The southern coast of Crimea is a strip of the Black Sea coast up to 2 km wide. It starts from Cape Aya in the west and ends with the Karadag massif in the east. The variety of picturesque corners is amazing here, each of which is a masterpiece of an artist named Nature.
Crimea. South coast. Velvet Season
September in Crimea is perhaps the best time. The people, having received their share of sunburn and healing Crimean air, subsided. There was no fuss, and the sun weakened its ultraviolet shelling. And the sea is still gentle and warm.
Beach holidays in September are successfully combined with excursions. The sights of the South Coast are both a geological fairy tale imprinted in stone and a human history that is kept by fortresses, museums and palaces.
Beautiful name - Fiolent
Sights of the South Coast are located on the territory of five regions: Sevastopol, Big Y alta, Alushta, Sudak, Feodosia. Those who have a rest in Sevastopol simply cannot but visit Cape Fiolent: the harsh beauty of these places is difficult to describe. You can get to it by buses No. 5, 72 from the TSUM stop.
"Fiolent" is translatedas "violent", "stormy", "violent". In stormy weather, the sea rages here with crushing force, ships that are nearby are shattered into chips.
This could have happened to a Greek ship back in 861, if not for the sailors' prayers to St. George. As soon as the ship's crew saw the Saint himself on a rock 100 meters from the shore, the storm immediately stopped. The place was called so - the Rock of the Phenomenon. Grateful sailors founded a monastery in the rocks of the cape, which still operates today. A huge cross was erected on the mountain of St. George, so it has another name - the Cross rock.
From the monastery down to Jasper Beach with white sand and clear water is a staircase of 800 steps. In other places of the rocky cape, the descent to the sea is very dangerous. It is also not worth the risk of swimming to the rock of Apparitions without insurance. A duel with sea waves, even at a short hundred meters, can end in failure. Let's not forget: Fiolent means "furious".
Ayazma - blessed land
Beauty requires sacrifice. To enjoy the unique charm of the Crimean wild nature, you need to part with beach laziness for at least a day, dress in a sporty way and get ready to overcome obstacles.
The Ayazma tract is wild and secluded beaches, a unique play of colors of the sea, sun, rocks and plants. Here, among the stone boulders and sea spray, Stankevich's pine grows. Its curly branches with long needles and large cones are the main decoration of the desert,almost space landscape.
The high juniper is the second endemic for which the Ayazma tract is famous. Ten-meter candles fill the air with a healing aroma and make the lungs work at full strength.
The most famous place here is Fig Beach, the tent metropolis of romantics. Today it is equipped with minimal amenities (toilets, trash cans, firewood, water) and is paid.
Those who decide to make their way to the east through the rocks and stone rubble of the coastline, after a kilometer and a half will run into a sheer cliff - the end of the tract Ayazma. "Blessed Land" (as Ayazma is translated from Greek) is replaced by "Lost World" - this is the name of the beach, which is sheltered behind a rock wall 600 meters high. It is only accessible from the sea, an even more secluded place, bounded in the east by the protected Ayia Cape.
It remains to be added that the entire path along the Ayazma tract can be done on foot from Balaklava, and it is 8 kilometers.
Places of power of the "gold-woven" cape
The southernmost point of Crimea is Cape Sarych, which means "gold-woven" in Turkish. This spur of the Crimean Mountains is made up of golden yellow limestone. Fans of everything inexplicable and transcendent will be attracted by the unusually strong energy of this cape. In its juniper thickets, Odysseus was hiding from the Cyclopes.
Mount Ilyas-Kaya is very close - the ascent to it starts from the stop "46th kilometer" of the Sevastopol-Y alta highway. At the top of the mountain once stood the temple of St. Elijah. Those,those who managed to get here come into a state of prayer - from the universal expanse of the surrounding panorama. The mountain is crowned with a cross with the inscription: “Save and save.”
At the foot of Ilyas-Kai - a statue of their seven acute-angled stone blocks with an altar in the middle - a mystical place where enlightenment comes and cherished desires come true. Temple of the Sun. He does not leave anyone indifferent - even scientists.
Every evening the Sarych lighthouse lights its beam - a witness of military sea battles. In 1914, the Russian squadron hit two newest German cruisers with well-aimed shots in 14 minutes, which hastily retired to Turkish harbors. Shipwrecks and the underwater Stone Garden - rocks destroyed by an earthquake - are attractive for diving.
Cape Sarych is the starting point for yachting along the western coast of Crimea. Fans of the romance of wild beaches can stay in a tent camp equipped with the necessary amenities; lovers of comfort - in the boarding houses of Foros near Gorbachev's presidential dacha.
Comrade Amet-Khan Sultan
Big Y alta like a magnet attracted the famous sights of the South Coast. In Alupka, two very different museums will attract the attention of vacationers. The Vorontsov Palace does not need to be introduced: located at the foot of Ai-Petri, it solemnly allows itself to be admired. The second museum still needs to be looked for along the crooked Alupka streets (Y altinskaya st., 22). And it is not the luxury and richness of the interiors that delights here, but the person to whom the museum is dedicated. In front of the building there is a monument to Amet-Khan Sultan - a pilot, twice a HeroSoviet Union.
A man with such a complicated name was born in Alupka; his father is a native of Dagestan, his mother is a Crimean Tatar. The Soviet childhood of the 30s naturally ended with a flight school, where his talent as an air ace was discovered. The war, which he flew from the first to the last day, sharply emphasized the facets of his talent. In the battle over Yaroslavl, Amet-Khan ripped through the fascist Junkers with the wing of his plane, left his car in the belly of the enemy to fall down, and he jumped out by parachute. Amazing stories about the sorties of comrade Sultan are stored in the museum. In the difficult Stalinist times, he did not renounce his nationality: the Crimean Tatar. And when asked what kind of people he considered himself a hero, he answered that he was a Hero of the Soviet Union.
Parks are delicate
Sights of the South Coast are not only picturesque beaches, rocks, palaces and museums. Walks in the parks of the peninsula bring great aesthetic pleasure.
Gurzuf park was the very first in the Crimea. Gurzuf was in 1808 a wild Tatar village with one luxurious mansion that belonged to the Duke of Richelieu, the governor-general of the entire southern region. He brought the European park culture to the Crimea: well-maintained paths, trees with bizarre haircuts, alleys, squares with fountains and sculptures - Italian style. Then the famous Nikitsky Botanical Garden was founded with plants from all over the world, in September a ball of chrysanthemums is held here. Vorontsovsky Park in Alupka is a combination of classical andfree English park style. The most beautiful is Massandra Park in landscape (English) style - a skillful imitation of laid-back natural landscapes. The combination of local landscapes with the elegance of the Versailles style in the Aivazovsky park-modern produces an even greater effect - this is a celebration of nature in all its joyful splendor.
Fountains, busts, alleys…
But back to the foot of the Ayu-Dag mountain. The main attraction of two large local sanatoriums is one Gurzuf park. Gurzuf, not Y alta and Alushta, was the first Crimean resort. The builder of railways P. I. Gubonin built the first hotels here at the end of the 19th century. Pretty buildings with elements of Russian style are still nestled among parklands that are over 200 years old.
F. Chaliapin, V. Mayakovsky, A. Chekhov and other great classics, who once walked in the park, are now frozen in the alley of busts; A. Pushkin is allowed to sit down on a stone at ease. On a bronze bench, cross-legged, V. Lenin freely settled down; sitting next to him, those who wish can take a picture in the company of the former leader.
Exotic plants from all over the world have found a second home in the park, the art of topiary - cutting trees is presented here in all its glory. Green sculptures compete in grace with antique ones.
Fountains "Night", "Rachel", "Girl with a jug" and others undoubtedly decorate the park, but also require constant care.
The object is located in the possession of the sanatoriums "Gurzufsky" and "Pushkino". For those who do not rest in them, the entrance is paid, only with a guided tour.
Loy alty is strength
The beauty of nature seems to put a seal on the souls of people living among it. Cape Plaka, located on the eastern side of Mount Ayu-Dag, keeps the story of love and fidelity of two women who lived in these places. The basis of the cape is a very dense volcanic lava, it is covered with shells of hardened clay rocks. As clay crumbles from the surface of volcanic porphyrite, so all earthly calculations crumble before the power of love.
The story began in 1825. The owner of these places, A. M. Baruzdin, did not let his daughter Maria go to Siberia with her husband, the Decembrist I. V. Poggio. Joyless was the marriage of Mary with her second husband - A. I. Gagarin. Twenty years later, upon learning of Poggio's death in Siberia, she immediately succumbed to a stroke.
The Kuchuk-Lambat estate remained in the possession of Prince AI Gagarin. The name of the settlement is translated as "Small Lampada" - Cape Plaka was the location of the lighthouse. The 50-year-old prince recklessly falls in love with a young girl Anastasia Orbeliani, she happily marries him, despite the huge age difference. Three years of boundless happiness ended with the death of her husband in the Caucasus.
The young Princess Gagarina arrives at her husband's Crimean estate and lives here for 50 years under the canopy of Cape Plaka, faithful to her first love. At the end of her life, she builds a castle in which they dreamed of living with A. I. Gagarin. A strange, soul-stirring impression is left by this Gothic building with a gabled orange roof and weathervanes - a ghostchivalrous times and chivalrous manners.
Echo of the Bosporus kingdom
In the Sudak region of the southern coast of Crimea, the Asandra fortress, one of the ten oldest fortresses in the world, was discovered in Soviet times. At a height of 70 meters, it hangs over the sea near the village of Veseloe.
Archaeologists associate its appearance with the name of the Bosporus king Asander, her age is more than two thousand years. Walls three meters wide and up to six meters high sheltered a garrison of soldiers fighting against pirates. The buildings are well preserved and attract not only scientists, but also all history buffs.
