Travel to Crimea!

Bakhchisarai, one of the oldest Islamic cities that you will find in the Crimean peninsula, owes its name to the Persian language. Bakhchisarai, or باغچه سرای (bâqce sarây) in Persian literally translates as «The Garden Palace».
Turkic tribes established an old village by the name of Eski-Yurt as early as the 13th century, in the period of the Golden Horde. Then between 1427 and 1449, the Crimean Khanate was founded by Hadzi- Ghirai Khan.

The city calls itself home to about 70% of all Tatar population of the Crimean peninsula. Houses, streets, local cafes wear a quaintly, oriental look. Tatar people will greet you with oriental hospitality and they will tell you with great pleasure about their unique history, Islamic culture and national traditions.
The principal building, the palace, which is better known as the Khan-sarai, was originally erected in 1519 by Abdul-Sahal-Ghirai. For about 250 years, till 1783 the Bakhchisaray Palace was the center of the political, spiritual and cultural life of the state of the Crimean Tatars.
Along with Alhambra and Top Kapi palaces in Spain and Turkey, it’s one of the three unique palaces representing the influence of Arabic and Iranian civilizations in Europe.

In close vicinity there is the orthodox Saint – Assumption Monastery, built in a rock close to the cave town of Chufut-Kale – one of the oldest in Crimea. According to the estimates of most chronologists, it was established, presumably at the end of the 7th century, around the time when there appeared in Crimea, the iconodules – monks and laitys, who fled the persecution of the iconoclasts of the Byzantine Empire. They settled in the mountains, building cave monasteries. The monastery not only remained unchanged under the reign of the Crimean Khans, but also got generous monetary support from them, and from the 15th century it became the main centre for orthodox Christianity in Crimea.

From the earliest times, the cave town of Chufut-Kale, was inhabited by Karaites, who the Tatars thought to be Jewish and hence the reason why they named the town, the “Jewish fortress”. The houses and the vallums of this medieval town are like the aeries on a sheer cliff. The town is situated on a plateau which is an offshoot of a mountain range lying between three deep valleys.