6 most BEAUTIFUL palaces of Crimea (PHOTOS)
All the nobility of the Russian Empire, including the tsar's family, liked to spend their holidays on the southern Russian peninsula. Many prominent families built summer residences there. Below are the most luxurious ones that have survived to this day.
1. Livadia Palace, Yalta
Emperor Alexander II was the first to develop the picturesque Livadia area on the southern coast of Crimea. In 1861, he bought an estate there and built the Grand Palace as a gift to his wife. Later, several more Livadia palaces were built for his heirs. But, only one, the last one, has survived to our days. It was built by the personal order of Nicholas II in 1910. Livadia was the favorite place of the last emperor and he would visit it with his family once or twice a year.
The Livadia palace was built in the style of Italian Renaissance villas. It has a courtyard, open galleries, tracery balconies and carved decoration. White Inkerman stone, which is mined in the Crimea, was used in the construction.
The Yalta Conference was held in Livadia in 1945 and the palace was used as a residence for U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and the American delegation. Today, it houses a museum.
You can read more about the Livadia Palace here.
2. Massandra Palace
Massandra is an area on the southern coast of Crimea, famous for its vineyards and beautiful scenery.
Semyon Vorontsov, son of the Crimean Governor-General, began the construction of the palace in the spirit of a French chateau. But, it was only completed by Alexander III and then Nicholas II. The latter did it in memory of his father, who did not manage to complete the construction before his death. Subsequently, Nicholas' family only visited for short walks and never even stayed overnight, because they preferred the neighboring Livadia.
During the Soviet era, the palace became a summer dacha for Joseph Stalin and then other Soviet general secretaries; now, it also houses a museum.
3. Swallow's Nest
One of the most recognizable sights of Crimea is a pseudo-Gothic castle on a steep 40-meter cliff in the Crimean village of Gaspra.
The small building on this site was erected in 1889 by Adalbert Tobin, a doctor who served in the imperial hospital nearby in Livadia. Almost immediately, the authors of guidebooks on Crimea dubbed it “Swallow's Nest”.
It acquired its present form in 1912 under a new owner, a Moscow merchant named Sergei Rakhmanov.
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the building was abandoned; later, it was used as a reading room of a sanatorium, then as a restaurant. Today, the castle has been restored and a museum has been set up inside.
4. Yusupov Palace, Koreiz
Prince Felix Yusupov, a representative of one of the richest families of the Russian Empire, built this luxurious palace near Yalta in 1909.
Its architectural appearance is eclectic, dominated by the then fashionable Neo-Mauritanian style.
The aristocrat Yusupovs liked to visit this palace and admire the southern coast of the Crimea. It’s also where the engagement of Felix Yusupov Jr. (the same one who took part in the murder of Rasputin) with his future wife Irina, niece of the Emperor, took place.
It was Koreiz that the noble family left St. Petersburg for, which was engulfed by the revolution and, from there, they emigrated permanently.
During the Soviet era, high-ranking party officials would spend vacations in the palace. Now, it is a part of the presidential administration.
Read more here.
5. Vorontsov Palace, Alupka
The first owner of the palace was Count Mikhail Vorontsov, the Governor-General of the Novorossiya Governorate (in actual fact, the whole south of the Russian Empire). Being a great Anglophile, he ordered the project of his summer residence to be designed by British architect Edward Blore, who participated in the construction of Buckingham Palace.
The palace in Alupka took almost 20 years to build. Its architectural appearance combines different styles and eras: from one angle, it is an English medieval castle, from another – a Moorish palace with turrets resembling minarets. By the way, the building is made of an unusual local stone diabase.
The interiors of the mid-19th century have been preserved unchanged and now the palace is also a museum.
Read more here.
6. Khan's Palace, Bakhchisaray
The most unusual palace of Crimea, reminding visitors of the rich history of the peninsula.
Khan-Saray, literally translated as ‘Khan's Palace’, was built in the middle of the 16th century by the Crimean Khan Sahib I Giray. The former residence of Crimean khans is the only monument of Crimean Tatar architecture that has survived to this day.
At that time, the Crimean Khanate was subordinate to the Ottoman Empire and the palace was the center of political life, with the most important issues being solved there.
When, in 1736, during the Russo-Turkish war, Russian troops took Bakhchisaray, the palace almost burned to the ground. But, it was restored and, later, Catherine the Great and other Russian tsars visited Sarai and even stayed there.
Today, the palace houses the Museum of History and Culture of Crimean Tatars.
Read more here.
