Crimea
The history of Sevastopol goes back to Greeks, who founded a city-state Chersonese in 5th century BC. Romans built roads Via Militaries making Chersonese in the 1st century their strategic outpost for 500 years until Byzantine turned this place into a spiritual center marked by Prince Vladimir’s baptism in Chersonese in 988 AD. Renamed by Katherine the Great into Sevastopol, after almost 500 years of Turkish control over Crimea , the city has memories of four presidents. President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill visited Sevastopol during Yalta Conference at the end of the World War II; Nikita Khruschev handed Sevastopol to Ukraine. Michael Gorbachev , who started Perestroika, ended under a house arrest at Foros near Sevastopol during the coup of 1991. Russians used to go on vacation here like Americans go to Florida. In the 90s, Sevastopol became strategic base for military submarines and warships. To get a visa to this city became a problem. Even those of us who...