“You went where?” Anastasia, the piano student I met in Kiev, was openly astonished. She had been so amused by my attempt to conduct a conversation about Stalin with a man selling old books in the market, when he could speak no English and I haven’t a word of Russian, that she joined in as unofficial interpreter. When I explained over a coffee afterwards that I was whiling away the afternoon on my way home from Yalta, it was as if I had confessed to spending a week in Blackpool, wearing a kiss-me-quick hat. “Why ever did you go there!” she laughed.
My explanation that it will shortly be the centenary of Chekhov’s death,
and that I had been to Yalta to see where he spent the last five years of his
life (fighting the tuberculosis that eventually killed him and writing stories
like The Lady with the Little Dog and plays including The Cherry Orchard and
Three Sisters) satisfied my new acquaintance. I then astonished her again by
saying how much I had enjoyed the place.
Despite the fact that citizens of the former Soviet Union can now travel freely,
millions still head to this overbuilt Black Sea Resort every summer to crowd
the Promenade and pebble beaches, soak up the sun and do what people do the
world over when on holiday beside the sea. It is probably one of the best places
to see Russian speakers of every description enjoying themselves en masse.
Chekhov himself liked Yalta so much he owned two houses there. One he built
at Autka just above the town, the other is on its own promontory, 15 km along
the coast at the far end of a pretty fishing village called Gurzuf. Today, both
Autka and Gurzuf are part of Greater Yalta which sprawls around the whole bay,
occupying nearly all the narrow strip of land sandwiched between the sea and
the mountains. Both Chekhov’s houses are now museums with all his original
furniture and fittings lovingly preserved. They are havens of tranquillity,
each with luxuriant gardens originally planted by the author who was a keen
amateur gardener. At his house in Autka - now a suburb of Yalta called Chekhova
a twenty minute bus ride from the main market place - among the photographs,
manuscripts, playbills and literary memorabilia, you can view his secateurs,
gardening gloves, handwritten plant tags and rose catalogues.
It was disappointingly overcast and drizzling when I landed at Simferapol, the
airport an hour’s flight south from Kiev that serves the Crimea (a canon
ball shaped peninsular which juts out into the Black Sea and functions as an
autonomous region within the Ukraine). The advantage of the changeable climate
became apparent during the ensuing ninety minute drive – following the
world’s longest trolley bus route - down through the central mountains
to Yalta. Full of tall jagged cypress trees and long rows of gigantic poplar
trees, this rich Italianate landscape is remarkably green. Almost exactly half
way between Chekhov’s two gardens are the splendid botanic gardens at
Nikitsky which were founded in 1812. Here, rare exotic specimens grow to enormous
dimensions without any of the elaborate glass and heating systems necessary
at Kew. Many of the lower slopes of the mountains are covered with vineyards,
the Crimea having been famous for centuries for its variety of high quality
wines. The Massandra district just outside Yalta, indeed, supplied the Queen
Mother over many years with its gold medal winning pudding wine, the Muskat
White of Red Stone and the makers, not surprisingly, proudly ascribe her longevity
to their product.
It was dark by the time I reached Yalta so it was only when I opened my curtains
next morning that I saw the array of painted wooden houses beneath the cloud
topped blue mountains immediately behind my hotel. I was admiring their pretty
gardens, and abundant rose bushes round the doors, when I realized that their
own views, indeed all their light, must be completely obliterated by my big
box of a hotel. I later realized that my hotel was, in fact, fairly innocuous
by Yalta’s standards. The worst offender is the great 17 storey concrete
wedge (with three storeys underground, to house the workers’ accommodation
and kitchens), Inturist Hotel Yalta, situated right on the most beautiful stretch
of coast in the old part of the town. Even Chekhov’s houses, lovingly
preserved against the depredations of the Twentieth Century, have been encroached
upon. At Gurzuf, his idyllic cove where you can eat your sandwiches outside
on a table that belonged to his wife, Olga Knipper, has been is despoiled by
a monstrosity built right on top of the ancient Genoese fortress directly behind.
At Autka (where in 1942 his sister ingeniously put a sign up on the door marked
“Cholera” to prevent Nazi officers pillaging the house he had bequeathed
her), a café opposite blares loud music all day long. The whole of the
hill above, and his views across to the mountains and sea, are covered by high-rise
concrete tower blocks. Such insensitive development has made Yalta notorious
and reminded me strongly of my disappointment years ago on taking my grandmother
to visit Torquay where she had lived as a child, and where her first boyfriend
is commemorated on the war memorial on the sea front. She looked in dismay at
the ugly blocks of hotels that disfigured some of the spots she could remember.
It was hard to imagine what had been in the heads of the people who allowed
such hideous overbuilding in such attractive places. In Yalta a political decision
had obviously been made to allow as many people as possible to enjoy a stay
beside the Black Sea.
While the luxuriance of the landscape amazed me, the blackness of the Black
Sea was also a surprise. When the sun came out, the sea went so dark that people
strolling along the beach looked like colourful moving silhouettes. Chekhov
spent much of his time in Yalta, when not building houses and planting gardens,
strolling on the Promenade gathering material for his fiction. The Promenade,
which runs the length of the sea front and is currently in the process of restoration,
is still as lively today. Old men play chess, children romp in their best clothes,
couples of every description (including elderly Americans on honeymoon with
their mail-order Ukrainian brides) stroll. There were plenty of ladies with
little dogs parading and flirting - as if in conscious homage to the author
- but there were ladies with big dogs too and men with owls, monkeys and iguanas
on leads. When Anastasia asked where else I had been in the Crimea, I had to
admit that I had spent so much enjoyed idling on the Promenade, I had not visited
any of the nearby beauty spots. Watching the old women who sit between the statue
of Lenin and the new Macdonalds, wrapped in heavy shawls selling excursion tickets
to nearby palaces and waterfalls, interested me far more than going on any of
these expeditions. The shop selling expensive souvenirs, including a pricey
bronze model of Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt sitting on a bench at the Livadia
Palace, interested me more than catching a bus out to Livadia in Yalta’s
southern suburbs. One of the most memorable attractions were the open air photographic
studios where you could dress up in sumptuous 19th Century costumes that attached
at the neck with Velcro, choose a suitable hat and wig and have your photograph
taken sitting on a gilded and red velvet Romanov throne. The old theatre at
which Chekhov’s plays were performed when he became too ill to return
to Moscow is now boarded up and in a sad state of disrepair, but Yalta probably
feels it does not need a theatre. I could happily have spent another week sitting
and strolling on the Promenade watching the fascinating outdoor show.
Fact file:
Charlotte Cory travelled to Yalta with Regent
Holidays (tel:0117-921 1711). Ukraine International operates a new daily
service between Gatwick and Kiev.