viewed, will
seem that nature has created below earth, what has been created above. Chatir-Dag
Mountain is home for two caverns open to the public.
They
are Marble Cave and Red Cave. The Onix cavern explorers club has taken responsibility
for preserving this natural wonder, and have done a wonderful job. The club
is very careful to ensure the caverns are not damaged and remain in their
natural state for the future.
You may be very fulfilled with the public tour, as they are very rewarding
in beauty and wonder. We offer the private cavern exploration for the extreme
adventurous who want to experience all the sights available on Chatir-Dag.
Very
near the public cavern on Chatir Dag, inexpensive cabins are available for
rent, and for the adventurous, one can explore caverns that are not normally
explored with a typical tour package. These caverns remain in their natural
state, as they have since their creation by nature, and are not designed for
a regular tour. An experienced guide is mandatory for exploring these caverns.
TROLLEYBUS
At
86 km (just under 54 miles) the route between Simferopol and Yalta is the
longest trolleybus line in the world. Built in the fifties as
an 
alternative
to extending the railway over the mountains to the seaside towns, its continuing
popularity proves just how successful a pollution-free, low cost transport
system can be. It's not the fastest way to do the journey - it takes 2 hours
- but for the many who use it that's not the point.
The
route takes you through the Yaila mountains
across the Angarskiy Pass, reaching 752m (nearly 2,5
00
feet) at its highest point, and then drops down to 
Alushta
on the coast. For the 41 km from Alushta to Yalta, the road snakes along above
the sea, providing breathtaking views. The last thing you want to do is rush
this route.
It also happens to be the cheapest way to do the journey - $1,5 is not bad for a 54 mile trip.
