Yalta
Yalta……You know the name but you may not remember why……..back to 7th grade history lessons
Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin….the 1944 Yalta Conference where the fate of the post war political order was decided.
As you drive from the flat farmlands of central Crimea heading south, the mountains, still dusted with snow at this late stage,
rise up before plunging down to the crystalline azure of the Black Sea. Nestled in coastal valley is Yalta..
The Jewel of the Crimea
I was due to meet the owner of the Kiev hostel, Marcus,….he was in Yalta wheeling and dealing with his potential Ukrainian business partners and had offered me a place to crash for the night…though he warned it would be ‘pretty basic’ accommodation.
This was what Marcus considered pretty basic??
The Resort location and grounds
WTF?
Seems his associates had booked him into one of the most exclusive resorts on the Yalta coast….if they looked askance at Marcus in his jeans and his backpack…..they were downright flummoxed when I turned up in the truck!
The premier holiday destination for Soviet citizens Yalta is a kind of bohemia meets the seaside. There are various attractions from the gorgeous clear water
dramatic cliffs,
and follies like the Swallows Nest.
The place is rammed with Russian and Ukrainian holidaymakers each summer…..with cheap flights from the west becoming available its only a matter of time before its heaving with Europeans….you can snowboard all morning and be sailing or swimming in the afternoon
Magic.
