We toured the Crimea from Yalta to Sevastopol

Our tour guide, Gnady, and our driver picked us up at Intourist Hotel Yalta in the morning for a day of intensive sight-seeing and historical study.

Our first stop was the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of Alexander Nevsky. The church was built by Tsar Alexander III in memory of his father Tsar  Alexander II, who had been assassinated in 1881. (St. Alexander Nevsky, Prince of Novgorod led Russians to Victory over the Livonian Teutonic Knights in the Battle on the Ice in 1242.)

We then went to Bakhchisaray to visit the former capital of the Crimean Tatars. The Tatars had conquered Western Asia and Eastern Europe up to the gates of Vienna in 1237 and established the Khanate of the Golden Horde. From 1441, the Crimean Khans were an automous state with their capital at Bakhchisaray. This autonomy continued after the Ottoman Turks invasion in 1475 when Crimea became a tribute paying protectorate.