Travel to Crimea!

In the first half of the 16^th century Bakhchisarai was mentioned as a ruler’s residence, i.e. the capital of the Crimean Khanate.

The former khan’s palace making now the towns’s focal point of interest is supposed to be erected in early 16^th century, but later on it underwent many a rebuilding and alteration and its presenr-day aspect gives no idea of how it looked at those times. Now the Khan-Sarai (khan’s palace) occupies an area of  hectares, in the 16^th century its area was a great deal larger. The fence and western gates were adjoined by gardens, that made an integral part of the palace-complex. In fact, they gave the town its name (Bakhchisarai means palace-garden or palace in the garden, both words “bakhcha” and “sarai” that form this toponym being derived from Persian).

Thus both the town and the palace were being created side by side at approximately the same time, they are of the same or almost the same age and this irretrievable connection between them has been imprinted in the name itself – “palace-garden”.

What you are to learn during your visit to Khan-Sarai

1. The earliest structure is so called Iron Door or Alvise’s Portal. The portal created in early 16^th century (judging from the inscription, in 1503) by Italian sculptor Alvise Novi. The works of Italian master full of mastery refinement and fascinating richness of ornamentation bear the stamp of mature Renaissance; reminiscent of the Muslim Orient is but an Arabic inscription not contradicting, however, the European spirit of the structure. The Portal of Aleviz is a unique monument with noble and subtly elaborated details that would have done credit to any European structure. The Iron Door seems to be slightly gone into the earth what is the best proof of the fact that it has been on this spot for a long time.
2. Hall of the State Council and Court of Law and the Little Palace Mosque date from the early construction period. The traditions of the Orient have mingled in Bakhchisarai with the elements of European art, the stamp of coalescence is everywhere, so place can be safely said to an international monument. Scientists also encounted the Ukranian folk motifs of the 18^th -19^th centuries.
3. The Golden Foitain (Magzub) boult in 1733. On its marble facing are gilt relief inscriptions (the date of the construction and sayings from Koran) and also gilt plant ornament.
4. The unassuming, inconspicuous Fountain of Tears (Selsebil) standing in the opposite cornet of the courtyard . This remarkable example of Oriental architecture created by the Iranian master Omer in honour, as the legend has it, of the Khan Krym-Girey’s beloved wife who died in her young years, has become a poetical image, a symbol of the human sorrow embodied in cold stone.

• The great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin deeply impressed by his trip to the Crimea wrote the immortal poem “The Fountain of Bakhchisarai” and the verse “To the Fountain of the Bakhchisarai Palace”.

Water ripples in the marble

And drops down in cold tears

Never stopping…

• Five sonnets of the great Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz are devoted to Bakhchisarai and its environs, the lines of one of them being called forth by the visit to the palace:

And just the fountain breaks silence in wistful desolation

The fountain of harem’s wives, witness of better years

Grieving over the ruin it quietly sheds tears…

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