Note: I've posted more photos of the Crimea at kwilhelm.smugmug.com.
Yalta fills two river valleys and climbs up a steep cliff side. The bus station is at the top of the cliff. My hotel, the Otdykh, was at the bottom. I took a taxi. Since the Hotel Otdykh doesn't have a web site in any language, I had once again booked through Phil Baker at blacksea-crimea.com, and he had emailed me the necessary hotel vouchers in exchange for a Pay Pal payment.
Close to the beach, but a little way from the main waterfront action, the Otdykh proved to be a fine budget choice, with a helpful and friendly staff, including one who spoke good English. As in Balaklava, my room (Class A) was big, but also came with high ceilings and huge windows overlooking the sea. Alas, the sheer drapes offered no hindrance to the sun, and I woke very early each morning. And the first night I discovered that the double bed was really two singles, and that the sheets reached only to the top edge of the mattresses - I remade it as one single.
My first afternoon I limped past an unusual Orthodox church, topped by a spire rather than a dome, and some tired looking boats, towards the main drag. In Lenin Square, near the outlet of the Bystra river, a McDonalds confronted one of the few remaining statues of the communist leader across a broad open space. While plenty of tourists strolled pedestrian naberezhna Lenina along the waterfront, passing stalls selling souvenirs and advertising tours, the many cafes and restaurants were mostly empty. Avoiding those offering loud music, I settled in for a late lunch at an Armenian restaurant where the tables were shaded by bushy, old, pine trees.
After enjoying chicken, chopped, breaded, rolled round dill and butter and fried, along with fried cauliflower and potatoes, I continued my walk until I reached the park at the end of the promenade, passing a couple of fanciful ships doing duty as restaurants. Here I found a statue of Maxim Gorky, looking a little more dramatic, but just as dour, as Lenin.
Deciding against a no doubt pricey coffee at the town's poshest hotel, the Oreanda, I headed inland for a quick visit to the dark cathedral - I had forgotten my headscarf - followed by a lengthy search for an Internet cafe. Those listed in my guidebook were long defunct, and I had to ask several people before I tracked one down above the cinema. As local teenagers occupied all the many terminals, mostly playing video games, I waited a while on a worn sofa before I was able to check some details for my next destination.
On the way back to the Otdykh, I stopped for a reasonably priced coffee at the Hotel Bristol, and after checking out their menu, decided it would be a good place for dinner. I had a hard time choosing between the red caviar and the smoked salmon for my first course, and wound up eating most of my meals there. I might be tempted to stay at the Bristol another time. The room would be twice the price of the Otdykh, but the food was good value, and the hotel was closer to the center of town. Closeness to the beach turned out to be unnecessary - one look at what appeared to be a decomposing dolphin bumping against the pier was enough to keep me away. Even without the dolphin, enough trash floated in the surf for me to abandon any idea of swimming, and the beach itself was stony.
Next morning I decided to visit Swallow's Nest, the iconic mini-castle, perched on a rock spur, that beckons from Lonely Planet's cover. With a choice of boats or buses as transport, I figured that the boat would give me better view of the cliffs and tracked down the ticket office under the promenade. Costing 15 hryvnia ($3), the boat was cheap and basic, but adequate.
Nestled among the trees on the steeply sloped cliffs gleamed a number of white stone palaces, and newer, concrete hotels. One of the hotels had built an elevator to give guests easier access to the narrow beach. Gradually the castle came into view ahead of us, totally cute and photogenic. So photogenic that, as we neared the jetty, I ran out of space on the card in my digital camera. Busy changing cards, I suddenly realized that the boat was already leaving, and heading on down the coast.
Further reflection suggested this was not such a bad thing. No doubt the boat would eventually return to Yalta, and there seemed little reason to climb the seriously steep cliff to visit the castle itself - less than a hundred years old, and with only an Italian restaurant inside. So I stayed put, continued to admire the scenery, and handed over another 20 hryvnia to one of the boatmen cover the cost of the extra distance. And I liked the photographs I took of the castle on the way back even better than the first set.
On a long trip I sometimes find myself spending time - and money - on the same chores I have to deal with at home. Replenishing toothpaste, shampoo and hand lotion, for instance. Stopping by the bank. Maybe buying new clothes. Now, after two months on the road, my hair was in dire need of a cut and color. I followed my usual technique for finding a hairdresser - check with the front desk of a reasonably upmarket hotel. In this case the Bristol sent me round the back of the hotel to a salon where I used sign language to indicate that I needed a hair cut, and that I would like it colored to match one of the hair stylists. The language barrier didn't matter - the stylist did an excellent job, for which I paid a mere $30.
OK, time for my main reason for coming to Yalta: a visit to Livadia Palace. After more delicious breakfast pancakes at the Bristol, I found a marshrutky headed in the right direction in the busy little market area behind Lenin Square - no need to slog up to the bus station. The marshrutky climbed the hill for me and then wound its way out of town. The driver dropped me at an unmarked spot on the road, and pointed out a path leading down. After following the instructions in Lonely Planet about concrete stairs and stone stairs and the turning by the sanatorium, I found a medium-sized white building, sitting quietly among the trees, well above the sea.
The Palace has a double history. Nicholas II had it built as a summer retreat, moving in only in 1911. The upper floor is full of sad mementos of the doomed Romanovs, including many photographs of the Tsar's young daughters in delicate summer dresses. Of course, by the standards of the St. Petersburg' palaces, Livadia is just a vacation cottage, despite its Italianate facade, gleaming marble and Venetian glass chandeliers. In 1945, however, Churchill found it "splendid", even though the Germans had only been evicted ten months earlier.
The ground floor is a memorial to the Yalta Conference. Signs in English identify the small table at which Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill signed the agreement, the larger round table at which they conferred with their senior aides (23 people including the interpreters) and the big rectangular room in which the supporting cast hammered out the details. I had thought that Yalta was where Eastern Europe was handed over to the Soviet sphere of influence, but on checking I found that this was also the place where agreement was reached on founding the United Nations, and where Roosevelt gave chucks of China to Stalin in exchange for a future declaration of war against Japan.
Only a few other people were visiting that morning, and I had Roosevelt's opulent bedroom and a view of the beautifully tiled "Arab" courtyard to myself. In fact, the place was so quiet I had difficulty imagining it 60 years ago, busy with diplomats and officers circling the "Big Three", who hid their distrust as they toasted each other in vodka and champagne.
Going back to Yalta I had only a short wait for a marshrutky, but then got off at the wrong square. No matter, I took another marshrutky to the Chekhov Museum, nearby. In a sterile, modern building, full of photos, I watched a 15 minute video on the playwright in lonely state - the attendant played the English-language version just for me. But across the way, through a shady, shaggy, garden, I found a wonderful hideout. Chekhov designed the dacha and garden himself, but only had a few years to enjoy them with his friends before his death in 1904. The small house, with its dark wallpaper and big tiled stoves could not be more different from Livadia Palace - or feel more welcoming.
I had hoped to visit the Khan's Palace at Bakhchsaray, or the waterfalls and mountains near Yalta, but with my foot still hurting I spent my last day instead up the coast at the small seaside town of Gurzuf - although since my marshrutky stopped well above the beach I got more exercise than I had planned. Here cliffs enclosed a beach somewhat cleaner than the one at Yalta, and a sea front that was much quieter, although also much windier.
I found the town itself less picturesque than I had expected. The most interesting buildings were scattered through a big park above the beach. The guard on the upper gate wouldn't let me in without a pass, but those at the lower gate ignored me. The Victorian-style buildings nestled among the big trees were clearly sanatoriums built for the Soviet-era holiday-makers, still in use. I have no idea what they were like inside, but the facades and grounds were lovely.
On my return to Yalta I found a teenage brass band playing lively dance tunes in Lenin Square. The conductor wore a black T-shirt with the slogan "Too Stupid for Singing". Lenin stared grimly over the heads of a happy crowd surrounding an elderly, but energetic, pair of dancers.
My next stop, Odessa, is not, strictly speaking, Crimean, so Blacksea-Crimea had passed me on to Unipress Travel Ukraine, who had duly delivered my Simferapol-Odessa train ticket to my Yalta hotel. I took a marshrutky, rather than a tram, to Simferopol, even though the tram route is the longest in the world, because I was told the tram would be too slow and uncomfortable. I regretted my decision when I realized that the seat in front of me was only bolted to the carpet and not the actual floor of the minibus! I climbed out at Simferopol station with a definite sense of relief.
The night train came with its own hazards. The four-berth compartment was comfortable enough, although with no fan or AC it as somewhat hot. I shared it with two men: one fat man with some English and one thin man with no English. Unfortunately the fat man wanted to party - with me. He had boarded well supplied with vodka and beer, and the more he drank the friendlier he became. Of course an American woman would want to drink with him - no? Fortunately the thin man had no more interest in partying than I did, and we both made it clear he needed to take his party elsewhere. Later, his frequent return trips for resupply kept waking me up, but he made no further advances.
My train arrived on time just before 6:00. Still in need of sleep, I was glad I had chosen the Hotel Chornoye More (Black Sea), just across Pryvokzalna Square from the station. I was even happier when I was able to check in as soon as I arrived, The hot shower, comfortable bed and BBC TV were very welcome, the thin curtains less so. Later I found an indoor swimming pool, although the water was definitely on the chilly side.
A couple of language notes: In Ukrainian, this city is named Odesa. In Russian it is Odessa. Since Russian still seemed to be the language of choice here, and the high-rise hotel towering over the passenger port opposite the Potemkin Steps bore the name Hotel Odessa in large letters, I'm sticking with the Russian spelling. Second, the elegant, classical building housing Odessa's train station, is labeled, like all train stations across Russia and Ukraine, "Vokzal". This word for train station is the Russian transliteration of the English "Vauxhall" (variously a London borough, a car company, and 18th century pleasure gardens), although there are competing theories as to why.
Shortly before I left on this trip, PBS aired a documentary on the sex slave trade in Eastern Europe. I learned that both Moldova, my next stop, and Ukraine, had a serious problem, with many young women being transported through Odessa to Turkey. I began to have doubts about visiting the city, not because I thought I would be in any danger, being well beyond the preferred age range of 18-25, but because it sounded a grim place. For the poor, I'm sure it is grim, although even out of the center it seemed lively, but I found the center captivating.
While the city is big, with a population of a million, and busy with cars, trams, buses and marshrutkys, it is also very green. From my hotel room I could just glimpse the sea, across a mile of roofs - and trees. In addition to several parks, trees, still dressed in spring green, lined the streets. The broad pedestrian walkway at the top of the Potemkin Steps stretched a quarter of a mile under flowering, and towering, horse chestnut trees.
Add in plenty of cafes and restaurants, a couple of streets of Art Nouveau-era buildings in reasonable repair, and there is plenty to like here. The city even provides an alternative to hiking up the Potemkin Steps, its main claim to tourist fame - a free funicular climbs alongside, At the top, a statue of the Duc de Richelieu, draped in a Roman toga, fronts a graceful semicircle of classical buildings. Several museums are nearby - having just come from Greece I felt that the Archaeological Museum was overfull of Greek and Roman artifacts, but the prehistory section induced some musings about abandoned towns and global warming. At the Museum of Western and Oriental Art the building easily outshone the exhibits, but then I tend to prefer crafts to arts.
I ate well in Odessa, a couple of times at my hotel, walking through the dimly-lit, scarlet-walled casino to reach the restaurant. My notes record that an appetizer of 300 grams of red caviar cost 40 hryvnia ($8). A mid-eastern restaurant, Glissar, on pedestrian Derybasivska, provided praiseworthy hummus, and avocado with shrimp, egg and more red caviar. Delicious!
I began to be sorry I had only allowed two nights for Odessa, but with an apartment rental awaiting me in Chisinau I needed to move on. Moving on, I feared, was likely to prove interesting. The Odessa to Chisinau leg had been causing me more concern than anything else on this trip. I had even considered flying, but this would require a roundabout route and lots of money. Instead I would take a bus.
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