Western Crimea has traditionally been considered the best place for families with children, and the main wealth of the region – healing mud and mineral waters – annually attracts hundreds and thousands of tourists
July 30, 2022
The western coast of Crimea is the cities of Yevpatoriya and Saki, the resorts of Nikolaevka and Peschanoe, the picturesque Tarkhankut peninsula and the Crimean nature reserve on the Swan Islands.
Evpatoria
At the end of the 6th century BC. e. Greek colonists founded the city of Kerkinitida on the territory of modern Evpatoria. The colony got rich on trade in salt and bread, but the invasion of the Scythians in the II century BC. e. led her into decline.
The settlement was revived only in the 15th century, when the Ottoman Turks built the Gezlev fortress on its territory. The city was decorated with magnificent mosques, marble baths and beautiful fountains, the water to which went through underground water pipelines (kyariz).
Gezlev soon became the main port of the Crimea, the religious and craft center of the Crimean Khanate (and, like Kafa, the center of the slave trade).
After the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire (1783) Catherine II ordered to rename the city to Evpatoria (in memory of the Pontic king Mithridates VI Evpator). True, most of the population emigrated to Turkey, but by the end of the century the city was repopulated and again became the largest port of the Crimea.
In September 1854, a Turkish-British-French landing force landed in Evpatoria during the Crimean War (about 60,000 people in total). The Russian army tried to block the allies' path to Sevastopol, but suffered a heavy defeat.
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With the exception of the Old Town, Evpatoria has a regular layout. Street signs usually have two street names – modern and historical.
Embankments
There are two embankments in the city. Embankment im. Gorky begins at the Italian fountains on the street. Frunze and ends on the street. Duvanovskaya. There are discos, bars, restaurants, billiards, slot machines, souvenir shops, etc. There are also a hydropathic and a dolphinarium. Embankment im. Valentina Tereshkova starts from the Seaport. There are no beaches along it.
Beaches
Unlike many coastal cities in Evpatoria there are no sharp temperature drops during the day. Sandy beaches strewn with shells and a shallow, well-warming sea are a good place to relax with children.
The sand of Yevpatoriya beaches does not contain dust and therefore does not cause allergies. There is a good wild beach on the embankment between the sea and Lake Moinaki.
Minibuses go to the free sandy beaches of the village of Mirny, the villages of Popovka, Stormovoe, Vitino, Cozy from the stop. “Evpatoria supermarket” (Victory Avenue) and from the bus station. Buses go to the beaches in the village of Zaozernoye. No. 8 and minibus No. 6. Travel time – 20-30 minutes.
After the opening of the first mud baths on the shores of Lake Moinakskoe (1887), Evpatoria became a popular resort. On the eve of the Patriotic War there were 36 sanatoriums in the city, including children's ones. In 1936, the USSR government issued a decree on the development of Evpatoria as a children's resort. The city has retained this status to this day.
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Dolphinarium
In the dolphinarium of the city, a new type of treatment is practiced – dolphin therapy. Treatment is carried out strictly according to medical recommendations, in the summer, on Lake Donuzlav. Swimming with dolphins under the supervision of a trainer and a doctor, the patient is said to get rid of many diseases.
Dolphins emit ultrasound with a frequency of 200 kHz, which, according to the supporters of this therapy, stimulate the production of endorphins in humans – “pleasure hormones”, improve the psycho-emotional state and the activity of the autonomic nervous system.
“Hercules Resting”
On the steps of the rotunda on the embankment is located “Hercules Resting” (2003) – one of the symbols of the city. According to one of the myths, the son of Hercules, Scythus, settled in Tauris and became the ancestor of all the Scythians.
Hercules was usually portrayed at the moment of performing one of the feats, but in these parts the demigod allowed himself to put down his club and stretch out on a lion's skin, calmly admiring the sea. In the vicinity of Evpatoria, archaeologists have found seven limestone reliefs depicting Hercules, and everywhere the hero is given a similar pose.
Further acquaintance with the city is best to continue along the street. Duvanovskaya, which can be accessed from the Kursaal along the embankment or from Theater Square.
The Museum of Local Lore
The Museum of Local Lore, opened in 1921, is located in the beautiful building of the dacha “Mavritanka” (1912) , which the Karaite millionaire Yu.M. Gilelovich built it for his daughter's wedding. Natural history, history and space departments are especially curious.
Archaeological complex
Opposite the museum is the archaeological complex “North-Western Suburb of the Ancient City of Kerkinitida”. Fragments of ancient city buildings are covered with a glass pyramidal dome.
Next to the excavation, an open-air exhibition of monuments of ancient cultures of the North-Western Crimea (from the 3rd millennium BC to the 12th century) is located. Nearby is a lapidarium (a collection of stone statues), the exhibits of which are collected from all over the North-Western Crimea.
Sanatorium them. Lenin
Sanatorium im. Lenina (former “Primorsky”, 1905; Duvanovskaya, 6) – the first private sanatorium in Russia. During his last trip to the Crimea, Emperor Nicholas II visited him.
Father of the city, savior of the people
Duvanovskaya Street is named after Semyon Ezrovich Duvan (1870-1957) – the mayor of Evpatoria in 1906-1911. Through his efforts, the provincial town turned into a European resort: cobbled streets, a tram, well-maintained beaches, the first public library (for which he donated several thousand books) – all this is Duvan's merit.
One of the richest people in the Crimea, Duvan served not for a salary, but for the public good; for his charitable work, he received several orders and personal nobility.
After the revolution, he had to emigrate. After the Nazis came to power, Duvan, a Karaite by birth, did a lot to save his compatriots, who began to be persecuted as professing Judaism.
In 1939, he managed to get a conclusion from the Berlin Racial Bureau that the Karaites were not Jews either by blood or by faith. This document became a real safe-conduct for the Karaites both in Germany and in France, where Duvan survived the occupation and died at a ripe old age on the Cote d'Azur.
Duvanovskaya street
Duvanovskaya street one of the most beautiful in the city was named after the mayor Semyon Ezrovich Duvan during his lifetime.
The street is lined with buildings of the late 19th – early 20th century. It is interesting that the decorative decorations of the facades – architectural elements, sculptural decorations, even imitation of stucco – are cut from the same material from which the houses themselves are built – from shell rock. This is especially evident on non-plastered facades, as, for example, near residential building No. 17 (1908).
Garden im. Lenin
Sad them. Lenin, adjacent to Duvanovskaya street, is called Shakaevsky garden. The landscaping of Evpatoria began in the 1870s, when the local merchant Saduk Ilyich Shakai purchased several acres of coastal land and laid out a beautiful garden on them, which he presented to the city. Other residents followed suit. Part of the first garden has been preserved near the fence of the sanatorium. Lenin.
Theater Square
Duvanovskaya st. leads to the main city square & nbsp; – Teatralnaya. Theater Square is designed in the same style. The theater (1910, Adam Heinrich, Pavel Seferov) in the Greek style was built on the initiative of S.E. Duvan. Vertinsky, Stanislavsky, Vakhtangov and many other famous artists performed on the stage of the theater.
Opposite the theater there are two buildings in the Art Nouveau style: the executive committee and a residential building built in 1912 (Brother Buslaev Street, 30). The architectural ensemble complements the building of the city library. A.S. Pushkin (1912–1914) in the form of a rotunda.
On the wall in front of the executive committee building, a brief history of the city is carved in stone, which is illustrated by bas-reliefs depicting the father of history Herodotus, the Pontic king Mithridates Evpator, whose name the city bears, Sultan Mehmed Conqueror and Catherine II.
Bartenev Street
Barteneva Street is named after the honored teacher who taught at the Gymnasium. I. Selvinsky. On this street there is a children's theater center “Golden Key”. Children from the age of four are engaged in the theater studio. Artists, decorators and dressers are also children. In June, international festivals of children's theaters are held here.
Church of St. Elijah the Prophet
The Church of St. Elijah the Prophet (1911–1918, Adam Heinrich) was built for the city's Greek community. The building is made of shell rock, has the shape of a cross and is crowned with a dome on a high octagonal drum, each side of which ends with a pediment (a characteristic feature of the so-called Greco-Byzantine style).
The temple was built during the Civil War, and its interior decoration was completed only by the end of the 1920s, that is, in the midst of the persecution of the church. Probably, with the parishioners of the temple, most of whom were Greek subjects, the Soviet authorities did not immediately decide to treat them as unceremoniously as with their own citizens.
Nevertheless, in 1936 the temple was closed, and its permanent rector, Fr. Eleazar Spiridonov, was arrested and died in the Kolyma the following year. Now he is canonized as Hieromartyr Eleazar of Evpatoria, which is reminiscent of a memorial plaque at the entrance to the church.
The beautiful bell tower was broken in 1959 and has now been rebuilt. On the pentahedral apse of the temple, a trace of a shell from the Great Patriotic War is visible: on the embankment near the church on January 5, 1942, the Yevpatoriya landing force landed.
The paratroopers were supposed to divert the German forces from Sevastopol and Kerch, that is, they were, in essence , suicide bombers. Three days later, out of 700 people, less than a hundred remained alive.
Two monuments remind of the dead landing party: “Boat” on the street. Revolutions and a monument to sailors-paratroopers on the seashore (6th km of the Simferopol highway), at the place where the minesweeper “Vzryvatel” was sunk, which delivered and then covered the landing group from the sea. German tanks shot him from the shore.
Khan's Mosque
The Khan-Jami Mosque (Khan's Mosque, aka Juma-Jami – Friday Mosque, 1552) was built by the great Turkish architect Sinan. The most famous Ottoman architect left behind over 400 buildings, including 81 mosques. Sinan built both huge sultan mosques (such as the Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul) and small chamber buildings with equal success.
The Khan-Jami mosque belongs to the first type; the volume, square in plan, is covered by a dome 11 m in diameter; on the north side, the building is adjoined by an elegant vaulted portico with lancet arches resting on thin columns. The mihrab (a prayer niche inside the mosque, indicating the direction to Mecca) is decorated with a beautiful stalactite vault.
From the end of the 16th century, Crimean khans were appointed only with the special permission of the Sultan. Having received a firman (decree) in Istanbul on his right to the throne, the future khan arrived in Khan-Jami, read the firman and transferred it to the mosque for safekeeping. 18 out of 57 Crimean khans ascended the throne in Khan-Jami (the rest in Bakhchisaray).
Muslim cemetery
Next to the mosque there is a Muslim cemetery with beautiful tombstones. Among those buried here is the Turkish General Mustafa Pasha, who died in the Crimean War. Nearby there is a memorial sign to the victims of the genocide and deportation of the Crimean Tatars.
St. Nicholas Cathedral
The Cathedral of St. Nicholas (1899, Alexander Bernardazzi) was built on the site of an earlier church, badly damaged during the Crimean War, so the new building was conceived as a memorial temple dedicated to the war. One of the largest temples in Crimea is covered with a concrete dome with a diameter of 18 m.
Tekie-dervish
The Dervish Abode (Tekiye-Dervish) is a unique ensemble of Islamic architecture of the 16th-18th centuries for the Crimea. The complex of buildings includes a mosque, a tekie (“abode”) and a madrasah. In the center of the building, square in plan, the tekie (XVI century) is a hall for prayer meetings, surrounded by 19 tiny cells. The buildings of the mosque and madrasah are later, the facade overlooking the street. International, dates back to the 19th century.
The courtyard fountain was once lined with pink marble. There are legends about the healing properties of its water. On the south side of the courtyard there was a cemetery where members of the community were buried.
The abode of the dervishes ceased to exist after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, but the mosque and madrasah continued to function.
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Karaite temples
On st. Karaite is a complex of kenass – Karaite temples. The complex consists of a suite of courtyards. Immediately behind the wrought-iron gate of the main entrance (1911) is the Grape Yard, framed on both sides by arched niches; marble slabs with quotations from the Bible are placed in the niches, in one of the niches there is a marble fountain (1851) for washing hands and face before prayer. It is believed that the oldest of them is over 120 years old, but the vine still bears fruit.
The white marble obelisk crowned with a double-headed eagle was placed in the memory of Alexander I's visit to the kenasses.
The marble courtyard is paved with marble slabs, on which the names of members of the Karaite community who made donations for the construction of kenasses, Karaite schools and other buildings are carved, on the marble walls -religious verses.< /p>
The most spacious & nbsp; – patio Waiting for prayer. On one of the marble boards decorating it, a double-headed eagle is depicted and the text of the privileges granted to the Karaites by the Russian tsars is carved.
You can enter both temples from the courtyard. The cathedral kenesa (1807) was built for services on holidays, the small kenesa (1815, both buildings – Samuil and Solomon Babovichi) – for services on weekdays. Rectangular in plan, hall buildings with windows in two tiers were restored in the 2000s. Lancet arches framing the entrances are decorated with stucco and fine stone carvings.
Dervishes
Dervishes (from Persian dervis – “beggar”) are followers of Sufism, a religious and philosophical doctrine that developed within Islam in the 10th-12th centuries. Adherents of this doctrine believe in the illusory nature of the world and the possibility of a mystical merging with God.
The means to achieve this -asceticism, vow of poverty (the word “Sufi” itself comes from the Arabic suf – “sheep's wool”, in rough capes from which the first dervishes dressed), constant prayer.
Dervishes are sometimes called “Muslim monks”: they leave the world, unite in brotherhoods (tarikat), similar to European monastic orders, sometimes live in monasteries (“tekie”, “tekke” or “khanaka”) under the guidance of a mentor – a sheikh, and sometimes wander, begging.
Wandering dervishes (qalandars) are sometimes somewhat reminiscent of Russian holy fools – with strange behavior, demonstrative contempt for generally accepted norms of behavior, they seem to remind others of the insignificance of earthly worries and the need to look at the world with a different, spiritual eye.
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Craft Synagogue
On Vodorazbornaya Street, you should pay attention to an interesting monument of history and architecture – the Egie-Kapai synagogue (“Craft Synagogue”, 1912, A.L. Genikhan) at the intersection with the street. Prosmushkins. The facade of the building, funded by the city's Jewish artisans (hence the name), is decorated with a stained-glass window with a Star of David.
The building of the former main (“Merchant's”) synagogue of the city is also located nearby, but in a structure mutilated many times over by restructuring , which was used as a warehouse in Soviet times, it is difficult to recognize one of the best works of the architect Adam Heinrich, the builder of the city theater and the Elias Church.
Turkish baths
Behind the Egie-Kapai synagogue, on Krasnoarmeyskaya street, there are Turkish baths (hamams). The older building was probably built at the beginning of the 16th century, and the bathhouse worked almost without interruption until 1942, when its dome collapsed during shelling. Now the hamam is located on the territory of a private house, and access to it is difficult.
The neighboring building (Krasnoarmeyskaya, 20) refers to in the middle of the 16th century – this is the only surviving hammam from the numerous public baths of the Turkish Gezlev. In architecture, it is similar to the Turkish bath in Feodosia, built by the great Sinan.
The Turks largely adopted the Roman technology of building baths and other air-heated rooms from the Byzantines. The floor of the steam room is made of hollow bricks, through the channels of which heated air passes.
Children's Park
In the children's amusement park on the street. Tokarev there is a living corner where a brown bear, a donkey, foxes, badgers and other animals live. Feathered inhabitants are also interesting: emu, long-eared owl, white-tailed eagle, peregrine falcon, steppe eagle, swans, peacocks and pheasants.
Dolphinarium
< p>Local History Museum
Kerkinitida Hillfort
Lapidarium
Sanatorium im. Lenin
Garden them. Lenin
Theater
Church of St. Elijah the Prophet
Khan-Jami Mosque
St. Nicholas Cathedral
Abode of dervishes (Tekieh-dervish)
Kenasse complex
Egie-Kapai Synagogue
Turkish baths
Around Evpatoria
In the direction of Zaozerny village, there are numerous children's recreation centers institutions.
Here, on the shore of the estuary, is the Greek-Scythian settlement “Chaika” (named after the nearby children's sanatorium). In the IV century BC. e. here was a powerful Greek fortification with three towers, the length of its facade exceeded 90 m.
The pithoi, amphoras and knives for processing grapes found here testify that the fortress was surrounded by vineyards. After several fires and raids by nomads, the Greeks left the settlement, and later the Scythians settled here.
It was here that archaeologists found a bas-relief depicting a resting Hercules and a bronze figure of an Amazon from the school of Lysippus, the court sculptor of Alexander the Great (4th century BC).
Near the village of Vitino is the National Center for Control and Testing of Space Facilities (under the jurisdiction of Roskosmos).
The RT-70 radio astronomy telescope at the Center for Deep Space Communications near the village of Molochnoye, built in 1973–1978, is one of the largest in the world: the antenna diameter is 70 m (almost like a football field), which allows you to penetrate into outer space at ultra-long distances.
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At the Center, you can see the Sazhen quantum-optical system, which measured the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and antenna systems for controlling spacecraft.
The village of Novofedorovka is a recently declassified aviation garrison, which remains a military facility. It is famous for the world's largest springboard for training carrier-based aviation and the airfield, where in 1945 the planes of the “big three” landed: Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, who arrived in Crimea for the Yalta Conference.
Salt lake Donuzlav is the longest (30 km) and deepest (27 m) lake of Crimea. Strictly speaking, since 1961, when a canal was dug in the bay separating it from the sea, the lake turned into an estuary, and its salinity varies greatly from the mouth (where the salt concentration is the same as in the sea, and there is a goby, mullet and red mullet) to its upper part, where there are many bottom springs and the water is almost fresh.
Freshwater fish live in the upper reaches of the lake, and gulls, cormorants and ducks nest along the banks. This part of the lake has been declared a nature reserve. In the 1960s–1980s, a naval port was created on the southern shore of the Donuzlav Bay, the second most important after the Sevastopol naval base. In the vicinity of the lake there are four large wind farms (Donuslavskaya wind farm).
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Saki
Salt has long been mined in the vicinity of Sak and the famous Chumatsky Way passed here. Chumaks (Ukrainian merchants) brought salt from here on oxen to Kyiv, Chernihiv, Poltava and other cities of Ukraine and Russia.
In 1827, the first mud bath in the Russian Empire was founded in Saki. Local doctors are convinced that the Saki mud is superior in its healing properties even to the mud of the Dead Sea.
During the Crimean War, Saky was destroyed and restored (1858) by settlers from the Poltava province. The Greeks also settled here, who fled to the Crimea after the next pogroms in Constantinople.
Against the backdrop of the arid salted steppe, the resort park (end of the 19th century), where 80 species of trees and shrubs (including exotic ones), with flower beds, fountains and freshwater lakes, looks like an oasis. The park has an interesting local history museum. It occupies a house built in 1913 for Tsarevich Alexei, who was treated here.
Unique balneological resorts are the main attraction of Sak. Sanatorium them. N.N. Burdenko specializes in the treatment of injuries and diseases of the spine and spinal cord.
There are also mineral springs. The most widespread is the slightly alkaline water “Crimean Mineral”, especially suitable for the treatment of diseases of the digestive system and metabolic disorders. Other sources are used for baths.
In sanatoriums and a resort clinic, patients with gynecological diseases, lesions of the musculoskeletal system of non-tuberculosis origin, the nervous system, etc. are treated.
People with diseases of the musculoskeletal system come to Saki, so the entrances to cafes, shops and hairdressing salons have ramps for wheelchair access.
Saki salt lake is divided by a dam into two parts: the raw material base of the Saki chemical plant and the territory where therapeutic mud is mined.
On Sasyk-Sivash lake salt has been mined since the 2nd half of the 20th century.
Cape Tarkhankut is the westernmost part of Crimea and the cleanest water area of the Black Sea. Tourists come here who prefer wild nature to comfortable resorts, and rocky bays and a mysterious underwater world to equipped beaches.
Romantic rocky bays and grottoes, golden sandy beaches , unusually clear water and marvelous underwater landscapes gather diving enthusiasts here. Divers are attracted by the opportunity to find artifacts from sunken ships, which were often shipwrecked off the rocky coast.
Chernomorskoye
The settlement is located in the western part of the Crimean peninsula on the shore of the Ak-Mechet Bay. On the Tarkhankut Peninsula, in the area of the villages of Olenevka, Mezhvodnoe and Dalekoe, archaeological finds of the 4th-3rd centuries BC were made. e.
Bronze Age objects were found in the burial mounds. Near the village of Vladimirovka, a Cimmerian settlement was discovered, in the territory from Lake Donuzlav to the village of Chernomorskoye – Scythian.
Here was the northern port of Chersonese —Kalos Limen (“Beautiful Harbor”). During the period of the Crimean Khanate, the Tatar village of Ak-Mechet was located on the site of Kalos Limen. After the annexation of Crimea to Russia, part of the land passed into the possession of the dignitary of Catherine II, Major General V.S. Popova.
After the deportation of the Crimean Tatars in 1944, Ak-Mechet was renamed Chernomorskoe.
The white-stone tower of the lighthouse (1816) was installed 30 m from the shore, its height was about 40 m. visible from a distance of about 23 km, and during fog, a pneumatic siren was triggered, the sound of which was heard 11 km from the coast. A double bell every three minutes served as a sound signal.
An asphalt road leads to the ancient ruins of Kalos Limen from the center of the village, then you will need to go along the beach towards the campsite.
Where the coastal sandy strip ends and a small rocky cape rises, and there was an ancient harbor.
At 18 km from the Chernomorskoye, the village of Mezhvodnoye is located – a resort area replete with lakes, bays, sandy beaches on the shores of the picturesque Yarylgach Bay .
In the area of the Karanja Bay, in the vicinity of the village of Olenevka, the Dzhangulsky landslide coast, bewitching with its pristine beauty, is declared a reserve. It descends steeply to the sea as a landslide rocky chaos, forming bizarre stone figures, pillars and pyramids.
4 km from Olenevka, 30–40-meter steep capes rise – Small Atlesh and Big Atlesh (Turk. Atysh & nbsp; – “jump, throw”).
Big Atlesh is a rocky cape with light yellow cliffs and arches pierced by a wave.
The beauty of this coast with its small coves, caves, grottoes, niches and tunnels is captured in the films “Amphibian Man”, “Pirates of the 20th Century”, “People and Dolphins”. A vertical passage leads to a high grotto-tunnel to the east of the Bolshoy Atlesh.
To the north of the Chernomorsky is the Bakalskaya Spit, ending in Cape Sandy. Covering a shallow, well-heated bay in a semicircle, it creates excellent conditions for children to relax and practice sailing sports. The water here warms up to 17 ° C already in the first days of May and does not cool down until mid-October.
Swan Islands are located near the village of Portovoye – the ornithological branch of the Crimean Nature Reserve, where 230 species of birds live in natural conditions.< /p>
Material published on the site “Vokrug sveta” in December 2015, partially updated in July 2022
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