Crimea II: Balaklava

One of the reasons I wanted to go to Crimea was its history, not least the Crimean War (1853-56). Balaklava was famous as the place the British fleet used as its main landing ground for troops and equipment, and nearby had been the Battle of Balaklava, where the tragic Charge of the Light Brigade had happened (more about this later).

So Sunday we set out for Balaklava, which today is a suburb of Sevastopol, in the southwest corner of the peninsula. After a breakfast at McDonalds (the only reasonably safe place to dine in Yalta) we set off. Still not quite sure of the speed limits in the Ukraine, I probably drove way too slow, doing 60 kph in a lot of areas where the limit was 90.

The town itself, once we reached it, wasn't much. The whole place has a look and a feeling of something unfinished about it, as if they've just started building restaurants and hotels and the construction workers are off for lunch or something. The place clearly has a thriving tourist industry however. There were people all along the city's main promenade hawking trips (I assume) and touristy stuff and even the parking attendant spoke English (quite a surprise, even to my Ukrainian friends). There were lots of cafes too, along the quay.

We settled down for a quick lunch at one of the outdoors cafes, with a tent above our heads to shelter us from the cold breeze coming in from the sea. No wonder that this is the place that gave name to the wollen cap called balaklava, it was freezing at times.

We then went to the main attraction of the town, at least for me - an old Soviet submarine base, decommissioned in the 90s, which had subsequently been turned into a museum. We walked around for close to two hours, my friend Nata, bless her soul, translating in a whisper most of the time. I know about 20 words in Russian, and none of them have to do with submarines...

You can see all the Balaklava pics here.

Masha stuffing face with Crimean honey.


What passes for a Napoleon cake in Crimea. Meh.


Colorful and nicelooking buildings along the quay.


Painting outside the submarine museum.


A model of a submarine at the edge of one of the actual docks they used, way the fuck inside the mountain. Glad to see it wasn't just us that were worried about getting a nuke down our chimney.


You don't wanna be on the wrong end of this when it's loaded.


Nor this one...


The exit. The whole area was camouflaged so as to avoid, among other things, the American U2-flights.


One of the three Genoan towers around Balaklava. The town was known as Cembalo until the Turks took it in 1475. Balaklava means "a fish nest" in Turkish.