Crimea X: Yalta

The actual city of Yalta lies in beautiful surroundings, completely surrounded by tall mountains which seemed veiled in an almost perpetual cover of clouds. Around the city are forests, with thick, almost impenetrable greenery and of course the vast Black Sea to the south.

The city has remnants of former grandeur, and is a mix of crumbling communist era concrete blocks and old, stately pre WW1-buildings. A few modern buildings have also cropped up, mainly housing western brand stores. A walk around town is recommended, you'll find everything from casinos and restaurants to tiny stalls selling anything from guided tours to cigarettes.

One more thing you have to know before coming to Yalta: The mild climate here makes it quite easy for cats and dogs to survive through the winter, and there are lots of them. You cannot walk through the city center of any major, Crimean town without seeing packs of dogs or several "wild" cats, and Yalta is by far the worst. However this is not as dangerous as it may sound - the dogs are not as wild as in, say, Romania, and the cats are not as aggressive and untamed as in, say, Rome.

The first day we had breakfast at McDonalds I was sitting outside, stuffing face when this purdy lil German Shepherd-looking dog came up to me. I naturally assumed some other guests owned it, and ever happy to make a new acquaintance I shared some food with it, and petted it. It seemed quite happy to be touched and eventually it lay down behind my chair and went to sleep. Imagine my surprise when my Ukrainian friends told me it was homeless and ownerless.

I started to look around the square and saw several other dogs sleeping or playing or begging for food, none of them aggressive in any way, they were just there. All the time. I noticed the same thing in Sevastopol and Bakhchysaray, dogs and cats all over the place. It seems like the Crimean authorities tolerate them as long as they're not a menace, and they all seemed reasonably well fed.

All Yalta pics here.


My first pics from Yalta - mountains in the sun, with clouds creeping down the mountainside. Mighty purdy.


I could wake up to this view for the rest of my life.


The girls on the rocky beach of Yalta.


Scenes from the harbor...






Lenin is still standing in the square right up from the harbor.


A wild dog. Doesn't exactly look ferocious, does it?


These two were "behind bars" in a courtyard so they probably weren't ownerless... yet.