BEAUTY OF CRIMEA

 photo by Benkovskaia Lidiia

As if hovering between the sky and the sea, there is an amazing castle built in the Gothic style – the Swallow’s Nest. It has long become the most famous and most recognizable landmark of Crimea! It was built on the order of the German oil industrialist P. Steingel, who loved to relax in the Crimea – it was at his request that the castle acquired features of the Gothic style. A tall tower with sharp spires, battlements, lancet windows and doorways – everything here really resembles a medieval knight’s castle.

 «Koyashsky Lake»

photo by Daria Gogoleva

The unique natural attraction of the Kerch Peninsula is Koyashsky Lake. The pond is distinguished by an amazing colour of water, changing depending on the time of year from pale pink to saturated red.  Koyash – translated by SUN. A huge Salt Lake in which salinity reaches 350 grams of salt per 1 litre of water!

«Ai-Petri» Mountain

photo by Ekaterina Podarueva

The name Ai-Petri from Greek language translates as “St. Peter”. There are three versions of why the mountain bears such a name. The first in honour of the brave warrior Peter who saved people from the King of the Winds. Another legend tells of a couple in love who wanted to get married, but their parents were against their marriage. Then the guy and the girl decided that it was better to die together than to live separately with each other, and they decided to throw themselves off the mountain. Having overcome the difficult path uphill, they came to a rocky cliff. But it was so narrow that only one person could approach the cliff. The young guy Peter, first rushed down and crashed, and the girl, seeing a bloodied youth below, cried out “Ay Peter”. The more official version says that the mountain has such a name, thanks to the monastery of St. Peter, which was here in the Middle Ages and today is not preserved.

«Ghost Valley» (Demerdzhi)

photo by Daria Gogoleva

 A cluster of bizarre cliffs on the western slope of the Demerdzhi massif. In Crimea, only there you can observe the natural phenomenon of the Broken ghost. With their forms, stone figures resemble the figures of people, animals, mysterious creatures, objects, and, depending on the time of day and lighting, their images change, giving observers the basis for imagination. A series of legends is associated with the Valley of Ghosts. According to one of them, long ago, the nomads who conquered the Crimea established a huge forge on the top of the Demerdzhi Mountain. There forged weapons to capture new lands and worked many slaves. The heat from this forge was supposedly so strong that gardens, streams and springs dried up from it. The young girl went up to the forge and began to ask the evil blacksmith-overseer to leave the mountain. The blacksmith killed the girl. After that, the mountain trembled and all the conquering villains turned to stones. The girl was also petrified. The rock with its profile can now be seen in the Valley of Ghosts.