Crimean Photos

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PHOTOS FROM THE CRIMEA

SUMMER, 2006

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This is downtown Simferopol on a hot August afternoon.	Not much going on here today.	This is the Khan's palace in Bahcesaray. As you will see in other photos, the landscape around Bahcesaray is quite interesting.



This was taken from inside the courtyard of the Khan's palace.	A fountain on the second floor inside the building from the previous photograph.	Me in front of one of the palace's entryways.



A sitting room inside the palace.	Another small building on the palace grounds.	A view of the courtyard from inside one of the buildings.



Outside the palace walls	Mountains and caves outside Bahcesaray	More of the same



The Uspensky cave monastery, outside Bahcesaray. It is built into the mountain, and the inside of the church consists of several caves.	This was taken as we walked up the footpath to still more caves.	More cliffs



This was taken at the top of the footpath, which went all the way up to a series of caves located about a half mile beyond the cliffs in the previous photo.	This was shot from the mouth of one of the caves.	Somewhere, Sevastopol is supposed to be in the distance.



Another shot from on high.		In front of the port at Sevastopol



Sunset from Sevastopol. This is the background photo for this website's homepage.	Sevastopol in the afternoon



Yalta! This shot was taken from a boat taking us on an excursion to another point on the peninsula.	This is pretty much the same shot	A bit further away



The "Swallow's Nest," an overcrowded tourist trap near Yalta. Nice to see from afar, though.	On the jetty around Yalta.	The islet from the previous photograph is in the background, to my left.



		Alupka Palace, which was owned by M.S. Vorontsov, viceroy of the Caucasus



A shot from the palace's gardens.	Again, from Alupka	A path takes you down from the gardens to the seaside.



Shot of the landscape with my back to the sea.	Taken from the sea on the jetty back to Yalta.	Ditto



This shot was taken from the hotel balcony.	Good times in Yalta	One of my favorite Lenin statues anywhere, located in a very pretty setting.



A crowded sea in Sudak, on the southeast coast of Crimea	And an even more crowded beach.	View of the sea from outside Sudak. 'Sudak' is the name of a type of fish, but I was told this city got its name from the Crimean Tatar words "Su" ('water') and "dag" ('mountain').

At the time of the Russian conquest in 1783, Crimean Tatars made up almost the entire population of the region. After numerous waves of emigration and deportation, they today constitute only ten percent of Crimea.

From Sudak we took a little boat to a slightly less overcrowded beach. The trips there and back were gorgeous.

Crimean Tatars were deported en masse in the 1940s. They were finally allowed to come back just as the USSR was breaking up.

Often giving up everything they own, many Tatars have returned to the Crimea over the past twenty years. Indeed, as I write about in an article on Tatar migrations in the 19th century, this has been a recurring feature in their history.

The Genoese fortress in Sudak. Where did the Genoese not go?



Genoese horse	More from the fortress	From inside the fortress



Fortress and sea	Take me back to Simferopol!	Back home in Simferopol--and not much has changed.

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