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 are citizens of Russia had to get a special permit.  Once, my mother, who had traveled to Crimea on business, decided to visit her friend Galina, Ivan's mother, in Sevastopol.  If it hadn't been for a fortunate coincidence she would have only been able to talk with Galina through the man on duty at the admission control station, like in jail.  The two friends would not be allowed to be together even for a minute.  But the man on duty happened to be a former citizen of Sverdlovsk.  So he let my mother enter the closed area of Sevastopol on his own responsibility.  You can imagine, then, how difficult it was for a foreigner to get permission.

When Ivan met us at the Sympheropol Airport, about four hours' drive from Sevastopol, he was exhausted after running to all the government departments and could hardly believe that his marathon was over!

Traveling to Sevastopol by car, we passed through the beautiful Crimean countryside.  I saw roses blooming at the end of October for the first time. It’s much colder in Ekaterinburg, besides roses are not used for landscaping in my home town.  The sea I had missed so much was calm and mirror-like.

We were following the same route that Empress Katherine the Great had once traveled.  The places where she stopped bore unusual names in commemoration of her visit.  One of the names astonished me, Chistencoyeh, which means "Clean."  Stopping here, Katherine took a bath in a portable Russian bathhouse especially made just for her on the road.

Happy and refreshed, Katerine came out of water and exclaimed: "Yah chistencayah!"–I am clean.

It is sad to see what happens in Ukraine now.  I hope both sides of the conflict will clean themselves from hatred and blood.