Crimea IX: Bakhchysaray

On Wednesday, after the girls had gone home to Kiev, I went north to the town of Bakhchysaray, all on my own sweet self, to see the Khan's Palace. I first went over the Ay Petri mountain and then down on the other side, The ride was a very pleasant one, through leafy hillsides. The road wasn't too bad, but a bit narrow in places.

I passed several monuments related to WW2 and also some caves. There's an area not far from the Khan's Palace called Khufut-Cale, with lots of formerly inhabited caves, but I didn't go there. Also not visited was the Uspensky cave monastery. I blame my legs, which had begun to ache as soon as I looked at anything but level walking. Argh.

Bakhchysaray used to be the capital of Tatar Crimea, where the descendants of the Mongols who took the peninsula in 1239 held sway until til Katharina the Great kicked their asses in 1783. In the meantime they'd gone ahead and converted to muslims, making Islam their state religion as early as 1313. Ugh.

Anyway I spent a couple of interesting hours at the palace before having the second slowest service of my time in the Crimea by eating at the Pushkin restaurant, which my Lonely Planet guide mentions as the finest in town, to which I can only reply "poor fuckers". The food was so-so, it took ages to get served and the guy who took my order and then brought the food was a sweaty youngster, with greasy hair who spoke appalling English. I wish I'd had the guts to frequent one of the Tatar eating places instead. By the way - the Lonely Planet guide to Crimea is not a very good one, it is deliberately vague and unhelpful in places and not up to "usual standards".

All Bakhchysaray pics here.

One of the caves I saw along the way to Bakhchysaray.


One of the numerous war memorials. These can be found just about anywhere in the Crimea.


This little fella was snoring his heart out inside the palace. Not sure if he was one of the ownerless dogs that you can see all over the Crimea, but he had perfected the art of sleeping while people were making noises all round him.


A minaret, looking for all the world like a huge dildo penetrating the sky. Sweet Jebus how I hate Islam. And Christianity. And Buddhism. And Hinduism. You get the point.


The Fountain of Tears, with a bust of Alexander Pushkin beside it. His famous poem helped save the fountain. The story goes that the Khan fell in love with a harem girl and became inconsolable when she rejected him and then died (there are variations of the legend).


There's always a white and a red rose at the fountain, the white for pain and the red for love. Awwwwww.


The Grand Hall, where the Khan would receive visitors. It's good to be the king.


Nice summer lounge.


From the harem.