After visiting Alimova Balka (I actually lied about us being there, we were near it, but not on the classic route) we took a minibus to the old town of Bakhchisaray to visit the famous Khan's palace — Khan-saray.
Bakhchisaray, by the way, means "garden-palace". This city is the capital of the Crimean Khanate, where various kinds of khans and khanychoks (that is, crappy khans who were bad at their jobs) used to sit.
Basically, a bunch of sheds. But I'm not spoiled, this shed was to my liking. The others turned their noses up, saying it's better in Italy. And I'll tell you — there's no damn point going to Crimea after Italy, you gotta hit up places in the right order, then there won't be any disappointments. Plus, an excess of cultural artifacts causes poisoning, so one palace per trip is just right, while in Italy, they say, the whole country is cluttered with them.
In Khan-saray, by the way, there is a fountain of tears, which Pushkin wrote a poem about. My colleagues decided that local oligarchs bribed him to glorify the shed for centuries to come. I'll drop some quotes from the poem where appropriate, just to make things more fun.
