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Yalta

A resort city on the Southern Coast of Crimea, which at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries turned into the main recreational and infrastructural center of the south of the peninsula.

Overview

At the beginning of the XIX century Yalta was an inconspicuous fishing settlement (in 1802 it had only 13 houses), but after receiving the status of a city on 17 September 1837 its rapid development began. Thanks to its unique climate, Yalta turned into a fashionable resort where villas, palaces (in particular the imperial residence in Livadia), hotels, dachas, and hospitals were built. The development of the city was accompanied by the modernization of municipal infrastructure — sewerage, electric lighting, and bridges. In 1917–1920 the city was an important center of Ukrainian diplomatic and public activity led by the UNR consul Pavlo Horyanskyi.

Key Details

• Ukrainian diplomatic mission (1920): In August–September 1920 Yalta became the first Crimean stop of the UNR diplomatic delegation. Levko Chykalenko and members of the mission spent a day in the city, where they found the head of the Regional Ukrainian Council and UNR consul Pavlo Horyanskyi and visited the grave of Stepan Rudanskyi at the Yalta cemetery.
• Development of communications and drainage: At the beginning of the XX century, due to the threat of flooding of Bulvarna Street, the Board of the Kyiv District of Communications, together with the management of the Crimean Highways section, carried out the modernization of drainage.
• Electrification (1903): To ensure traffic safety and improvement, significant funds were allocated for electric lighting. The Ministry of Communications allocated 67,000 rubles for lighting the port and the embankment.
• Bridge over the Huva River: An important infrastructural object was the construction of a bridge over the Huva River.
• Ukrainian cultural center: A center of Ukrainian cultural life thanks to the activity of residents and figures of the Ukrainian revival, in particular the Lesia Ukrainka Museum.
• Resting place of Ukrainian figures: The poet Stepan Rudanskyi and the Ukrainian historian and diplomat Oleksandr Dabizha are buried in Yalta.

Sources and Links

• A Journey to Crimea in 1920 (Abridged) — Levko Chykalenko's memoirs of the visit of the Ukrainian mission to Yalta in the autumn of 1920.
• Pavlo Horyanskyi — head of the Yalta Ukrainian community and UNR consul in Yalta.
• Negotiations of the UNR Directorate with Wrangel (1920) — context of the UNR mission.
• Levko Chykalenko — member of the mission who visited Yalta.
• Southern Coast of Crimea at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries — archival documents about Yalta's communications.

• A Stone-Cracker in the Literal Sense: the Fate of the Crimean Lesia Ukrainka Museum — an article about the poetess's museum.

• Oleksandr Bertier-Delagard — an outstanding Crimean scholar and engineer who built the Yalta port and water supply, led excavations near the city, and died in Yalta in 1920.

• Oreanda — a settlement and estate near Yalta.
• Southern Coast of Crimea at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries — a concept of the development of the recreational zone.
• Lesia Ukrainka Museum in Yalta — a memorial museum and Ukrainica center in Yalta.
• Lesia Ukrainka — an outstanding Ukrainian writer whose life and work are connected with Yalta.
• Oleksandr Dabizha — a Ukrainian historian, diplomat, heraldist, and artist buried in Yalta.
• Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (Simeiz, Nauchnyi) — Yalta is the largest city of the Southern Coast nearest to the observatory in Nauchnyi.
• Crimean Space — the role of Crimea in the Soviet space program — the Simeiz Observatory near Yalta received the first photographs of the far side of the Moon (1959).
• A Tourist Hike to the Crimean Wonders (1976) — Yalta is one of the stops on the tourist route through Crimea.
• Anatolii Ponomarenko (Ukrainian diplomat, native of Yevpatoriia) — Yalta and Yevpatoriia are resort cities of the Southern Coast and western Crimea.
• Alla Horska (Ukrainian artist, dissident, native of Yalta) — Yalta is the birthplace of Alla Horska.
• Oleksandr Horskyi (film production organizer, director of the Yalta Film Factory) — Oleksandr Horskyi headed the Yalta Film Factory, and his family settled in Yalta in the mid-1920s.
• Dzhankoi — Yalta and other Crimean resorts are connected to the mainland via transit through the Dzhankoi railway junction.
• Crimean Trolleybus Route — Yalta is the terminal point of the mountain trolleybus line Simferopol–Yalta (opened 1961).
• Crimean Industrial Fruit Growing (book by Levko Symyrenko) — illustrations for the book were created in Yalta on Autkinska Street, at the Myasoiedov dacha "Villa Olena."
• Energy of Crimea — Yalta received a city power plant (700 hp) in 1904; Ukrainian substations in Gurzuf and Alushta (1954+).
• Greeks in Crimea — among the Azov settlements founded by Greek resettlers of 1778 (Manhush, Buhas, Urzuf), there was also Yalta (now Starobesheve, Donetsk Oblast).
• Georgians in Crimea — in 2002–2011 an Honorary Consulate of Georgia operated in Yalta (headed by Elgudzha Kepuladze, organizer of pro-Ukrainian festivals).
• Swallow's Nest — a Gothic castle on Cape Ai-Todor; a calling card of Yalta and the whole of Crimea.
• Crimean Lighthouses — on Cape Ai-Todor there is a renovated lighthouse (built 1835) — the oldest preserved lighthouse in Crimea.
• Water Supply of Crimea in the Postwar Decade (1944–1954) — Yalta was one of three Southern Coast cities with a municipal water supply, but suffered from water shortage and pollution of the port's waters.
• "Poetic Atlas of Crimea" (the 1989 edition and its criticism) — Yalta as a "russian Nice" in the Soviet literary tradition; criticism of the colonial image of the city.
• Olena Kysilevska – "Along the Native Land" (Po ridnomu krayu) — memoirs and essays about visiting Yalta during a sea voyage.
• Olena Kysilevska — a Ukrainian writer and public figure, author of the collection of essays "Along the Native Land" (Po ridnomu krayu) (1955).
• Mark Twain — an American writer who in 1867 had an audience with Emperor Alexander II in Yalta and described the city in the book "The Innocents Abroad" (Prostaky za kordonom) (section "Crimea in the Works of Foreign Literature").
• Gabriel Ter-Mikelian — an outstanding Armenian architect, author of the design of the Armenian Church of Saint Hripsime in Yalta.
• Pohos Ter-Hukasian — a Baku oil industrialist and patron, at whose expense the Armenian Church of Saint Hripsime in Yalta was built.
• Maritime Armenia (Armenians in Crimea) — a concept of Armenian sacred and cultural heritage in Crimea.