10 Best Sights in Ukraine

About 1 km (⅓ mi) east of Alupka, behind a little cluster of market stalls, is the cable car that swings you up the side of Mount Ai-Petri. The truly breathtaking ride goes across the foothills and up the mountain's sheer face, offering unobstructed views of the coast and the sea. The course of the chairlift begins quayside and then travels 1,233 meters up the mountain in about 10 minutes; it's a short but very dramatic ride. As you go up, you'll be able to see the elegant dome of St. Alexander Nevsky cathederal.

The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov was drawn to Yalta for the air, which was said to be beneficial for his tuberculosis. He designed both the house and garden and produced a great deal of his literary output here (including the The Cherry Orchard and Three Sisters).

This incredibly beautiful toy-town building, which stands on the very edge of a 40-meter cliff, is a favorite subject of Crimean postcards. Commissioned by the German Baron von Steinheil, it was designed and built by the Ukranian architect Leonid Sherwood between 1911 and 1912 in the style of a medieval castle. It overlooks the Black Sea and is situated near the remains of an ancient Roman fortress dating from the 1st to 3rd century AD. It's now operated as a tourist restaurant.

The summer residence of Russia's Czar Nicolas II was built in the 19th and early 20th centuries. There are 60 buildings in the complex, the centerpiece of which is the aristocratic Great Palace, built in Italian Renaissance style with Byzantine, Gothic, and Arabic architecture elements. The famous Yalta Conference of 1945 took place here, during which Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin completed plans for Germany's defeat. The palace has a shop, a café, and a church.

One of the most striking architectural constructions in the Crimea, this palace was completed by Czar Alexander III in 1889 and later became Stalin's summer dacha. The Massandra wine collection contains about million bottles of famous wines from all over the world, while the estate's winery produces its own vintages. You can view the palace's paintings and antique furniture collection, stroll through the surrounding park land, and taste some marvelous wines from the Massandra cellars.

The gardens were first laid out by Christian Steven, a Russian botanist (Swede by birth) in 1812. This superb example of architectural landscaping is also the largest scientific-research establishment in southern Ukraine and a nature reserve. The garden covers a few square kilometers of hillside all the way to the shore and is a home to 25,000 species of plants. The park is divided into 4 different sections, including an extensive rose garden and a garden of subtropical plants.

This open-air museum, a branch of the local history museum, contains more than 200 statues of Ukrainian, Russian, and Western fairy-tale characters. Crimean artists, wood carvers, and stonecutters created the pieces. You can stroll among the sculptures when visiting the nearby zoo.

The tallest of all the Crimean waterfalls at 98 meters, Uchan-Su is spectacular to look at. An observation platform on the upper part of the waterfall called the "Eagle's Nest" gives you almost a bird's-eye view. The ancient Greeks called the waterfall Kremastro-Nero (hanging water), but it was the Turks who called it Uchan-Su (flying water); now it is often called simply the Yalta waterfall.

Sometimes called the Alupinsky Palace, from its location in Alupka, west of Yalta, this gigantic complex was designed in the Classical style for the Count Mikhail Vorontsov by the English architect Edward Blore to be used as a summer residence. Construction, which took 18 years, stretched from 1830 to 1848. The grounds are extensive and include plant species from several continents. The palace played a historical role during the Yalta Conference of 1945, when it hosted the British delegation, including Winston Churchill.

This privately owned zoo has about 500 animal residents, many of which have been rescued from circuses that failed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is possible to feed most of the animals here; you can buy food at the entrance. An aquarium, with a separate entrance fee, is closed for renovation at the time of this writing.