Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 126, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 June 1917 — The Wonderful Crimea [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The Wonderful Crimea

WHEN, after the war, passenger steamers ply between New York and the ports of the Black sea, it may well be hoped that Americans, for their own sake, will discover and appreciate the wonderful Crimea. Probably most Americans, having forgotten- the ancient history they once learned at school, have but few definite Ideas connected with the name Crimea. There once was a war in the Crimea, for instance, involving a town which English-printlng newspapers and others carefully misspell “Sebastopol.” Also, it is remembered, there was Balaklava, and the charge that was “magnificent, but not war.” And also, there was Florence Nightingale. All of these were, and some still are, notable. But there is much more than all these to the Crimea, says a writer in the magazine Russia, and indeed they suggest nothing whatever of the beautiful and extraordinary south coast stretch of' the peninsula; nothing of its luxuriant and semi-tropical vegetation rising upon the steep heights which fringe the shore; nothing of the summer pastures in the high valleys -—pastures as notable as the much better known almen of the Swiss Alps, which these grazing places for sheep Closely resemble. - Nor do our few American modern memories suggest the fact that the Crimea was one of the inelting-pots of classical antiquity —not In the center of the jincient foundry, it is true—but the scene of colonizations by Greeks, Venetians, Genoese, invading Goths, Turks, Tartars; until in 1783 Russia‘established peace and control. Americans by the thousand visit the Riviera; by the thousands they may well repay themselves, a little later, by visiting what is often called “the Russian Riviera”— the south coast of the Crimea. Why the “Black" Sea. From the moment his ship enters the Black sea, the American explorer will find himself in a region of waters of a kind new to him. The Black sea is not actually black; but it is of a much darker blue than the Mediterranean. It is practically without tides, also —a great deep bowl with steep sides, with water some 4,500 feet deep close to the sides, and over 7,000 in the middle. The black mud of its bottom contains no animal life; on warm summer evenings its waters show phosphorescence. Into the northern side of this*huge basin of the Black sea projects the peninsula of the Crimea, sloping upwards from the mainland towards the south until It reaches the summit of the Yaila range (Yaila is the Tartar word for “summer pasture”) just behind the southera shore line; from there it plunges abruptly into the Black sea. It is this strip of steep, verduresmothered coast land (five to eight miles wide) between the summits of the Yaila range and the sea that is the paradise of the Crimea. From the southernmost point of the peninsula, at Cape Saryteh r to Fayodosla (English, Theodosia) towards the northeast, the Yaila range bordering the coast is pierced by passes, through which carriage roads lead northward in general direction, across the high mountain pastures, and down the northward slope to the railroad lines from Sevastopol on the west shore, and Kertch and Fayodosla on the east, which join in the line to the mainland. This Yaila range (sometimes called the “Mountain Meadows mountains”) is a continuation of the Caucasus, and has Its western end at Cape Fiolente (the ancient Partbenium) which is the southwesternmost point of the Crimea. The ancient name of the cape is due to the legend that on that promontory stood the temple of Artemis (Diana) In which Iphigeneia served as a priestess. The general elevation of the Yaila is from 1,800 to 2.5QQ feet It is a creditable element in the Russian attitude towards the finer pleasure placesthat the generally übiquitous railroad—or lacking that, the trolley car—has found no place on the south shore strip of the Crimea. This is a region of roads, southward from Sevastopol on the west, to Fayodosia on-the eagt. One may reach the icoast places by boats plying between -the two cities named, and there are some advantages, always, in seeing a 'bold and picturesque shore from the water side. But finally, one must depend on roads. ‘ ■ Along the shore line is the main highway, extending from Cape Sarytch pn the west to Fayodosla on the east.

To reach the south shore with the most satisfactory scenic accompaniments, one may well travel south by carriage or motor from the western rail terminus at Sevastopol. The road leads up the Baidar valley into the western heights of Yaila range and comes out on the heights above the shore through the Baidar gate, a passageway at an elevation of 1,630 feet which was blasted through the solid limestone of the mountain in 1848. Scenery Is Beautiful. From the opening of the Baidar Gate the characteristic beauty and magnificence of the views from the mountains down across the shore strip and out over the Black sea meet the visitor in striking fashion. The higher slopes, of the mountains are thickly covered with forests of oak, beech, elm, pine, firs and other cone-bearing trees. Tatar villages, mosques, monasteries, the palaces of .many Russian nobles, picturesque ruins of Greek and medieval fortresses and other buildings are set on the steep slopes, in the undergrowth of hazel and other nuts, groves of bays, of cypresses, mulberries, figs, olives, and pomegranates, with great vineyards, tobacco plantations, and gay gardens. The vineyards of the shore strip, covering nearly twenty thousand acres, have a high reputation, and the “grape cure” is one of the Institutions of the Crimean summer resorts. Fruit of all kinds is abundant. Small wonder that th.e enthusiastic Russian considers his Crimea one of the loveliest and most desirable places in the world! To all this natural beauty are added the advantages of what is practically an island climate. In some winters the tops of the mountains are snowcovered, but snow and ice are rare on the south slope. The passage from the continental climate to the island type is shown by setting together the temperatures at Melitopol, on the mainland a little to the north of the Perekop Isthmus which is the neck of the Crimea, those at Simferopol in middle Crimea, and of Yalta, foremost of the coast resorts. At Melitopol, the annual mean temperature is 48 degrees; at Simferopol, which is just within the lower range of mountains, It is 50 degrees; while at Yalta it is 56.5 degrees.

BALAKLAVA