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[edit] Massandra

Potemkin Stairs in Odessa, Ukraine. The higher perspective allows a person to see both the stairs and landings.

Massandra is a townlet in the Yalta region of Crimea. Occupying the spot of an ancient Greek settlement, Massandra was acquired by Counts Potocki in 1783.

The town is famous for its Louis XIII style château, which was later passed to Prince Vorontsov Jr. In addition, the "Massandra" winery is a world known winery with approximately 2,500 hectares of land. The winery was built in 1894 and still continues its production today.
Photo credit: Podvalov

[edit] Sudak

View of Sudak from the Genoese Fortress. 14th-15th centuries

Sudak is a historic city of about 15,000 inhabitants in Crimea, situated 57 km to the west of Feodosiya and 104 km to the east of Simferopol. Nowadays, it is a popular resort best known for its Genoese fortress, the best preserved on the northern shore of the Black Sea.

Sudak was founded by Greek merchants from Byzantium in the 3rd century AD. The original Greek name for the city was Sugdeia, meaning "Sogdian". The Khazars pronounced its name as Sugdak, the Slavs as Surozh, and the Italians as Soldaia.
Photo credit: Sergiy Klymenko

[edit] Mangup

The Mangup Plato - as seen from the bottom.

Mangup is a historic fortress in Crimea, located on a plateau about 9 miles due east of Sevastopol (ancient Chersones). In medieval times it was known as Doros, later it was given the Kipchak name Mangup (kale means fortress).

The settlement dates back to the third century CE and was fortified by Justinian I in the mid 500s. It was inhabited and governed primarily by Crimean Goths, and became the center of their autonomous principality. It was conquered by the Khazars in the early 700s and was the center of an unsuccessful Gothic revolt against Khazaria led by Bishop John of Gothia.
Photo credit: Denis Kamaev

[edit] Panticapaeum

Ruins of Panticapaeum in Kerch.

Panticapaeum (Greek: Παντικάπαιον; see also List of traditional Greek place names), present-day Kerch: an important Greek city and port in Taurica (Tauric Chersonese), situated on a hill (Mt. Mithridates) on the western side of the Cimmerian Bosporus, founded by Milesians in the late 7th–early 6th century BC.

In the 5th–4th centuries BC, the city became the residence first of the Archaeanactids and then of the Spartocids, dynasties of Greek kings of Bosporus, and was hence itself sometimes called Bosporus. Its economic decline in the 4th–3rd centuries BC was the result of the Sarmatian conquest of the steppes and the growing competition of Egyptian grain. The last of the Spartocids, Paerisades V, apparently left his realm to Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus.
Photo credit: Clipper

[edit] Livadia Palace

Facade of the Livadia Palace.

Livadia Palace was a summer retreat of the last Russian tsar, Nicholas II, and his family in Livadiya, Crimea in southern Ukraine. The Yalta Conference was held there in 1945, when the palace housed the apartments of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and other members of the American delegation.
Photo credit: Alexander Noskin