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.