The Bakhchisarai fountain, or, as it is also called, the "fountain of tears", was built in 1764 by the Persian architect Omer, specializing in the construction of magnificent buildings for the powerful. It is difficult to say why the representative of Shiite Iran got to work for one of the Turkish satellites - the Crimean Khan. The fact is that the antagonism of Turkey and Iran (Persia) had not only political, but also ideological roots.
The Shiite branch of Islam prevailing in Iran had some theological differences from Sunni adopted in the Ottoman Empire and among its allies and subjects. Having declared each other heretics, the two states have waged endless wars from the beginning of the sixteenth century. However, from the forties of the eighteenth century came a seventy-five-year truce. Perhaps, using it, the famous Persian architect went to the Crimea and became a “guest worker”, creating a small miracle - the Bakhchisarai fountain.
Bakhchisaray, the current Crimean district center, in the past was the capital of the Crimean Khanate, which caused a lot of trouble to its northern neighbors - Russia, Ukraine and the Commonwealth. Crimeans also raided the lands of the Caucasus.
In Bakhchisarai there was a residence of the Crimean Khan - a beautiful palace, which in our time is already listed in the list of cultural monuments of global significance. In an effort to embody their ideas of paradise on earth, Muslim architects created a "palace-garden" (as the name of the city of Bakhchisarai is translated from the Crimean Tatar language ). And the city itself owes its appearance to the beginning of the construction of the palace. When at the beginning of the sixteenth century the Crimean Khan seemed close to his then headquarters, he decided to build a new one.
There are two fountains in the Khan's palace. One of them is called “golden” because of the golden coating of the ornament, which symbolizes the
Garden of Eden. The second was called the “Fountain of Tears” because of a romantic legend that Pushkin heard during his Crimean trip. According to legend, one of the wives of the khan poisoned the other, to whom the lord of Crimea was more supportive. Grieving for the loss, the khan ordered to build a "fountain of tears." Thanks to Pushkin’s talent, this story was transformed throughout a well-known work that describes the conflict between the Georgian Zarema and the Lithuanian Maria, which ended in the death of the latter.
The "Fountain of Tears" received the literary name "Bakhchisarai Fountain" by the name of the poem. When Pushkin visited Bakhchisaray, he was a little over twenty, the most romantic age. Given that Alexander Sergeyevich was also a poet, that is, doubly romantic, the story he heard could not but impress him, he could not help creating a poem about the Bakhchisarai fountain! Pushkin wrote this short work for two years. He graduated in 1823, and in 1824 it saw the light of day.
I must say that in terms of architecture, the Bakhchisarai fountain is not original, structures of this type are widespread in the Muslim world. The famous painting by Karl Bryullov, written under the influence of Pushkin's poem, gives an absolutely incorrect idea of the appearance of the fountain, which in reality looks more like a typical water supply structure.
But that is the strength of the master! No wonder the honor of “the creator of the modern Russian literary language”, according to most literary scholars, was won precisely by Pushkin! Thanks to the talent of a genius from an ordinary element of park architecture, the Bakhchisaray fountain has become a symbol of romanticism.