On the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula, there is a small, verdant town of Alupka. Above it rises the majestic mountain Ai-Petri, which is crowned with a crown of stone teeth, which has become a symbol of the peninsula.
This amazing city of palaces, amazing landscapes, numerous legends has a long history. Its main attraction, no doubt, is the Alupka (Vorontsov) Palace. Today it is a popular monument among the guests of the city, a museum-reserve, which was founded in 1990. It includes the Vorontsov Palace-Museum, the Alupka Park-monument and the palace of Alexander III. Numerous monuments of culture, architecture and garden art are located on a vast territory.
History of the Palace
Alupka Palace in Crimea was built as the residence of Count Vorontsov, an important Russian statesman of the 19th century. The project was designed by English architect Edward Blore. He managed to create a structure of amazing beauty and originality of architectural design.
The construction of the palace lasted twenty years and was completed in 1848. Finishing work continued until 1852. In 1824In 1991, the German gardener-botanist K. A. Kebakh began to create the Vorontsovsky Park on an area of 30 hectares on this land. The main work was completed in 1851.
Architecture
The peculiarity of this structure is the combination of several different styles. The northern façade is in the late English Gothic style. Western is a European medieval castle. The southern one combines elements of oriental architecture. The huge dome above it with inscribed Arabic inscriptions, open towards the Black Sea, is distinguished by romanticism.
The stairs leading to the palace from the side of the park are decorated with the “Lion Terrace”, on which there are sculptures of three pairs of lions made of white Carrara marble. They were made in the workshop of Bonnani, the famous Florentine sculptor. The most famous of them is the lower one - "Sleeping Lion".
Alupka Palace consists of five buildings, terraces, indoor and outdoor courtyards. It looks elegant and stern, romantic and solemn at the same time. The western part of the structure (Shuvalovsky proezd) is a stone-paved street of a medieval city, which has old fortress walls with powerful towers and narrow loopholes.
Interiors
Alupka Palace, the photo of which we posted in this article, has 150 rooms. Each of them is unique and has an exquisite interior. The special pride of the owners of the Alupka Palace has always been luxurious fireplaces made in the Gothic style frompolished diabase and marbled limestone.
The Alupka Palace has many luxurious and richly decorated rooms, but the "Front Dining Room", according to experts and visitors, is the most majestic hall of the palace. Its interior is made in the style of knight's castles. Visitors are fascinated by the marble decorative fountain with a balcony for musicians above it. The walls are decorated with intricate wood carvings. Candelabra are made from Ural malachite. Oak doors, strict classical furniture and very high ceilings add solemnity to this hall.
Blue living room
This is a very elegant and bright hall, decorated with a stucco pattern of flowers and leaves, which covers the blue ceiling and walls with gentle bliss. It contains Turkish furnishings and gorgeous fabrics.
Winter Garden
This room is striking in the harmonious combination of rare evergreens with sculptural compositions. There are also portraits of the Vorontsov family.
Alupka Palace today
Three generations of the Vorontsov family owned a magnificent palace. In 1921 it was nationalized and declared a museum. Today, its collection consists of more than eleven thousand exhibits: sculptures and paintings, objects of applied art. The Alupka Palace Museum has a magnificent collection of paintings by Russian painters of the 19th century, as well as European masters of the 16th-19th centuries, a collection of graphics, porcelain sets by Russian masters.
Today everyone can visit the Alupka Palace. Tours are held daily. As a rule, they start from the main courtyard, located at the northern facade of the main building. The attention of tourists is attracted by two rectangular towers, which outwardly resemble knight's castles. In 1841, a striking clock was installed on one of them, which still works today.
Inside the palace, tourists first enter the introductory section of the museum, where documents, old lithographs and drawings are presented that introduce the history of the palace. The group then proceeds to the "Ceremonial Study", which is furnished with English furniture, exquisite bronze sculptures and paintings from the early 19th century. This is a kind of military gallery of participants in the war against Napoleon (1812). Here you can see portraits by D. G. Levitsky, V. A. Trepinin, V. L. Borovikovsky.
The light and bright chintz room is decorated with paintings by I. K. Aivazovsky, N. G. Chernetsov, S. F. Shchedrin. Alupka Palace was famous for its huge library. It included more than twenty-five thousand books published in various European languages.
Exhibitions
Now the Alupka Museum has several permanent expositions. Nine most interesting halls acquaint visitors with the life of the Vorontsovs, interiors of the 19th century are presented. The exhibition "The Vorontsov Family Gallery" was placed in the Guest Building. Exhibitions in other halls:
- painting by Ya. A. Basov "Poetry of the landscape";
- Russian and Soviet avant-garde“The gift of Professor V. N. Golubeva";
- art exhibition "Inhaling the scent of roses".
In the Tea House you can visit the exhibitions "Sea Battles", "Vorontsovs and Russian Admirals".
Alupka Palace Park
This magnificent work of landscape art surrounds the Vorontsov Palace and is one of the largest in the south of the peninsula. It occupies an area of about forty hectares. The park was founded even before the palace, in 1820, by the famous gardener Karl Kebach.
The territory is divided into three zones: central, lower and upper, made in different styles. Luxurious oleander and cypress alleys are famous for the middle part, which resembles a tropical island. They are connected by stairs that lead down to the sea.
The Lower Park is famous for its rock of Aivazovsky, which stands out even among the large boulders that rise at the edge of the Black Sea. It is not known for certain whether this rock is associated with the great artist, but there is a version that one of his sketches, which depicts the Vorontsov Palace, was painted by the master on this site.
If you happen to visit Alupka Park, you will definitely see the "Big Chaos" - a place littered with huge blocks of local rock, diabase, from which the famous palace was built. The "Great Chaos" arose after the ejection of magma and, I must admit, it gives a special charm to the park.
Today's Vorontsovsky Park is the result of the work of several generations of gardeners. Here is the local flora: Crimeanpine, oak, laurel. Representatives of the subtropics coexist with them: sweet edible chestnut and cork oak. In total, more than two hundred species of plants grow in the park. This variety has been grown thanks to a significant difference in altitude and an abundance of water.
Hundreds of narrow paths cross the park, and sometimes it seems that you find yourself in a fairy-tale forest, because every time, even walking along a familiar route, you discover something new and interesting.
