Culture of Crimea

The culture of Crimea is diverse and fascinating. Countless natural and man-made sights reflect past events, religious and cultural life of ancient times, different nationalities. The history of the peninsula is an interweaving of Eastern and Western cultures, the historical heritage of the Golden Horde and the Greeks, the beliefs of the first Christians and Muslims. Various peoples and nationalities have lived and died in this place for many centuries, feuded, traded, cities were built and ruined, entire civilizations were born and disappeared. Even the air is saturated with tales of the exploits of heroes and Olympian gods, warlike horsewomen, Greeks, Taurians, Scythians…

The unique location, mild climate, magnificent nature made the Crimean peninsula one of the places where humanity was born. It was these features of the climate and nature with rich flora and fauna that attracted Neanderthals here.

According to sources, the most ancient people who inhabited the Crimea were the Cimmerians, who appeared here in the XII century BC. Already in the VII century BC. under the onslaught of the Scythians, they retreated to the mountains and foothill areas where they founded new villages.

The brands also lived here. From them came the ancient name of this area – Tavria. Traces of their habitation have survived to our time. Walking around the island you can see:

Ruins of defensive structures;
Remains of residential buildings;
Parts of stone fences;
Tombs.

The next stage in the history of Taurida is marked by its capture by the Scythians. At this time, there were changes in the qualitative composition of the population. The peoples of the Dnieper inhabited the north and the west.

Crimea is one of the few islands in Eastern Europe that joined the culture of ancient Greece and Rome during their heyday. The Crimean culture of the Middle Ages is closely connected with Byzantium and the Mediterranean.

The ruins of Chersonesos, founded in ancient times, which have survived to this day, are a legacy of ancient Greek and early medieval Byzantine architecture.

The late medieval culture of the peninsula is imbued with the influence of the Asian Muslim culture, bears the imprint of Seljukism.

Crimea is the historical homeland of the Crimean Tatar people and the place of short-term or long-term stay of representatives of many other peoples who brought their cultures from afar.

Architecture. The peoples who moved to the Crimea at different times brought with them the architectural traditions of their distant ancestral lands. In the national architecture of some, a special «Crimean direction» subsequently developed, for others, Crimea became the place of activity of the «architectural opposition». In Crimea, the trends that were rejected (whether under external pressure or due to the development of architectural thought) in the main ethnic territory persisted.

The guidebooks usually distinguish ancient Greek, Italian, Tatar, Armenian architectural structures as some kind of closed communities, national styles. This approach is disputed at least for the period of the XV-XVIII centuries, and this is due to the interweaving of Turkish, Armenian and Crimean Tatar architectural traditions.

After the annexation of Crimea to the Russian Empire, the architecture of the peninsula develops in the general direction of Russian architecture.