On the southern coast of the Crimean peninsula there is a small town surrounded by greenery Alupka. The majestic Ai-Petri mountain rises above it, crowned by a crown of stone teeth, which has become a symbol of the peninsula.
This amazing city of palaces, amazing landscapes, numerous legends has a long history. Undoubtedly, its main attraction is the Alupkinsky (Vorontsov) Palace. Today it is a popular monument among city guests, a museum-reserve, which was founded in 1990. It includes the Vorontsov Palace Museum, Alupka Park Monument and the Palace of Alexander III. On a vast territory there are numerous monuments of culture, architecture and garden art.
Palace History
The Alupka Palace in Crimea was built as the residence of Count Vorontsov, an important statesman of Russia in the 19th century. The project was developed by an architect from England Edward Blor. He managed to create an amazingly beautiful and original architectural design.
The construction of the palace lasted twenty years and was completed in 1848. Finishing work continued until 1852. In 1824, K. A. Kebach, a gardener-botanist from Germany, began to create a Vorontsov park on an area of 30 hectares on this land. The main works were completed in 1851.
Architecture
A feature of this structure is the combination of several different styles. The northern facade is made in the style of English late Gothic. Western is a European medieval castle. Southern combines elements of eastern architecture. The huge dome above it with inscribed Arabic inscriptions, opened towards the Black Sea, is romantic.
The staircase leading to the palace from the side of the park is decorated with the “Lion Terrace”, on which are sculptures of three pairs of lions made of Carrara snow-white marble. They were made in the workshop of Bonnani, the famous Florentine sculptor. The most famous of them is the bottom - “Sleeping Lion”.
Alupka Palace consists of five buildings, terraces, indoor and outdoor courtyards. It simultaneously looks elegant and austere, romantic and solemn. The western part of the structure (Shuvalovsky passage) is a stone-paved street of a medieval city, which has old fortress walls with powerful towers and narrow windows-loopholes.
Interiors
Alupka Palace, whose photo we posted in this article, has 150 rooms. Each of them is unique and has an elegant interior. The special pride of the owners of the Alupka Palace has always been luxurious fireplaces made in the Gothic style of polished diabase and marble-like limestone.
The Alupka Palace has many luxurious and richly decorated rooms, but the “Grand Dining Room”, according to experts and visitors, is the most magnificent hall of the palace. Its interior is executed in the style of knight's castles. Visitors are impressed by the marble decorative fountain with a balcony for musicians above it. The walls are decorated with elaborate wood carvings. Candelabra made of Ural malachite . Oak doors, simple classic furniture and very high ceilings add to the solemnity of this room.
Blue living room
This is a very elegant and bright room, decorated with a stucco pattern of flowers and leaves, which covers a gentle blissful blue ceiling and walls. It contains Turkish furnishings and magnificent fabrics.
Winter Garden
In this room, the harmonious combination of rare evergreens with sculptural compositions is striking. Here are portraits of the Vorontsov family.
Alupka Palace today
Three generations of the Vorontsov family owned a magnificent palace. In 1921, it was nationalized and declared a museum. Today, his collection is more than eleven thousand exhibits: sculptures and paintings, objects of applied art. The Alupka Palace Museum has a magnificent collection of paintings by Russian painters of the 19th century, as well as European masters of the 16th – 19th centuries, a collection of graphics, and porcelain sets by Russian artists.
Today, everyone can visit the Alupka Palace. Excursions are held daily. As a rule, they begin with a front yard located at the northern facade of the main building. The attention of tourists is attracted by two rectangular towers that look like knight's castles. In 1841, one of them was equipped with a watch with a fight, which still works today.
Inside the palace, tourists first enter the introductory section of the museum, which presents documents, ancient lithographs and drawings that familiarize with the history of the palace. Then the group goes to the “Front Office”, which is furnished with English furniture, exquisite bronze sculptures and paintings of the early 19th century. This is a kind of military gallery of participants in the war with Napoleon (1812). Here you can see portraits of the work of D. G. Levitsky, V. A. Trepinin, V. L. Borovikovsky.
The light and light chintz room is decorated with paintings by I.K. Aivazovsky, N.G. Chernetsov, S.F. Shchedrin. Alupka Palace was famous for its huge library. She totaled more than twenty five thousand books published in various European languages.
Exhibitions
Now, the Alupka Museum has several permanent exhibits. Nine interesting halls acquaint visitors with the life of the Vorontsovs; interiors of the 19th century are presented. The Guest Building housed the exhibition “Vorontsov Family Gallery”. Other halls exhibit the following exhibitions:
- painting by Y. A. Basov "Landscape Poetry";
- Russian and Soviet avant-garde "Gift of Professor V.N. Golubev ";
- art exhibition "Inhaling roses aroma."
In the Tea House you can visit the exhibition "Sea battles", "Vorontsov and Russian admirals."
Park Alupka Palace
This magnificent work of landscape art surrounds the Vorontsov Palace and is one of the largest in the south of the peninsula. It covers an area of about forty hectares. The park was laid even before the palace, in 1820, by the famous gardener Karl Kebach.
The territory is divided into three zones: central, lower and upper, made in various styles. Luxurious oleander and cypress alleys are famous for the middle part, which resembles a tropical island. They are connected by stairs that lead down to the sea.
The lower park is known for its cliff Aivazovsky, which stands out even among the large blocks that rise at the edge of the Black Sea. It is not known for certain whether this rock is associated with the great artist, but there is a version that one of his sketches, which depicts the Vorontsov Palace, the master wrote on this site.
If you happen to visit Alupka Park, you will definitely see Big Chaos, a place littered with huge blocks of local rock, diabase, from which the famous palace was built. "Big Chaos" arose after the release of magma and, I must admit, it gives a special charm to the park.
Today's Vorontsov Park is the result of the work of several generations of gardeners. The local flora is represented here: Crimean pine, oak, laurel. Representatives of the subtropics are adjacent to them: sweet edible chestnut and cork oak. In total, more than two hundred species of plants grow in the park. This variety was able to grow due to a significant difference in altitude and an abundance of water.
The park is crossed by hundreds of narrow paths, and sometimes it seems that you find yourself in a fairy forest, because every time, even following a familiar route, you discover something new and interesting.