The museums in Yalta are not numerous but they are very interesting.

One of them is Chekhov’s Museum, it is the house where the great Russian writer lived. Chekhov acquired a plot of land in Yalta in 1898. Chekhov’s house was built according to a project of Russian architect Leonid Shapovalov. It was a house with its mezzanine and side wing.Anton Pavlovich Chekhov lived and worked in this house from 1899 to 1904. He made a good plan for the garden around his house and he planted a lot of trees, bushes, flowers in his garden. There was a silence-corner with the small bench surrounded by lilac bushes and the stream with a small brige over it in Chekhov’s garden. As far as he fond of fishing and he planted bamboo for the fish-rod at the stream in his garden.

Anton Chekhov is “the Pushkin of prose”, spent his last years in Yalta. He worked a lot in his Yalta-house, here were written such a famous works as his story «Lady with Lapdog», the play «Three Sisters» and «The Cherry Orchard», the «Short story in the Ravine», the Stories «A New Summer Home», «The Bride».

When Chekhov was unwell, he worked in his bedroom, the living room also served as the dining room. Chekhov read his plays to the actors of Moscow Art theatre who visited him in Yalta.  

  The famous Russian writers Lev Tolstoy, Ivan Bunin, Maksim Gorky, Alexander Kuprin, Vladimir Korolenko, artist Isaak Levitan, the famouse Russian singer Feodor Chaliapin sang and Sergey Rachmaninov and Peter Chaykovskiy played the piano in Chekhov’s house.

Each year many tourists visit the Chekhov Museum. They come here to pay tribute to the writer and to get a feeling for the atmosphere surrounded Anton Chekhov. It’s very interesting to see the environment in which Chekhov lived during the last years of his life. (далее…)

There is a distinctive open-air museum — Glade of Fairy-Tales (“Polyana Skazok”) in Yalta. It was founded by folk artists Pavel Pavlovich Bezrukov in 1960 . The Glade of Fairy-Tales is situated at the foot of Stavry-Kaya cliff (“Cross cliff”) on the right bank of the Vodopadnaya Stream (“Waterfall stream”). There is a wonderful collection of wooden sculptures on fairy-tale theames.

It is an open air museum with a collection of 300 wooden sculptures, the personages of the popular Russian and Ukrainian fairy-tales, Crimean and Greek legends, many beloved cartoons heroes. They were made by 56 professional artists and skilled craftsmen from Yalta, Simferopol, Kiev, Moscow, Pervouralsk (Russia), Vilnus (Litvenia), Erevan (Armenia).  

You can see fantastical fairy-tale characters transformed from old stumps, logs or roots.

At the entrance thirty mighty heroes stand on guard defending the rest of the inhabitants of the glade.

A hut on the hen’s feet, a mermaid and a wood sprite, Ivan Tsarevich and the Grey Wolf, the Fire-bird, Baba-Yaga and Kashchey Immortal — these are the figures from Slavic fairy tales which you will meet in the Glade.

Lesoviki — little wood dwarfs — are under the branches of a Crimean oak whispering something to each other. They look funny and amusing! The cracked stump of an old horn-beam tree, gnarled roots and moss helped to make the head of a fairy-tale giant. What a funny Hedgehogs! They look as if they have been made of a whole piece of wood occasionally found in the forest. Listen to them and you will hear a lot of their secrets. (далее…)

Simeiz (“Sign”) is located by the southern slopes of the main range of Crimean Mountains at the base of Mount Koshka, 18 kilometers (12 miles) west from Yalta.

There are prehistoric dolmens nearby; Simeiz (“Sign”) lies in the locality where at one time there were Tauri settlements and fortifications.

Their remains are to be found on the mount Koshka (“Cat-mount”)-it is the shape of the mountain resembles a sitting cat.

The height is 254 metres. On the mountain’s western slope lies the biggest Tauri necropolis on the Southern coast.

In the Middle Ages the area was under the control of the Byzantine Empire, which built a fortified monastery in the vicinity .

As the Byzantine power weakened, the area fell under the control of Genoa, which in its turn gave way to the Ottoman Empire; under the Ottomans the village was ruled from Mangup.

By 1778, with the departure of the Christian population, the village was depopulated.

The ruins of a monastery and fortified walls which stands on the seashore are seen near the Sail – Rock.

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Oreanda.

If you walk from Livadia palace along the «Sunny path” (former «Tsar’s path»)

a haif- rofunda. Below stretches a very old park in the midst of which lies the cluster of buildings of the Nizhnyaya Oreanda Sanatorium.

In the 1820s the Romanovs acquired Oreanda (“Border”) and in 1852 a luxurious palace was built here for the Grand Duke Constantine. But the palace was burnt down in 1882.

The park was laid out while the palace was being built; the contours of its small ponds reproduce

the outlines of the Sea of Azov, the Black, the Caspian and the Aral Seas.

On the elevation to the left of the sanatorium stands a grey church, which was built from the stones of the burnt down palace. This church is mentioned in Chekhov’s story «The Lady with the Dog».

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The first written reference to Alupka dates back to the year 960 A.D. The name is supposed to derive from the Greek word «alepu» which means «a fox». The settlement is situated on the mountainous terrain and is unplanned. Homes were built along the mountain paths, which now are the streets. (далее…)