Yalta Off The Beaten Path

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5 jeeps, 15 cruise-ship passengers, 2 guides and 5 drivers plus one very high mountain!
It's called the Valley of the Ghosts due to the unusual rock shapes but don't get too excited by this! It is really called Mount Demerdzhi.
They pointed to the top and we gasped a 'No way!' but we did it ---the fun way!
Up gulleys, across mud-pools, over grasslands, along deep ruts, across streams ---but we made it to the top.
What a view! Wow!Yes, there were easier ways up but we had chosen to travel by 4WD because we wouldn't do this sort of thing in leafy Kent, UK.
The wildlife: lots of grasshoppers, butterflies, lizards and birds of prey.
Would I do it again? YES!
Oh, the cost from a cruise ship...mmm...$189 each! Oops! I'd still do it again, though!

Walking by the central part of Yalta later 27 years after last visiting I caught myself on an idea that Yalta reminds me French Nice, Italian Rimini and Spanish Alicante.

To see old Yalta it is necessary to turn from the Quay into lanes. It is still possible to see there fine samples of south-Russian seaside architecture which you will not see anywhere.

Certainly, there are many shabby buildings. But they transfer special aroma of a resort city not spoiled by global changes of modern masscult.

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The beacon in Yalta specifies the pass to the bay.

In 1920 the destroyer entered into the Yalta bay with revolutionary sailors from Sevastopol'. Sailors had basically anarchist belief. The city defenselessly was gauging in waiting for a revolution. Sailors put ashore, plundered shops on the quay and proclaimed the Soviet authority. The Soviets has held on more than 80 years.

Now near the beacon the ancient gun is established. It reminds of other more heroic times of Yalta when in the middle of the XIX century the city resisted to invasion of Turkish, French and English armies.

There are a lot of buildings of various architecture in Yalta. My attention was attracted by a building of the Tower with Clock.

It is well visible at rise and descent from the Darsan hill on the rope road. Gothic character of the building is unusual to Russian and Ukrainian cities.

Below the Polikurovsky hill there passes narrow, curve, but very much amusing Drazhinsky street (former Massandrovskaya) - the basic highway connecting the center of Yalta with Massandra Park and the huge hotel complex.

Then it conducts on the so-called bottom highway to natural boundary Magarach and Nikitsky garden.

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The Gastronom building (in the past Trading lines) is situated opposite to the harbor. It was built by architect Krasnov for wine producer N.D.Staheev. Cafe-restaurant and musical pavilion were arranged on a roof of trading lines. Restaurant "Sochi" - was made after the Great Domestic war.

Now the building is occupied, as before, with restaurants and expensive shops.

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The Catholic Church at small river Wuchang-Su was constructed in 1914 under the project of architects Komornitsky and Krasnov.
There were temples of other faiths - the Karaim's Kenassa and the Synagogue in Yalta. The building of Kenassa was constructed in the end of the XIX century (Ignatenko street, 4). The joint-stock bank is now placed in the Kenassa, and a bath and a sauna are arranged in the synagogue (Sverdlov Street).

The plane tree of Isadora allocates with the huge spherical crone. It is not less than 500 years old - the well-known American ballerina Isadora Duncan appointed meetings to poet Sergey Yesenin under this majestic tree.

Unfortunately the plane tree looks not so picturesquely on my picture because of the winter season. However its historical and cultural value I hope can be appreciated despite of the lack of foliage!