Old Crimea: attractions, where is and how to get?

In the eastern part of the Crimean peninsula is located the city of Old Crimea, which has a rich history, survived a lot, but retained its face. Today it is part of the Kirov region, less than 10 thousand people live here.

The territory of the city is unique for any researcher and just a lover of studying history. There are several zones of neolithic settlements with eponym names - Bakatash, Stary Krym, Izyumovka. During excavations in the town, archaeologists found objects of antique ceramics, which may date back to the 4th-3rd centuries BC. But these layers, capable of giving answers to many other questions, are blocked by medieval layers, and they are partially destroyed.

It is believed that the emergence of the city fell on the XIII century, when the steppe Crimea became part of the Golden Horde. But in the city, an honorary inscription of 222 AD was found at the excavations, and this alone was enough to cast doubt on the official date of the city. It is known that in the XI century Armenians began to be settled on its territory, and after 3 centuries the town became a major center of trade, having a large Armenian colony and Tatar power.

When the Horde rule was established in the east of the peninsula, the city of Kyrym appeared here.

Experts suggest that the city was simply divided into 2 parts - in the Muslim was the residence of the Emir, and in the Christian lived Italian traders. And these territories were called: the first Kyrym, the second Solkhat.

The 14th century can rightly be considered the heyday of a settlement. At that time, the city had the status of a large shopping center on the Silk Road from the Asian to the European part. He grew at a fast pace, built up. It was then that several mosques and madrasahs were built in the settlement, some of which have been preserved to this day.

When the Crimea ceased to be dependent on the Horde, the Crimean Khanate was formed, the capital was moved. First, sign status gained Kirk-Yer, then Bakhchisarai. Kyrym gradually lost its status. At this time, the settlement began to be called Eski-Kyrym, which translates as "Old Crimea". The current name of the city, which since 2014 became part of Russia, is just a tracing paper from the former name, only Russian-speaking.

The city also had the name Levkopol (in the years when it was included in the Russian Empire), but it did not stick.

The terrible pages of the history of the Old Crimea were the years of the Great Patriotic War. In the fall of 1941, the invaders invaded here, and on April 13, 1944, when the joint forces of the Red Army and partisans took the settlement, the Wehrmacht organized a horrific massacre, 584 people were killed, including 200 children.

Historical and architectural monuments in the Old Crimea are found, if not at every turn, then with an impressive tourist frequency. At the end of the 18th century, Catherine II visited the city. Waited for her arrival, in honor of his even built a palace, a fountain in the Oriental style, a gazebo.

Many travelers come here to worship the graves of Alexander Green and Yulia Drunina, the playwright Kepler is also buried here. Adored and sought any opportunity to linger in these places Konstantin Paustovsky, the great Russian writer, before whom Marlene Dietrich herself fell to her knees.

Finally, mosques, monasteries, and chapels are curious for tourists to the buildings of antiquity that have survived to the present day.

Today there are several not very large enterprises operating in the city, its population is not increasing. Almost half of the inhabitants of Old Crimea consider themselves Russians, 35% consider themselves to be Crimean Tatars. The Simferopol-Feodosia road passes through the city.

The climate can be described as mild mountain. The settlement of Agarmysh from the northwest is closed, and the Karasan-Ob ridges from the south. Here the river Churuk-Su flows, but still it is difficult to call it a river, it is more like a stream, and by the summer it completely dries out.

The city is located at an altitude of 320 m above sea level.

In summer it is very good here, but those who want to relax in a hot climate can immediately cancel this route. In the daytime, indeed, it can be hot, but the nights are pretty cool. There is no stuffiness that will haunt you at the seaside. There are not so many tourists here, mainly relatives of the Old Crimeans come here in the season.

There are not many hotels in such a small village - there are 6. There you can stay in the Hunter's House, in the hotel “Halal” on ul. North, 30, and Stamova, 48, in the hotel "Sunny Crimea", as well as in the guest house "Zarema".

But if you do not want to live "in the apartment", and hotels by the sea are expensive for you, it is more profitable to stay at a hotel in the Old Crimea, and drive to the beach by car. It only seems so expensive and uncomfortable: to rent a hotel by the sea is much more expensive.

Nevertheless, not everyone goes to the Crimea for the sake of the scorching sun: someone wants not to "fry", namely, to improve their health. Walking through the city, in which even the air heals, is already a recovery. And by car, really, just get to the beach.

The sights of this small town is full. And if you relax here, there is time to see everything.

This shrine is one of the most revered for indigenous Crimeans. But not only Muslims visit it, tourists with interest are in the old temple. The mosque was built in 1314, while the Khan of the Golden Horde was Mohammed Uzbek, hence the name.

During his rule, the Tatar state was actively developing, the Muslim faith spread among the population, therefore in Solkhat, as they used to call the Old Crimea, and it was decided to build a mosque.

It was built in the form of a rectangular basilica, one corner supplemented by a single minaret, a spiral staircase leads to it. The entrance is shaped like a portal, inside the room is three naves, in one of them - a mihrab. These are truly valuable examples of art, as the carving on the stone, in which both the portal and the mihrab are made, can be called highly artistic.

In addition to the mosque, you can look at the ruins of the madrasa - a high school for Muslims, founded in the XIV century.

And this is the oldest mosque in Crimea, although, unlike the previous one, it is not acting. The name of the temple was given by Sultan Beibars, more precisely, grateful contemporaries named a mosque in his honor. He sponsored the construction in 1287. It was only partially preserved, only ruins remained. But if you think about it, how many centuries the temple stood on this site, even the ruins of it are impressive.

At the foot of the Monastic Mountain is located the ancient Armenian monastery of Surb Khach, which translates as "the holy cross." It was erected in the XIV century.

You can walk to the Armenian church Surb-Nshan with beautiful fountains. Here there are holy sources, from which tourists do not forget to draw water.

Take a look at the chapel of St. Panteleimon, who is revered by believers, as the patron saint of healing.

There is a legend according to which a chapel was built above the source, where they found the icon of the saint. In the late 40s of the last century, the old chapel burned down, but already at the beginning of the XXI century a new one was built with the money of indifferent parishioners. Source of healing water preserved.

City parish is located at the road Simferopol – Kerch on the Kuzgun-Burun hill. To a greater degree they know him as the place of the last refuge of the great Russian writer Alexander Green.

The writer did not become on July 8, 1932, and on July 9 his body was buried in the city cemetery. This is the place where fans of his talent come to honor Green's memory, chose the writer's wife, Nina Green. And she wrote that from here was visible the golden cup of the shores of Theodosia, full of sea blue, which Alexander Stepanovich dearly loved.

The writer bequeathed to plant a modest process of cherry plum, taken from a tree growing outside his house, at his gravestone.

In the mid-40s, near Green, his wife’s mother was buried. The spouse herself died in 1870, but the authorities forbade her to be buried next to Alexander Stepanovich, then the faithful wife was buried 50 meters from the spouse's burial. But the most interesting thing is that the executors of Green's widow were able to secretly re-bury her a year later.

It so happened that a literary necropolis was formed near the family burial of Greens - here fiction writer and inventor Vadim Okhotnikov, poet-translator Grigory Petnikov are buried here.

And in the depths of the territory of the old churchyard, cinematographer Alexey Kapler and his wife, Yulia Drunina, found their last refuge. And even though they died in different years in Moscow, it was here that the famous husband and wife decided to stay forever.

In 1960, the city opened the Alexander Green House Museum. It is part of the reserve "Cimmeria M. A. Voloshin." The place is considered unique, since it is not the summer residence of writers - it was his only home.

And he lived here just nothing, the bill went on for days. Nina Nikolaevna bought it in exchange for a wrist gold watch. It was the fourth address of the prose writer in the town, and the first one was his own, where Green had a little chance to be the host.

It was here that Alexander Stepanovich dictated the pages of the unfinished work “The Touchy”, and here he was holding in his hands the last book he published during his lifetime - “Autobiographical Tale”.

The exhibition composition is three small rooms. In the first one, there is a literary and memorial exposition, here you can find the writer's own things, books, paintings, photographs. These are all witnesses of the last period of the life of Alexander Stepanovich, dumb, but at the same time speaking so much. Amazingly, in the second room everything remained exactly the same as it was in the last days of Green's life. Only the wooden floor had to be done, before it was earthen.

The museum is the brainchild of widow prose. Both women's stubbornness, and fortitude, and a clear understanding of the goal, and, of course, the love of their Master did the unthinkable - everything that was so valuable for her, and that said and continues to talk about one of the most lyrical and mysterious writers of Russian literature, survived and came to us.Neither the hard times of persecution, nor the Nazi occupation forced Nina Nikolaevna to abandon the goal of creating a museum.

Every year there is a literary festival "Greenland" at the end of August, through the efforts of several poetic and other organizations of the Crimea, a celebration of creativity is held. The culmination of the festival can be called the raising of those scarlet sails on the slope of Mount Agarmysh. And on August 24, all those gathered for the holiday walk from the Old Crimea to Koktebel, following the path of Alexander Green.

Visiting the house-museum of Green, to worship his grave (where, by the way, the composition “Running through the Waves” is set) is not just a tribute to memory, perhaps not fully appreciated writer of the XX century. It is also a reason to discover new prose, to read something more than the textbook Scarlet Sails. For people who write - a place of power, inspiration, and creative pilgrimage.

The Paustovsky Museum in the town was opened much later than the Green House-Museum, in 2005.

And Paustovsky arrived in the Old Crimea on purpose to see the city Green’s beloved, to worship his grave. It happened in 1934. He lived here then at three addresses, and one of them became the future museum.

Here come the fans of the so-called event tourism. This is a small rural house whose rooms keep traces of the writer's stay with his family. There are many photos of the classic itself and its surroundings. The piano and the mirror, the phonograph, the vases and the books are all left here and seem to be waiting for the owners.

In the courtyard of the house there is a painted boat, which is a symbol of the direction opened by Green. In the garden where the boat is located, an unusual rally takes place every year. Fans of the writer spend Sorang (the night wind from the south, very rarely observed by meteorologists).

Old Crimea is a place where time has stopped a little. Temples, museums, marked by the stamp of antiquity, make the city unhurried, a little frozen in a beautiful, romantic eternity. That and the Old Crimea is valuable. And the rest in it is the same unhurried and lyrical. There is also a literary and art museum, the Crimean Tatar Museum, as well as the museum of the sanatorium "Old Crimea".

There is a central park in the town, where you can walk in the afternoon and evening. It is beautifully decorated, there is a lot of greenery.

There are playgrounds for children and, albeit modest, but attractions. Children will be interested in the Safari Ranch Goat Balka ecopark. You can even feed the animals living in it, with the hands. Goats, deer, llamas and birds live in an ecopark.

Koktebel is not far from here, so the trip is unlikely to be complete without a visit to the water park and dolphinarium. Relatively close (23 km) Theodosia with its gorgeous beaches.

From the new airport of Simferopol to get to the Old Crimea can be on a regular bus. You can get to the “Kurortnaya” bus station, from there the flights to Old Crimea go every half hour.

The distance to the sea is 20-30 km, everything is quite compact, if you are by car, it is very convenient. The map shows that while living in the Old Crimea, one can travel to the beaches of Koktebel, Sudak, Theodosia.

A town for lyricists, romantics, lovers of quiet rest and clean air, history, literature and quiet places, lurking in the shadow of large resorts. Worth a visit!

You will learn more about the Old Crimea by watching the following video.