Alupka Things to Do Tips by Kuznetsov_Sergey

Bakhchisaray and "Trilbi" fountains

The Lower Park is arranged in Italian gardens style of Renaissance. There is "Fountain of Tears" representing the variant of the famous Bakhchisaray fountain glorified by A.S.Pushkin. You can also see the "Shell" fountain and the "Cat's Eye" spring, "Tea House" spring, the I.K.Ayvazovsky rock.

The fountain "Trilbi" attracts everybody’s attention. As for its structure there are two assumptions: the first one explains its creation in 1829 in memory of favorite dog, the other one is connected with metamorphosis image of paradise pouring into the house and saved by faithful animals. In fact with the name Trilbi which was brought into literature in XIX century by French romantic Sharle Nodie in the story of the same name is connected with old and kind spirit, with disappearance of which the house was usually becoming empty.

There are several beautiful waterfalls there: "Maiden's tears waterfall", "Man's tears waterfall" etc...

Lions' terrace

There is the beautiful the lions' terrace with three pairs of white marble lions: sleeping, awaking and kept vigil. Six gorgeous Italian marble lions flank the staircase outside the palace's seaward front.

The inscription on the pedestal says that all the six sculptures are made from carrack marble in the studio of the famous Italian sculptor V.Bonnani. The signature of Bonnani is visible under a figure of a sleeping lion. Awake lions are copies of lions decorating a tomb of the Pope Kliment XII in Rome.

It was January and lions were hiden in boxes. Nevertheless they were beautiful even in boxes!

Vorontsovsky Palace Museum Vorontsov Palace Review

Alupka Palace is now an architectural and art museum. It contains the furnishings and art collections, which had been in the palace itself and the collections from other estates of the Southern coast of the Crimea.

After the revolution the Palace was nationalized. The museum was opened in 1921.
In February of 1945 the English delegation which arrived to the Yalta conference was placed there. A very interesting exposition is dedicated to Winston Churchill and his visit the Crimea. If you visit Vorontsov Palace – you’ll see Churchill's headquarters during the Yalta Conference.

Palace highway, 10
72-23-72;
It is opened 10.00-17.00, Monday and Friday is closed.
Entrance fee 50 grivnas ($10)

Palace Interiors Vorontsov Palace Review

There are about 150 rooms in the palace. A lobby, a dining room and a billiard room are tree trimmed in Gothic style. The winter garden and a blue drawing room with stucco moldings are very interesting.

Highlights of the interior include an 1860 Becker piano, a beautiful sun room, and a main dining room with impressive woodwork and a balcony for musicians.

Winter garden - characteristic belonging of the ceremonial European palaces of 19 centuries. Blue drawing room with the stucco moldings is splendid. In the winter garden, in the blue drawing room, and also on the terraces of the portal of southern facade are assembled the sculptural images of the family of Vorontsov and its close ones, copy of the sculptures of antique gods and philosophers.

Halls decorate the fabrics of Italian, French and English painters. Russian painting is the portraits of the work of Levitskiy, Borovikovskiy, by the views of Shchedrin, Orlovskiy, brothers of Cherentsovykh, Ayvazovskiy.

Southern façade of the Palace Vorontsov Palace Review

East and western styles were harmoniously combined in this palace. East style was produced on the southern part of the palace. The southern facade turned to the sea, is executed in Moorish style and copies a known fortress of Arabian caliphs Alhambra in Granada.

On a frieze of a deep niche the 6-times inscription in the Arabian language repeats: "There is no victor save Allah!"

Northern façade of the Palace Vorontsov Palace Review

The northern part of the Palace was created in western style. This side of the palace is in the English Tudor style. The main idea of the Count Vorontsov and his architect Blore was to create an organic and integral part of the Palace and surrounding landscape.

One way in which they achieved this idea was by building the Palace from the same stone as the rocks around it. Diabase overlays lead, reinforced with copper pins to give a stable structure built to last and sturdy enough to withstand earthquakes.

The rear facade of palace and its western part - romantic architectural variation on the theme of the "style of Tudors".

Chaos

"Chaos" is a magnifying sight of the park. It represents a heap of gray-green boulders of diabase in height about a four-storeyed house. The palace is built from diabase also. Water-falls are arranged in the landscape park and swans float in ponds.

Lower Park

The garden is a masterpiece of landscape architecture. It includes a dense artificial forest, filled with enormous boulders that during the ages have fallen from the cliffs in odd shapes and lodged in positions which the landscape artist has utilized in an ingenious and artistic manner.

There are said to be more then 1 million plants. Every tree was planted by hand and more then 100 varieties are represented there.

Upper Park

The coastal highway divides the park on the Upper Park and the Lower Park. The Upper Park is satiated with natural peps: severe stone messes and glassy ponds, fragments of natural south coastal woods and groups of wonderful foreign trees. All of them have poetic names: Moon Stone, Small and Large Chaoses; Trout, Mirror and Swan Lakes; Platan, Sunny, Contrast, Chestnut glades.

There are nearly 200 exotic kinds of trees and bushes, varieties and garden forms in the park. Palms and bay-trees, cypresses and olives, small and large-fruited strawberry trees, Chilean araucaria and rose’s evergreen grow here... The park is laid out in landscape style which does not distort but supplements nature as if it were untouched by the human hand. Everything is done with skilful use of conglomeration stone mess, mountain springs, and aboriginal vegetation.

Alupka Park General background Alupka Park Review

Masterpiece of landscape designing is the Palace Park.
Alupka Park makes up a joined ensemble with Vorontsov Palace. Nowhere in the Crimea except Alupka would you see such combination of architectural genius with the landscape painter's genius. The combination of sea with mountains, stones with woods, nature wildeness with civilization grace impress everybody who ever come to this place.

The landscape painter, German gardener Karl Kebach led the laying of the park out in that romantic spring. With attentive studying of the park's planning system you found out its originality. Laid out by principle of amphitheatre the whole composition contains spatial connections oriented according to the world countries.

They are extending from the base of amphitheatre "Tea House" on the seaside to all the architectural objects of the park and palace, to all the visible and invisible centres of landscape. Everything is invented and consolidated by the strict logic of classical plan, hiding under the free, picturesque lines of scenery garden.