Бахчисарай
Visiting the Tatars
Bakhchysaray is a town in Central Crimea, and former capital of the Crimean Khanate. The town is best known among Russian speakers for its Romantic associations with Alexander Pushkin's poem The Fountain of Bakhchysaray (1822). It was this fountain, concidentally, that saved the palace from destruction. Catherine the great destroyed all the other Tatar palaces in Crimea, but left this one be because she loved the poem.
The name comes from Persian باغچهسرای (UniPers bâqce sarây) and means the Garden Palace. The Hansaray (the palace of the Crimean Khans), is preserved in the town as a museum, showing the only example of Crimean Tatar palace architecture left in the world.
Bakchysaray is located in a narrow valley of the Çürük Suv river which is known as an old local center of civilization (the first artefacts of human presence in the valley date back to the mesolithic era). The settlements that existed in the valley before Bakhchysaray was founded (Qırq Yer (modern Chufut Kale/Çufut Qale) fortress, Salaçıq and Eski Yurt) are nowadays incorporated into the urban area of the modern Bakhchysaray.
Bakhchisaray, first mentioned 1502, was established as the new khan residence by the Crimean khan Sahib I Giray in 1532. Since then, it was the capital of the Crimean Khanate and the center of political and cultural life of the Crimean Tatar people. After occupation of the Crimean Khanate by the Russian Empire in 1783, it was turned in an ordinary town, having lost administrative significance. However, it remained the cultural center of the Crimean Tatars until the "Sürgün" (deportation on 18 May 1944).
(Text courtesy of Wikipedia)
On the following pages are photos taken by me, Askold Haywas, and Dasha Trushkina on our trip to Bakhchysaray:
Uspensky Sobor
Chufut Kale
Lunch
The Palace of the Khan
The Harem
The Museum
Going Home
