Cave city of Chufut-Kale
Fortified city of Chufut-Kale
Crimea, Bakhchysarai
"Air City" - this is how one of Pushkin's contemporaries called Chufut-Kale. It seems that the houses and fortress walls of this medieval city, like eagles' nests, stuck right on an impregnable sheer cliff, located on a plateau of a mountain spur that dominates three deep valleys. Nature itself prepared an impregnable construction site, and man built a city on it, strengthening the natural defenses with fortifications.
In the XIII century. Alans lived in the fortress - the most powerful of the tribes of Iranian origin. They were engaged in agriculture, animal husbandry and crafts, traded with neighboring and distant countries. Fruits and grapes were grown on the fertile lands of the nearby valleys. However, soon the Tatar troops of the Golden Horde captured the fortress; male warriors, as usual, were exterminated, the rest of the population was enslaved. Having captured the city, the Tatars placed their garrison in it and named it in their own way - Kyrk-Or ("Forty Fortifications"). Appreciating the fortress, the first Crimean Khan Khadzhi-Girey in the XV century. turned it into his fortified residence, creating a safe haven during the struggle of the khans with the Golden Horde for independence.
After the relocation of the Crimean khans to the new capital - Bakhchisaray - Kyrk-Or remained the citadel of the capital and the place of imprisonment of noble captives. At various times, the Lithuanian ambassador Lez, the Polish hetman Potocki, Ivan the Terrible's favorite Vasily Gryaznoy languished in prison dungeons here. Russian ambassadors Vasily Aytemirov and Prince Romodanovsky spent three years in the khan's prison. But the most difficult trials fell to the lot of the Russian governor, the favorite of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Vasily Sheremetev. Sheremetev spent twenty-one years in prison, four khans changed during this time in Bakhchisarai, but the prisoner refused to buy freedom at a high price for Russia - the cities of Kazan and Astrakhan demanded for him. Only courage, unbending will and love for Russia helped the patriot endure many years of hard captivity. Redeemed in 1681 by relatives, a helpless, crippled, blind old man, Sheremetev returned to his homeland.
