Its name comes from the Turkish language and means “the New Fortress”.

In 1701, on the west bank of the Kerch Channel, the Turks started the erection of a new fortress to counter the Russian ships to get into the Black Sea.

The place was well chosen: the steep bank, opposite the sandy spit Chushka.

The location was very convenient for passing ships: because of the inability to make the maneuver the ship as if get under fire from coast batteries.

The position was well covered by sandbanks and Turkish vessels on the passable zones. The fortress Taman served as a rear.

Construction of the fortress was led by Goloppo, an Italian who accepted Islam. The construction was also attended by several French engineers.

Yeni-Calais had great strategic importance. It was located at the narrowest part of the channel and armed with powerful guns. The fortress controlled the passage of ships between the Azov and Black Seas.

Furthermore, Yeni-Calais served as the residence of the Turkish pasha. The fortress was of the shape of an irregular pentagon, and following the steep terrain, it was located at several levels.

There were five half-bastions in the corners, which were capable of withstanding a long siege and heavy artillery fire. Some of them were far pulled out of the wall.

Hence, the area of defeating the enemy was growing and it became possible to fire the flanking area bordering with the walls.

An additional tier of defense was a ditch surrounding the fortress from three sides, except for one from the coast.

Yeni-Calais occupied a territory covering around 2.5 ha and consisted of two powder magazine, armory, apartment houses, water tank, bath-house, and mosque.

About 800 Turkish and 300 Tatar soldiers were garrisoned in Yeni-Calais.

A major problem was the lack of fresh water – the only well in the fort could not provide water to all the population.

Therefore, for the water supply, there was built a ceramic underground water pipe connecting Yeni-Calais with a source located a few kilometers away from the fortress. In the summer of 1771 the Russian army invaded the Crimea.

Yeni-Calais was captured without any fight by parts of the Second Army of the Major General Borzov N.A.

The Turkish garrison arrived by ship several days before the Russian Army. However, despite the large reinforcements from the Turkish Army, the last left the fortress.

In 1774, according to the Kiutchouk-Kaynarca agreement Kerch and Yeni-Calais were handed over to Russia.

By the end of XVIII century Yeni-Calais has lost its military significance, and in 1835 there was built a military hospital in its territory.

During the Crimean War in 1853-1856 the fortress was partially repaired and there were installed several coastal batteries inside of it.

On the May 12th, 1855 the two cities entered into battle with the British squadron, which entered the Kerch Channel.

However, the guns were undershooting, so the Russian High Command ordered to rivet the guns, blow up the powder magazines and leave the position.

In 1880, after the abolition of the military hospital located inside of the fortress, Yeni-Calais was finally abandoned.

In the second half of the XX century the fortress had a number of restoration works, and Yeni-Calais was given the status of architectural monument protected by state. Today Yeni-Calais is one of the sights of the Crimea.

One can reach it following the sign “Grand Canyon” on the wide road.

The waterfall is really beautiful, even in summer, when there is not so much water and very little trickles of water flowing on the bright green moss, are like silver, especially in sunny weather.

The waterfall is located on the river Sary-Uzen (Yellow River), although in other sources the river is called Chahin-Su. It is the left tributary of the Sary-Uzen.

Presumably, the name is given to the river due to the yellow color of tuff sediments, brought forth by the water from the depths of the mountains.

Above the waterfall, about two hundred meters, there is located a pond Yusupova arranged for breeding of trout by Prince Yusupov, the owner of these places in the past.

Passing through the village Sokolinoye (formerly “Coccosis” – Divine eyes), one can see a hunting house of Yusupov and a mosque, built by him for the villagers.

The water in the lake is usually of the deep-blue color. The water comes from the cave Sary-Koba (Yellow) situated directly at the roadside.

Entrance into the cave is accessible only for speleologists with associated equipment. Here is the source of the Sary-Uzen (Chahin-Su).

The waterfall reminds a musical instrument, especially when viewed in bright sunlight.

Not accidental it is also called silver streams, and it is really beautiful and original.

One can reach the waterfall from the touristic parking of the Grand Canyon, which is up about 900 meters. The road is easy and well equipped for tourists.

A place where now the village of Starosillia (formerly Salachik) is situated, has always attracted people by hidden location, coziness, tranquility and life-giving force of the valley land, availability of water and the protecting rocks from the plateau (in the form of large fish, as if swimming out of the undergrowth of mountain forests), like it is intended to shelter the villagers from uninvited guests.

Cave city Chufut-Calais is located on the plateau of the mountain ridge that dominates over the three deep valleys. Alano-Sarmatians are believed pioneered limestone cliff plateau in the IV century, and founded the fortress city there, later named Chufut-Calais (Jewish fortress).

However, there is another version of the creation of the city, or rather three cave-towns. At the end of the reign of Byzantine Emperor Justinian, around 550 year, Justinian took up the tasks of another type, namely the protection of the access to Khersones.

For this, by order of Emperor Byzantine engineers have developed fortresses Eski-Kerman, Mangup (Mangup-Calais) and Chufut-Calais. Fortresses were built and inhabited by the Alans and Goths. However, these data were not included in the treatise “On the buildings”. Other treatises were not written, and information about these events was identified only by archeology.

For centuries the fortress safely hid the civilian population of the surrounding valleys in the dangerous days of the regular invasions of new wave of militant nomads – the Huns, Magyars, Khazars, Pechenegs Polovechens …

Appreciating the castle and the valley at their true value, the first Crimean Khan Haji Giray arranged his fortified residence in the old part of the city in the middle of the XV century, and at the bottom, in Salachik, he built up a palace.

Constantly living in the palace, Khan could safely hide in a fortress in the dangerous moments of the period of hard struggle for the independence of Crimea from the Golden Horde. From the middle of the XVII century, when Khan left the fortress, the citadel was given to Karaites. This time the fortress gets the name of Calais, and then Chufut-Calais, which in translation from the Tatar language means Jewish fortress.

There was arranged the first printing house in the Crimea in 1731 on the territory of Chufut-Calais. Books were printed there in Hebrew and Karaite languages and were mainly of religious content.
Having received some benefits after including the Crimea into Russia, Karaites left the rocky plateau (the last inhabitants left the Chufut Calais in 1852), where living conditions were harsh, and moved to Bakhchisarai, Simferopol, Evpatoria. The city was deserted…

It is better to start getting to know the city with the east gate, defeating slope to the upper Iosofatova valley. This is a biblical name given in honor of Iosofatova Valley in Jerusalem by the Karaites, the cradle of the Jewish religion. There is seen a large swimming pool carved into the rock to the right from the gate in front of the fortress wall. There people used to collect rainwater for drinking and household needs of livestock.

There used to stay a windmill to the right from the hill. Behind it, on the road, there is an ancient Karaite cemetery hidden in the bushes of mountain forests. Above the rectangular doorway there is fixed a marble slab with roughly carved signs, which meaning is not solved yet. The gates are made of oak and upholstered with the forged iron. The doorway in the tower of the inner side of the bridge is blocked with the semicircular canted ashlar.

After passing the gate, you enter into a new, Karaite part of the city bounded by the eastern and middle defensive walls and impregnable rocky cliffs on the north and the south.
There is one main longitudinal street network in the city. It has adjoining roads from the north of the cross. There is remained a large stone house with a tiled roof on the south side of the main street. Here used to live A.S. Firkovich (1786-1874) until his death, a famous Karaite scholar, traveler, a connoisseur of antiquities, collected many old and Karaite Jewish books, manuscripts and gravestone inscriptions.

Due to a small area of the city and a large population (there used to live up to 4-5 thousand people in the end of the XVI century and there were more than 400 houses in Chufut Calais). The houses were built up almost back to back, mostly two-story, often in basements – with housing upstairs and household space below. The windows looked out into the courtyard, which was enclosed by a high fence with adjacent inside sheds and stalls for livestock. Traces of the former buildings have been partially remained in the ruins of neighborhoods.

The ten-meter wall crossing the plateau was 5 meters thick and had a gate in the middle. It was strengthened on the flanks of the towers and further protected with a cut ditch 4 meters wide and a up to 2 meters deep from the east side of the cliff. The trench was filled with rain and melt water flowing down the stone grooves, and was holding water until the level of bridge, hampering the rolling of battering guns.
At the northern edge of the cliff, where a large ditch was not brought, there was organized a wicket gate in the bend of the wall, carefully camouflaged with two small ditches. One could secretly penetrate through this gate into the small ditch and the cave with the tower, obviously built up over it. From this point the defenders could suddenly strike the precipitating from the flank and fireat the enemies, not allowing them to approach the wall.
There opens a public area of irregular shapes in the old town behind the middle gate.

There is there remained a stone on the cliff to the left side. On the right there is a mosque, erected in 1346 on the ruins of the Christian church, and then far away one can see the mausoleum Nenekedzhan Khanym.from this area take the beginning the three main streets: Burunchakskaya (North), Central and Kenasskaya, with a network of curves alleys between them. Street names are conditional. Name Kenasskoy was given by the two Karaite temples – Big and Small.

These were constructed at different times (in the XIV and XVIII centuries) at the southern precipice, and turned to the street by their entrances. This street leads to the small gate, artfully built up in the South defensive wall, in a zigzag form. The wall was built of rubble stone carefully polished. The gate is not visible from the valley.

Behind the southern wall there are towering cliffs with fighting caves cut into four tiers and interconnected. These caves, which in later times were used for household purposes, but mistakenly believed to be the main housing of the ancient highlanders in the XVIII-XIX centuries, Chufut-Calais was attached by the travellers to the cave cities.

With the background of ruins of the old city throws contrasts well-preserved mausoleum Janicke Khanum. Its monumental size dominates the height of the northern cliff Chufut-Calais. In the massive walls of the portal there are Seljuk niches with round columns and Arabesque semi-dome.

Pylon cornice at the foot arch is decorated with the same arabesques carved with stylized petals. Facial plane pylons are decorated with a border of geometric interlocking cylinders. Portal is put on a high pedestal, surrounded by the cornice.

A stone stairway of seven steps of the arch’s width leads to the entrance, where the bow-shaped aperture is raised to a height of several masonry, forming a high threshold, and is decorated with a rectangular shaped frame with carved inscriptions in Arabic script.

Inside there is a tombstone with an inscription in Arabic: “This tomb of Empress Janicke Khanum, daughter of the Golden Horde Khan Tokhtamysh, who died the month of Ramadan 841 years.” The name of the khan’s daughter is surrounded by legends. According to one of them, a daughter, fleeing from the wrath of her father, who found his daughter with her lover there, threw herself into the abyss. Tha is why she is buried at the cliff …

North Janicke Khanum plateau drops off. Here from a dizzy height there opens a magnificent panorama of the Crimean mountains. In August 1988 there happened a sensational discovery in Chufut-Calais. Despite the lack of the natural outlets of underground water town appeared to have lived hundreds of years.

Drinking water was delivered from a nearby spring. Precipitation was used for the household needs. However, the legends, stories and books it is known that in times of siege, the water was taken from the hidden hydraulic system, details of which were military secrets.

Even when the fortress lost its defensive feature, the Karaites passed this mystery from generation to generation. They were choosing only the devoted people for this purpose. Based on the written and oral sources, cavers began searching. Theoretically, the water had to be found in the way of a geological fault in the area Pendzhere-Isar (“walls with the window”).

The work was focused here. A slight deepening of the growing tree at the edge of it appeared to be the strewn mouth of the well, which was exposed in August 1988. First, the blocks of rock and soil had been removing from the well by hands, and then with the help of mechanisms for 3 years. At the 25-meter depth the cavers found littered with stones side entrance, gently rising up.

Connection between the entrance and the well has formed a large room. On its walls, except for a trace of water once stood here, there are signs of soot, made by Karaite italics, rarely – Latin and Aramaic square script. Topographic mapping showed that the upper end of the gallery is located underneath the bottom of a weakly expressed on the surface holes.

After clearing the hopper it became possible to get into the cave from the opposite eastern end. It turned out that the gallery starts from the basement of the battle tower, which probably belonged to the first line of defense of the city-fortress. Archaeologists did not know about this line earlier. After clearing the cave there appeared a huge 108-meter gallery of up to 2 meters of height and a width of 2,5 meters in front of the explorers.

Selected areas of the body were covered with small stalactites. There were found engraved plan of the cave and human figurines on the walls. The junction of the vertical shaft and galleries have not yet been bottomed the well. At a depth of 27 meters, the well grows, and shows a stone spiral descent, which as far as clearance leads to extensive reservoir at a depth of 40 meters from the surface.

Once the water appeared from the large cracks in the walls of buildings, it was received into one of the baths at first, then through the drain pipe flowed into another stone tank, located just below the inlet well, and from there was taken to use. Now cracks silted, and water are practically not been forthcoming. On the walls of the lower rooms there were found niches for lamps and yet incomprehensible carved on the wall signs.

There are left fragments of the fence at the inner edge of the way. After the clearing of the lower part of the system from the clay and silt, the total depth of the well reached 45 meters (November 2002). Presumably, underground hydraulics could be created by Khazars or the Byzantines at the beginning of our era. This system could also have a religious significance, as well as it could have been a refuge.

This is indicated by the scale of the facilities and folk stories about the Crimean Karaites. When cleaning the area adjacent to the east to the gallery entrance, there was found a treasure in the kitchen ceramic pots at a depth of 40 cm from the surface. According to the preliminary examination carried out by staff of the Crimean branch of the Institute of Archaeology, Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, there were:

- Venetian gold coins – 29 pieces (1425-1430 Gg.)
- Gold dinar of the Egyptian sultans – 1 piece (1425-1430 Gg.)
- Silver coins – 4259 pieces (XIV-XV cc.)
- Coins of the Genoese Crimean engraving of the city Kafa
- Engraved coins “Khan” (Golden Horde’s khan named Uzbek)
- Dzhuchids’ dirhams
- Coin of the Crimean Khanate with the engraving of the city Kirk-Ep (Dzhuft-Calais).

This is the richest treasure of such coins found in the Crimean peninsula, as well as in Eastern Europe and the world at large. The treasure was handed to the Simferopol historic museum.

Symbols:
1. Mausoleum Dzhaanicke Khanym, daughter of Khan Tohtamish.
2. North slope of the plateau.
3. Kenasskaya street.
4. Middle / Srednyaya street.
5. Burunchakskaya street.
6. Complex of household caves. During the attack, they performed a defensive function.
7. It is believed that there was a cave monastery in the period before the Tatars.
8. Small South Gate of the Kucuk-Kapu.
9. Remains of the Khan’s palace, mosque and mint.
10. Small and Big kenasas – Karaites’ houses of worship.
11. South slope of the plateau.
12. Gates of the middle defensive wall – Orta-Kapu.
13. Farmstead of Solomon Baym (Cha-Boryu).
14. Rich mansion with the household caves Chaush-Kobasa (“Chief cave”).
15. Remains of the bath.
16. Big (Eastern) Gate – Bink-Kapu.
17. Double ditch. On the outer ditch the road leads to the valley Ashlama-Dere.
18. Road to the cemetery in the valley of Jehoshaphat.
19. Remains of the base of the palace, built up in 1897 for the reception of members of the imperial family.
20. Living estate of the XIX century, this used to belong to the Karaite historian A. Firkovich.
21. Entrance into the cave, connected with secret well.

In the past, in place of the current Livadia, among dense forests there were only large fields. Hence, many believe, that the name Livadia comes from here, as it is translated from the Greek as “livadion” – “meadow, a lawn”.

Location, where the Livadia is situated, has been inhabited by people long time ago. This is evidenced by the detected near Oreanda (next to Livadia) remains of the settlement – the Copper Age (III millennium BC.), and Taurus, next to which was found a cemetery (I millennium BC.). Remains of a large pottery, which were explored in Livadia, and a medieval settlement with a temple and burial revealed in Oreanda confirm that people lived here in the VIII – X centuries. The ruins of a feudal castle (X – XII centuries) remained in Oreanda on the rock Hachla-Kayasy.

In the XVIII century on place of the current Livadia there was a small Greek settlement Ai-Yang (St. Ioan). In 1778, its inhabitants had been resettled to the Azov province according to the order of the tsar’s government. After the Crimea was annexed to Russia, part of the territory on its southern shore was passed over to the Greeks and divided among the Greeks of the Battalion Balaklava (Crimean Border Guard at that time). Thus, there had lived Greek settlers in Livadia.

At the beginning of the XIX century Livadia was owned by a commander of the Greek Balaklava Battalion, Colonel of Theodosia, Revelioti. In 1834, after laying the highway, which connected Yalta with Simferopol and Sevastopol, he sold Livadia to the Polish magnate Leo Potocki.

Almost 30 years Livadia belonged to the family of Earl Potocki. By the 60th year of the XIX century Livadia was already populated and fully landscaped, representing a typical southern estate. It was located on both sides of the Sevastopol road up to Mount Mogabi. Back in 1834 there were built a large manor-house, household outbuildings, and accommodation for servants by an architect Charles Eshlimann.

In the late 30th there was built a vineyard area by the new owner of Livadia. It was 19 acres (1 acre = 1.09 hectares) in 1860. The production of wine had begun. There was built a wine cellar. In 1848, for example, there were received 2.5 thousand pints of wine, and in 1853 – 4 thousand pints. Then there were built two manor houses, churches, residential and business premises in Livadia. The settlement was piped with the water from sources located within the estate and it was used for domestic purposes and irrigation of plantations.

Under the supervision of the gardener E. Dehlinger there was created a park on 40 acres of land with valuable species of subtropical plants – evergreen myrtles, laurels, cedars, stone pines, magnolias, Crimean pine. Park was decorated with fountains and statues of the Italian masters. They put an orchard and organized a greenhouse. A well-known in the Crimea gardener Dehlinger used all natural features of Livadia, successfully combining the wealth of the natural forest with magnificent exotic plants imported from Asia and America. There were 30 households inhabited by 140 people in 1859 in Livadia.

In early 60-ies, Emperor Alexander II gave instructions to the principality department to keep an eye on a presentable property on the south coast for a summer recovery of the Empress Maria Alexandrovna. Such was the estate “Livadia” belonging to the daughters of L. Potocki, who later in 1860 sold it for 350 thousand rubles. The new tsarist estate took an area of 225 hectares over the southern slopes of the mountain Mogabi. From this moment begins a new period of Livadia’s history…

Livadia Palace is one of the pearls of Crimea. The palace is extraordinarily beautiful. The taste of the majestic customer is seen in its interior – everything is aimed at the external effects and impresses with its wealth, luxury, fancifulness of the decoration work. Here you can see a huge dining room with beautiful mouldings, the lobby of the era of Rome of I century, the cabinet in the style of Jacob, and English billiards. Despite all these luxury the palace looks still comfortable and also a little chamber.

The palace was designed for vacations. However, comfort of all living apartments should have been combined with the monumentality of the palace buildings. This rule made the choice of the architectural style. N. Krasnov himself talked about his creation in this way: designed and made in the style of Italian Renaissance of the piece of Inkerman stone, with all the ornamental parts, cut from the same stone.

The palace building has 116 separate rooms, one large courtyard and three small light courtyards. The large windows, terraces and galleries, balconies, bay windows, towers are typical for the style of the Renaissance, although the size of the building and its component parts are not peculiar for the Italian palaces, but rather typical for the late XIX century style Art Nouveau. At Krasnov were assigned not only to the duties of the designer, but he was also an organizer and leader of all the construction works.

The official laying of the new palace was held on April 23, 1910, on the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna’s Saint’s day. All construction work in accordance with special instructions had been completed in 17 months – September 14, 1911. His first impressions Nicholas II tells to his mother, the widowed Empress Maria Feodorovna:
“We cannot find words to express our joy and pleasure to have such a house built exactly as they wanted. The architect Krasnov is an amazing fellow – just imaging, that only within some 16 months he built up a palace, a large house for the suite and a new kitchen. Moreover, together with our excellent gardener he perfectly arranged and decorated the palace with the garden from all sides of new buildings, thus that this part of Livadia has won. Views are so beautiful from everywhere, especially at Yalta and at the sea. There is so much light in rooms, and you remember how dark it was in the old house …”

Since the palace was built for vacations, there are only fie formal and reception rooms and they retained mainly its original decoration work.
Two courtyards draw people’s attention to their architecture – Arabic and Italian.
The latter is designed in the style of the Florentine palace buildings of the XV-XVI centuries, and surrounded by a large square gallery with carved pillars, couches, the same as that in front of the main entrance, and the floor paved with slabs of marble. The entrance to the patio is closed with the iron handmade by the Ural masters’ gates. The light pattern of the gates and railing go well together with the architecture of the palace, and clouds with the white color sets of the walls and columns.

A small gallery connects the Italian courtyard with a house church in the Byzantine style, built by Monigetti in 1866. Opposite the church there is a tower-belfry and the column made of gray marble. Judging by the content

of the inscription performed in Arabic and Turkish languages, the convoy arrived in Livadia from the Balkans to commemorate the victory of the Russian army over Turkey in the war 1878. Oriental motif of the column echoes with the elegant design of the marble fountain with a bronze ram’s head, from which flows the water, and the inscription on the marble Arabic letters stands for “Livadia”.

At the insistence of members of the royal family there were made some changes into the initial draft of the external decoration of the palace. The sculpture of the chimera shows the original taste of the owner of the palace. The chimera is supposedly capable of frightening away the evil’s spirits and keeping the owners of the house away from troubles. Moreover, here were horseshoes of happiness and many similar objects, which are widely used in the external design. There used 750 pieces of icons in the interior buildings.
One of the masterpieces of the palace is the Holy Cross Church saved during the restructuring of the buildings. When designing a church Monigetti turned to the Byzantine style, which was widely used in similar buildings of the middle and second half of the XIX century. The source of his inspiration was also the Georgian architecture of churches. Graceful like a toy, decorated with wood carvings and stained glass, the church was enrapturing people by its coziness and beauty. During the reconstruction of the church in 1910-1911 years the interior was designed and updated by the artist A. Slavtsev. He is the same author of the picture in the studio of St. Petersburg’s Academy of Arts – mosaic above the door depicting the angel of the Lord.

With the front rooms of the palace is associated a memory about the Crimean (Yalta) conference of the leaders of the three allied anti-Hitler coalition – the USSR, the USA and the UK. The meeting was held at the Livadia Palace, from the 4th to the 11th February 1945. The White ceremonial hall, where there were hold eight plenary sessions, is reconstructed alike the interior of the February days in 1945: a round table, chairs, big chairs for Stalin, Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill.

Crimean Conference was held at the conclusion phase of the Second World War. There had been agreed joint actions of the Allied Powers and their attitude to Germany after its capitulation. The conference outlined the basic principles of the general policy to post-war peace and adopted a Declaration on Liberated Europe, which declared that the establishment of order in Europe must be achieved in a way that enables the liberated peoples to destroy the traces of Nazism and fascism and to create democratic institutions on their own choice.
Issues related to ensuring a long and lasting peace were the focus of the conference. Here, in Livadia, it was decided to convene on April 25, 1945 constituent conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, which prepared the text of the Charter of this organization. It was agreed to support the invitation of the Ukrainian SSR (Soviet Socialist Republic) and the Byelorussian SSR by delegations of the Allied to participate in the UN as the original founding members.

Livadia Palace was the residence of the U.S. delegation during the conference. The main halls of the palace (the former royal waiting room and Grand cabinet) were provided to the delegation of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Interior design and furnishings of apartments have been decorated in accordance with the tastes of the American president.
Roosevelt liked Livadia a lot. He felt great there and in a conversation with Stalin he expressed his jocular wish to buy Livadia. On February 4th the President gave a dinner for Stalin and Winston Churchill. It was prepared by Filipino cooks, but from the Russian food: caviar, sturgeon, beef with noodles, cake, plus coffee and tea, vodka and five varieties of wine.

Among the restrooms for the participants there were former English billiard room and a living room. The English billiard room is reconstructed according to the design of the period of the conference: the long table at which on the 11th February 1945 during the official lunch the heads of delegation – Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill – signed the communiqué “Unity for Peace”, as in the conduction of war. The grand ceremony of signing the documents ended with making pictures in the Italian courtyard. Thus, there was captured a historical moment of the Big Three meeting in the Crimea.

Individual chambers of the royal family were located on the second floor of the palace. Interiors were made in the Art Nouveau style, preserved in the palace, and they have great artistic value and are rich domestic architectural heritage. For interior decoration, N.P. Krasnov used thick glass, which was filling windows sashes on the windows and doors, forged iron, wood, real stone, majolica, ornamented tiles.

The upper cabinet of Nicholas II was decorated in accordance with the representations of the Art Nouveau style of the color of a male cabinet. A large room decorated with panels of stained maple, which the beautifully combines gray-green diorite of the fireplace and bronze ornaments.

“I am delighted with my upper cabinet!” – Said Nikolai II, when he saw it.
There are many original photographs in the office depicting scenes of the royal family stay in the Crimea. Above the fireplace there is the carpet, a present made by the Shah of Persia to tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty. All furniture for the palace is made of the material that was used for decoration and specifically for each room according to the drawings of N.P. Krasnov. The architect aimed to link together stylistically interior decorations, furniture, works of applied art, subordinating all things to one leitmotif.

In the rooms of Alexandra Fyodorovna there was represented a genuine, preserved from those times furniture, which was intended for one of the rooms on the first floor. The room walls are decorated with watercolors of A. Benoit, F. Volkov.
Gentle lyrical landscapes meet the tastes of modern style, as well as paintings inspired by mythological and evangelical subjects – Madonna consoler (1877), Madonna with Angels (1889) W. Bouguereau, Madonna E. Veit et. al.

Working cabinet of the Empress was always decorated with the profile portrait of Nicholas II made by the Odessa photographer Ioffe. There are also photos showing participation in the bazaar of the Empress and the grand princesses in the exposition. In the rooms of the grand princesses these days there are temporary exhibitions. Exposition of the classroom shows their classes in Livadia. Among decorating the room watercolors are the watercolors of the grand princesses’ master N. Krasnov, and next to them there are two works of Tatyana and Olga, representing the picturesque corners of the palace park.

The basis of the park surrounding the palace is a natural Crimean mountain forest.
Picturesquely selected group of exotic plants have been successfully introduced into the nature of Livadia, improving it: blue atlas spruces, sequoia, Canary spruces, pines, magnolias. Behind every turn of the park track there opens a new view.

Sunny glade neighbors with the dense spinney. A group of thickly growing trees is changing to the sea.

Ocean scenic views from the paths of the park make the main charm of this wonderful corner of the coast.

Near the palace the park has a regular appearance. Alleys are framed the neatly trimmed shrubs of the box tree, laurel, thuya.

The originality and peculiar charm comes also from the situated in the park benches and vases, marble tables and fountains, walls with twining wisteria and roses, pavilion.

Immediately after the Livadia Palace begins a 6.5-kilometer Sunny (formerly Imperial) path. It runs across Oreanda and almost reaches Gaspra mansion, where lived L.N. Tolstoy in 1901-1902. The great Russian writer was its pioneer…

Road signs lead to the white rotunda that rises above the sanatorium “Lower Oreanda”, to the Cross mountain and vineyard. Near the sculpture “Friendship”, at the fork, “Sunny path” crosses the lower road and goes past the branch of the Ai-Nikola, rocks White Head and Pressing. Lower from the left there are sanatoriums “Golden Beach”, named after Palmiro Togliatti, “Gornyy” “ Parus”, tourist base “Kichkine”, Swallow’s Nest …

Pictures of nature are changing every minute. Go easy. Breathe freely. The ups and downs are invisible, and walking on this path is not tiring.

“Those who will be in Livadia will walk a lot along its parks and will see the richness of its tropical plants, fountains, flower gardens” – wrote in the Crimean Essays a writer of XIX century Eugene Markov. Follow his advice and come more often to this peculiar corner of the Southern Crimea.

A Russian academician Christian Christianovich Steven is the founder and first director of the Nikita Botanic Gardens. The garden was created in 1812 near the village of Nikita – hence the name.
According to the idea of the founder of the Nikita Garden “Taurian official garden will have a threefold aim:

1) if possible, a complete collection of all plants without exception in this climate, and which might be in any kind useful for the household, or those to decorate the Garden – trees, shrubs and grasses, to learn all different types of external symptoms and the appearance;

2) extraction of seeds and, according to the importance, farming of larger or smaller schools of such plants, which may grow in other Russian territories;

3) cultivation of large plantations of such plants, which grow in a warm climate and thus bring valuable income, and encourage the residents of Tauris and other potential sites for such plantations.”

There are about 30,000 species, varieties and hybrids of plants in the collection of the Nikita Botanic Garden. On its amazing, beautiful, rich and interesting green decorated alleys walk more than 700,000 tourists from all corners of the world annually. The Nikita Garden provides extensive research with 550 institutions from 80 countries worldwide.

Nikita is a big village or a small town, which is situated not far from Yalta. There is a big research center of the Crimean peninsula in Nikita. In 1984 there was created a Research Complex, which is called to deal with the problems of geological environment of Crimea.

Its creation was timed to the XXVII International Geological Congress, since exactly in Crimea there were conducted its research trips. Home for the Center became a beautiful building, which attracts by its uniqueness.

One of the forest areas that make up the Yalta mountain-forest reserve is the Nikita’s mountain pasture. Many of the rivers belonging to the landscapes of Gurzuf originate on its slopes. Here is an amazing air bearing medicinal scents of pine forest.

To the left from the highway there was built a 16-storey building of sanatorium “Ai-Danil” In 1974. There is a national nature reserve “Cape Martyan” from the eastern side, which is directly adjacent to the park resort of the sanatorium.

Nikita’s cleft is situated on the opposite edge of the building of the environmental protection complex. Here nature in all its glory has demonstrated how a big power of the earth can affect the landscape. A gorge impresses by its coldness and gloom. It looks like a trace from a giant sword, which cut the rocks.

If you dare to take a walk here, you will see hanging over your head steep walls, which are of about 25-30 meters of height. You can see the forest growing along the upper edge of the gorge.

Landscape of a 20-meter kingdom, which is ruled by the gloomy rocks, also includes the rocks and chaos, deep cracks in the thickness of limestone, slipped on the hillside.

Here, even in the hottest day of summer, one can feel the breath of cold. The key is somewhat more straightforward than it might seem at first glance. The fact is that due to natural features of these rocks have become kind of battery and capacitor of moisture.

Nikita’s cleft has three exits. All of them are encumbered with the majestic cliffs of pyramidal shape. Here, in the picturesque romantic of cliffs derive their inspiration moviemakers and artists, and climbers test their strength on the steep walls of the gorge.

Upper Park of Nikita Botanical Gardens.

The Central Ensemble of the stall is created together with the administrative building of the Garden to its 125-year anniversary. The centre of the Garden is surrounded by pyramidal cypresses, the Lebanese, Himalayan and Atlas cedars, palms and other eye-catching exotic trees. The buildings are twined with roses, ivy, and wisteria. Not far away there are the buildings of scientific departments and laboratories of the park. In the center of a landscaped lawn there is a bust of the founder of Nikita’s garden C.C. Steven.

Along the carefully decorated walkway of the park there can be found planting plants brought in from all continents of the Earth: a high grove of bamboo, which home is China, next to it there is growing a stone oak – one of the evergreen species, coming from the Mediterranean. This oak is well acclimatized on the south coast of Crimea; it is widely used for landscaping streets of Yalta and other settlements. Here, in the Upper Park, there are huge fir trees, plane trees, and a giant Sequoia (Mammoth tree) from the North America. A garden was planted on the side of the natural forest. That is why very often there can be found some old trees of the local flora – pistachio, fluffy oak, strawberry tree and other trees that are older than the parklands.

Taxus baccata, for example, growing in this part of the garden, can reach the age of up to 500 years, recalling the old local forests. This beautiful conifer is now preserved only in the most remote forest tracts of the Crimean Mountains, where can be found even 1000-year-old specimen.
Upper Park has a beautiful rose garden, where can be found blooming during all the year roses, many of which are created by the breeders of the Garden: Klimentina, Red Poppy, Star’s sister (sort dedicated to Valentina Tereshkova) Bakhchisarai Fountain, and others. Walking down the the alleys of the garden not only the rich collection of plants draw attention, but also to the beautiful landscapes of the Yalta amphitheater, which is visible from the observation deck.

Нижний парк.
This is the oldest part of the Nikita garden, created in the first half of the XIX century. Here you can observe the largest specimens of oaks and cypresses, pines and sycamore. A special attention draws the olive grove, planted more than 170 years ago. This evergreen Mediterranean culture has taken root in the southern Crimea. Olive is drought resistant, low-maintenance and is of great practical interest. There are other heat-loving plants in the Garden: fig tree, medlar, and persimmon. The Montezuma pine is of huge interest here. It was named after the leader of the American Indians – the Aztecs. Particular attention is drawn to the old trees of strawberry (arbutus red), which is registered in the International Red Book. This is the only local representative of deciduous evergreen dendroflora in the European part of the CIS. Its emerald green leaves with purple crust are superb parklands. Strawberry is a long-living plant. There are known its 1000 years old specimens in the forests of the South Coast.

You can see other interesting species in the Lower Park: cork imported from Portugal, macranthon magnolias and banana tree from Japan, the bay tree from the Mediterranean, ginkgo bilobate – “living fossil” from China. There are beautiful flowering shrubs along the walkway: oleander, Bougainville, Judas-tree. Evergreen local shrubs are distinctive here: Crimean ladanik, Pontus butcher, the Crimean ivy. They give the slopes of the park an attractive, elegant look.
The slope is protected by surrounding ridges here in the best way, also the climate is milder here, and therefore there are presented the most heat-loving evergreen plant forms in this part of the Nikita garden.

Seaside Park

They give the slopes of the park an attractive, elegant look.
The slope is protected by surrounding ridges here in the best way, also the climate is milder here, and therefore there are presented the most heat-loving evergreen plant forms in this part of the Nikita garden.

A big variety of palm trees, as well as Cryptomeria, osmanthus, pistachio mastic and hanging Schinus draw attention of the tourists here. Seafront of the park is beautifully framed with Lenkoran acacia plantations and numerous brightly blooming subtropical shrubs.

Park Montedoro.

To the west of the seaside of the Park, closer to Yalta, the park is located on Cape Montedoro, where along with the local species like fluffy oak, tall juniper grows a number of relict exotic conifers: many species of trees here come from all over the world, like Metasequoia with tender, falling pine needles.

Metasequoia used to be considered an extinct species, but was found “in good form” by scientists in China only in 1941. Here you can admire the Pitsunda pine, and also natural plantings which have survived only in the Crimea on the southern coast on Cape Aya (on the west) and on Cape Ai-Fock, as well as in the New World – in the East. Old grove of mammoth trees, planting cypress Mexican, rubber tree and other exotics also surprise their visitors.

Park Montedoro is the youngest in the Nikita Garden. It was created a little bit more than half a century ago, and therefore it is less visited than the other parks of the Nikita Garden.

From the summit of Mount Mithridates in Kerch you can see two gray hills. It is famous Melek-Chesmensky and Tsarskiy (royal) burial mounds. Inside them there are the stone vaults, silent witnesses of Pantikapei’s past glory. Both monuments were built, presumably, in the second half of IV century BC.

Tsarskiy mound is a funerary monument from the 4th century BC, 5 km from Kerch.

It belonged to one of the kings of the Bosporus, most likely to Levkon I (389-349 BC), who made the Bosporus powerful and economically prosperous.

The construction consists of the burial chamber and the corridor. The walls are built of huge limestone squares.

The length of the corridor is 36 m, the corridor vault forms a corridor of 11 rows of slabs, consistently overhanging edges.

Royal mound was opened in 1837. This time in the history of the Kerch Peninsula is known as the “gold rush period”. The excavations were conducted under the direction of Anton Ashyk, the Director of the Kerch Museum of Antiquities.

Contrary to the expectations of archaeologists the mound was empty. The researchers found only the remains of a wooden sarcophagus and a few broken pieces of pottery.

Tomb had been looted during antiquity. However, judging by its size and impressive appearance, there is believed to be buried the representative of the Spartokid dynasty – Bosporan king Levkon I (389-349 BC).

The size of this mound is much bigger than the one of Melek-Chesmensky mound: its height is 17 m, the circumference is 260 m, and the diameter is 80 m.

It has a unique masonry arch – perfectly smooth circles, built of stone slabs. Filmmakers find them supernatural for architecture.

At the king’s burial mound you can also see the lapidary – diverse collection of antiquities: Stella, sarcophaguses, pedestals.

Under the embankment of 17 m height, there is a high stone vault (8.5 m). Currently the mound and the tomb itself are available for sightseeing.

Royal mound is a unique construction that has no analogues among the famous monuments of ancient architecture!
Kerch, town Adzhimushkay
for tours: (06561) 5-47-13
from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
closed: Mondays

Now back to the central ledge of Cape Ai-Todor, the Rock of Aurora. There rises “The Swallow’s Nest”, the smallest castle in Ukraine, which reminds a medieval knight’s castle. Its real history is little known. Probably, this is the reason of existence of many legends, which are twisted and are told by guides with a great pleasure and with more are listed by the tourists, and travelers who admire, exclaim, and looking down with a sinking heart.

In fact, it is even not known, what was the name of the first owner, the person who dared to build up the first villa on this rocky patch. But it is known that there was a retired general, a participant of the Russian-Turkish War (in those times many heroes were granted territories in the Crimea) and he was very romantic, since only a romantic is able to build up such a castle as the Swallow’s Nest.

And who else could make up his mind to such an action and to call it “Castle of Love”? And it remained a mystery what kind of love it was devoted to. In the end, perhaps it was for the Aurora, here general could see the Goddess of Dawn every morning and no one disturbed him except the gulls flying above.

One can see the “Castle of Love” in the paintings of such famous artists as I. K. Aivazovsky, L.F. Lagorio, A.P. Bogolyubov, as well on the pictures of the photographs of that time. By the way, back in those times the Swallow’s Nest was wooden and not very impressive.

The second owner of this wonderful cottage became a court doctor A.K. Tobin. There are also very little information left about him. His property was inherited by his wife, and she sold it to a Moscow merchant woman Rachmanina. Since that time the cottage on a cliff is known as “Swallow’s Nest”. Several decades later, this small rocky patch was bought by a big German oilman Baron von Stengel. He was occupied with the oil in Baku; however he liked to have vacations in the Crimea.

German vision of the “Swallow’s Nest” strongly reminded the medieval castles of the Baron’s homeland. The project was entrusted to the engineer A. Sherwood (son of a famous V.O. Sherwood, designer of the Historical Museum building in Moscow).

Inaccessibility and romantic appeal were combined in this building. Each person visiting the Crimea dreams about just going there and enjoying this beautiful building. This is a place from which a beautiful view at the Sail Rock, at Yalta, at the Yalta’s bay, and at Ayu-Dag (Bear Mountain) is opened. This is a place where romance and adrenaline can be felt simultaneously.

Miniature Gothic castle was built up in 1912. At the outbreak of World War II a sagacious Baron von Stengel sold the facility to the merchant Shelaputin for the restaurant and quickly departed for Germany.

The restaurant did not bring any outstanding revenues: either merchant’s name misled, whether the ferial times came… There happened a quite big earthquake in the Crimea, near Yalta in 1927. The castle itself was barely bothered (only spikes fell into the sea), but the second push with the force of 9 points left a deep crack in a rock under the castle “Swallow’s Nest”. There is evidence that the castle was functioning in the 30-ies as a reading room for the health-resort visitors.

Either the reading public completely concentrated on reading the press did not realize the risk, or the local authorities did not take seriously the consequences of the earthquake, but only after some time it was recognized that the romantic construction is in an emergency state and only then it became forbidden to use the building of “Swallaw’s Nest”, as well as access to the observation platform was closed.

However, the restless tourists, with the risk to life, sometimes leaked through the fence for a rare snapshot or a strong impression. Running few steps forward, I will say that in this way “Swallow’s Nest” stood for 40 years! There were many proposals from technology enthusiasts concerning the necessary reparation. Someone even offered to enumerate all the stones, to analyze the structure and move it to a safer place. But it would have been quite different “Swallow’s Nest”.

It was decided to repair the building only in 1967. It was very risky. The works attended only volunteers, of course: they worked hanging on a rock a cradles, laid the crack of rock with stones and poured concrete. There was brought a concrete slab under the base of the castle and only then the restoration of the building itself had started. Finally, the spikes lost once during the earthquake were restored and the balcony became crowded with tourists making pictures again.

Nowadays again the restaurant welcomes its visitors for a romantic Valentine’s dinner under the stars in a small castle, the castle of love.

Reliable pier below the bay allows the local ferries to moor even in the 4-points storm.

There is a park around the castle, and inside of them there are two very nice resorts: “The Pearl” and “Sail”. However, it is possible to rent a room in the private sector and to enjoy the castle and its surroundings during several days. Numerous souvenir sellers will propose you something to remember the place with pleasure and will tell you a couple of heartbreaking stories of brave individuals who dared to jump from the Swallow’s Nest, but never came to the shore.

They will also remind you the well-known movies: “Amphibian Man” and “Ten Little Black”, some episodes of which are shot here.

Kara-Dag is a very bright evidence of the embodiment of the above mentioned place. The indigenous inhabitants of Taurica were named by the Greeks as Tauri. In their linguistic affiliation they were Indo Aryans and in their language the territory of Taurica was called Calitri, i.e. “Land of Kali” or “dwelling place of the goddess Kali”. What kind of goddess was it that Taurs revered so much that in addition to bringing her as a sacrifice the cattle’s offspring, the first harvest, they even sacrificed people, mostly imprisoned foreigners? You can send the curious reader to the literature of the religious studies, where there is told a lot about bout her. Cali (Indo-Aryan that is the Proto-Indian “black”) is the most formidable of the goddesses of the Hindu pantheon, wife of the god Shiva (Russian et al. Siva). This is the same Shiva, who occasionally sends people the earthquakes and floods, spinning the whole world with his terrible dance. Thus, the Earth periodically scours from the accumulated sins of “the wickedness of man”. Kali is the symbol of destruction that also means a new creation, renewal through getting rid of the old.

Cali comes from darkened with anger face of the goddess Durga (militant hypostasis of the Vedic Virgin). She is always present on the battlefield, where the wounded soldiers die and at the funeral fires. The black skin, terrible and in a necklace of human skulls, she leads the souls of the departed out of their graves in the moonlight nights, tying together being with obscurity. During war, in the din of battle, when people were dying, terrible Cali’s laughter is heard along with the accompanying scream of her hunting dogs, which are the same bloodthirsty and abominable. She kills at a distance and if someone will call her anger, he will not survive. That is why the Greeks called her Hecate (“far-smashing), and were scared of her.

At the largest and highest peak of the Karadagh Mountains there was the sanctuary of this goddess, which was served by a caste of Brahmins priests in the strictest escorts. This mountain is still called the Sacred and this name is indigenous. There are many names like this in the Crimea, and in the lands surrounding the Black Sea. Experts talk about the common linguistic roots in Circumpontic zone in those ancient historical epochs (VII – V thousand years BC, and perhaps much earlier), which subsequently collapsed, but the names remained.

In Europe, for example, until nowadays the whole country is called Montenegro. The name “Black Sea” has the same origin despite the fact that in different historical periods, it had other names. Original name survived and it is inviolable. In the native dialect of the Taurus, it sounds like «Temarunda», i.e. “giving dark watery depths”. The exact literal translation is very difficult. Expert of the Black Sea names Academician O. Trubachev from Moscow significantly specifies the real interpretation: Tem-arun-da is «feeding dark abyss”. How did the name “Black Sea”, “Black Mountains” appear and when is a big question. Trubachev carefully alludes in his writings, that the name “Cimmeria” means nothing more than “Black Sea”.

The city port was called “Caliera” those days. Cali means “black” and “era” means “mountain”. Black Mountain or the Kara-Dag. The sanctuary of the formidable black goddess has disappeared more than thousand years ago. The ancient Greeks gave evidence that on top of the Sacred mountain in their age there was established the cult of the god-healer, a skilled Asklepios – the son of prophetic Apollo. Orpheus himself devoted Asklepios hymns.

The sons of Venice and Genoa, who have never heard about some black goddess-ogress, will they call their own city by her name? It is absolutely impossible. But the fact is there – Venetian port city of the XIV century in Koktebel, which was in the harbor, was called then Caliera. Another mystery is the stories and incomprehensible vitality of Indo-Aryan names with their deep mythos-ritual power, when the people had already died.

The subsequent wave of invaders who destroyed this port city was the Turkish-speaking. The name of Kali-era, they translated into their own language: Kara-Dag. And this name is still used today. Linguists call this phenomenon tracing, i.e. translation of the old names into another language. All this still awaits its researcher. Kara-Dag despite its strong lived-in and a huge literature contains many mysteries that have yet to be discovered. In any case, this part you have known what the real name – “Black Mountain” means.

It has already been said enough about the uniqueness and singularity of the Karadagh Nature Reserve, including its features and characteristics, which do not fit into the generally accepted system of natural areas. It is natural to assume that it affected the animal and vegetable world in some way. Indeed. Wildlife of Kara-Dahg fades out by the range of its performance beyond the accepted norms of the nature, even within the Crimea, which itself is unusual in the structure of its inhabitants. Kara-Dag has its own endemism that is, dwelling on its territory of rare and very rare species of animals and plants, which are not found anywhere else on Earth. One-third of the Crimean endemics are situated on Kara-Dagh.

There are allocated three landscape zones in Kara Dagh:
1) from the sea up to 250-300 m above sea level – the zone of steppes, hornbeam-oak, shrubby woodlands;
2) from 250 m to 400 m above sea level – the zone of forests and fuzzy-oak woodlands;
3) from 300 m to the summit “Sacred” – the Rock-oak zone, forests with fluffy oaks and hornbeams.
Besides there are identified two more micro landscapes: complex of volcanics (Beregovoy, mountain Sacred) and a complex of sedimentary rocks (the rest of the reserve’s territory), and, of course, the marine landscape (water park).

Nature Reserve “Kara-Dag” is one of the major centers of biodiversity in Crimea. There are more than 2400 species of flowering plants (excluding mosses) throughout Crimea. Almost half of these species (47% or 1,170 species) is shown in the Kara Dagh. Only this fact alone tells volumes. The whole flora reserve has 2782 species of plants. Many of the species listed in Red Data Books of different ranks, and 46 species – those most endemic. Here there are such kinds of plants, which refer to local endemics, meaning they live only in the Kara Dagh, and nowhere else. Moreover, except for perennial grasses (Eremurus Junge, campion, Anthemis Transhel, etc.) there is a whole tree reaching 6 m high – Poyarkov’s Hawthorn, with large eatable fruits of bright yellow color.

All plants of Kara-Dagh array are mostly likely to the Eastern Mediterranean type, and slightly more than 10% of the species are the plants from the Ukrainian and Kazakh steppes. Close to endemic group of plants with very limited distribution area is situated along the Black Sea. It is worth a special attention, because it also applies to some groups of animals. These are the Crimean-Caucasian, Crimean-Balkan and Crimean-Asian minor species of animals and plants. All these species are of great scientific interest, together with the relics, that is, species survived from the preglacial period and the past geological epochs.

Kara-Dag was studied by such famous scientists as Gablitz K.I., Peter S. Pallas, geologists AE Fersmann and Pavlov A.P., a leading expert on sea shores Zenkovich V.P. and other prominent researchers; the best specialist of the Black Sea Andrusov N.I., a president of the Geographical community Berg L.S., the most famous Soviet zoogeographer Professor Puzanov I.I., the most prominent Soviet botanist Wolfe E.F. and many others. It is impossible to enumerate all.

For a long time there has been a lasting dispute in the scientific world: is the Kara-Dag mountain with all the Crimea, so sharply different from the steppes of the peninsula, maybe the last remnants of the Black Sea Atlantis – Pontida that once linking the Crimea with the Turkish Black Sea coast? Too much data has been accumulated in favor of this bold assumption. This could be in the Pliocene (i.e. 1-2 million years ago).
And Pontida was linked with the Balkans and the Caucasus territories. Otherwise how else could get accustomed here so well for a long time plants’ and animals’ species found nowhere else and originally coming from the Caucasus, the Balkans, Minor Asia and the Crimea at the same time! Professor Rubtsov N.I. even thinks that nothing else is possible to suppose.

Remarkable Kara-Dagh (and Crimean in general) orchid flowers with their unique buttonholes coincide in all their characteristics with Caucasian, Balkan and Minor Asia flowers. The same is with the large blue-violet Crimean carabus, which is closely related carabus inhabiting the Balkans. Crimean lizard and gecko have very close “relatives” in the Caucasus and the Balkans. Dragonflies of the Crimea are close to the dragonflies from Minor Asia. The fauna of Crimea has many Mediterranean species: leopard colubrid, horseshoe, cicadas, mantises, etc. All of these animals and plants are well “packed” in Kara-Dagh and remain inviolable for millions of years now. “Thus, – states Rubtsov – eventually there is revealed a very large group of species with ranges completely or partially surrounding the Black Sea, and uniting in this way the countries, which are now separated by the sea”. Member korrespendent of the Science Academy of the USSR, a famous expert on the Black Sea biogeology Muratov M.V. in this way explains why in Crimea in general (and in Kara-Dagh in particular) survived a part of the Mediterranean and the Caucasian fauna and flora.

Therefore, protection of such a corner and its heritage cannot be overemphasized. Such rare herbaceous plants like Fisher’s fenugreek and lenticular vetch, Schober’s shrub nitraria after some time can only be seen on Kara-Dagh, or next to it territories. This list, unfortunately, is replenished easily and rapidly. For example, juniper trees are cut down mercilessly and soon this valuable relic of the wood will remain only in the reserves.

Kara-Dagh plant world is not yet fully studied; there is no single book on plants of Kara-Dagh. Once in high school (in the Soviet Union times) on the lessons of botany, pupils were told that the real grass steppes remained only in one Ukrainian reserve: “Askania Nova”. Some of the Crimean reference books there was seen evidence that there were found 7 species of feather grass in Crimea. But at the Kara-Dagh this typical inhabitant of the steppes, all of which had long been made in the Red Book, noted as much 8 species! These kinds of surprises are often seen in Kara-Dagh.
If we talk about the animal world of Kara-Dag separately, then the number of species there is not rich. The vertebrates’ world there is poor. Number of species of mammals barely reaches 35, typical inhabitants of the mountains and forests, such as weasels and moles, which are widespread everywhere, here are not present at all. However there are very widespread the inhabitants of the Balkans, the Caucasus and Minor Asia. There exist endemic forms of fox, badger and wild mice. But the most interesting and important feature of the Kara-Dagh fauna is its composition. In a limited area here are present species typical for the forest, steppe, rocky-shore and coastal seascapes.

There are even semi-desert inhabitants, and once there was caught a bog turtle, although, according to zoologists, it is absolutely nonsense. There are no conditions for the habitat of this species. However it occurs. Overall, together there are recorded 12 species of amphibians (amphibia) and reptiles. Birds were more fortunate, there are found more than 200 species, though not all of them nest here.

There are only 300 species of birds in Crimea, while in Ukraine there are 400 of them. There can be found 105-107 species of fish in Kara-Dagh waters – more than half of all fish species of the Black Sea. Comments on these figures are unnecessary; they speak for themselves, especially in light of the foregoing. Well, about the invertebrates it will be mentioned very briefly. Their army was huge and omnipresent, especially insects. Only in Kara Dagh alone the rare butterflies from the Red Book are more than 20 species. It is difficult to specify this figure. In total, Kara-Dagh fauna officially has 3816 species and 125 of them are in the Red Book.

A very interesting statistic comes from a study of Rhopalocera Lepidoptera (i.e. butterflies), which are known to live anywhere and they are always a lot of them. Throughout Crimea onecan see 73 families of butterflies’ representatives. Thus, on Kara-Dagh there are 72 families (!). This is more than 90%. That is, while in the Kara-Dagh area, you can get acquainted with almost all families of Lepidoptera of the Crimean peninsula.

Yet, the emphasis is made again on the main feature of the wildlife in the Kara-Dagh Reserve: safeguarding of the rare flora and fauna, which in other places have not survived, and some were originally only here.
Only Kara-Dagh mountain group has a unique variety of Pontian wheatgrass, Scutellaria Oriental, Crimean lemon. There lives a rare stone marten or belodushka, so named because of the white spots on the neck, unlike the European marten, which is yellow. There is nesting a Peregrine Falcon at Kara-Dagh, stunning in its beauty and agility bird whose nests’ number in Crimea is smaller than the number of fingers on one human’s hand. Clearly, the diverse role of this fortunately protected area will only increase.