Feodosia in Crimea: features, attractions, travel, accommodation

The Crimean peninsula remains an attractive vacation location for citizens of many post-Soviet countries, and its resorts, despite widespread criticism and easier access to abroad in recent decades, are still in significant demand. One of the largest such resorts is Feodosia - it may not be the first choice in Crimea, but it has its own curious features.

Feodosia, whose name from ancient Greek translates as "God-given", is one of the oldest cities in the post-Soviet space - the Greeks founded it 2500 years ago, in the 6th century BC. For a good thousand years, it was part of the Bosporus kingdom, until in the 5th century it came under the control of the Byzantine Empire, from which it was separated by the Black Sea. Like any other settlement on the Crimean peninsula, in the following centuries it repeatedly got from its nomadic neighbors, and in the 13th century Feodosia, which was then a small village, was captured by the Golden Horde.

In 1266, Genoese merchants agreed with the Tatars on a ransom, and in some 200 years they turned a village with a rich history into a huge city at that time. Prosperity was achieved due to the fact that Kafa (as the new owners called the Hellenic Theodosia) became the main colony of Genoa in the region. At that time, the city's population reached 70 thousand people, which is more than, for example, it was in 2018.

Formally, the Tatars remained the owners, but they did not climb inside the city walls, only appointing their prefect to manage the adjacent agricultural territory of the present Feodosia region.

In 1475, the Turks came to the peninsula, and the ownership of the city changed again. After the change of owners, it remained a trading center and a large port, but it traded here mainly in slaves, which is why the Zaporozhye Cossacks periodically sailed with an unfriendly visit. At this moment, the importance of Kafa as a center for salt production is growing more and more, but in general the city has become severely depopulated.

In 1771, for the first time, Kafa was subjected to a large-scale attack by the troops of the Russian Empire, and in 1784 it was incorporated into this state. The authorities tried to develop the city, which suffered from rivalry with Taganrog, but it did not work out too quickly. A certain fame of Feodosia was brought by a local native Ivan Aivazovsky, who painted outstanding seascapes, but the same Chekhov in 1888 characterized the city as completely boring, although he emphasized the sea.

Like any other resort, Feodosia has its own advantages and disadvantages. When choosing a destination for a sea trip, you should carefully evaluate the pros and cons of each option. Let's start with the good:

• the abundance of sandy beaches will delight sunbathers;
• Feodosia lies on the shores of a shallow bay, due to which the water here quickly warms up and is never cold in summer;
• the ancient city offers its guests a lot of curious historical monuments and interesting museums;
• modern entertainment is also presented here - there is a nightlife, and the possibility of sightseeing trips to other cities of Crimea;
• Connoisseurs of Ivan Aivazovsky's work should come here at least once to view the art gallery of the genius.

At the same time, there are several reasons at once why the majority of tourists arriving on the Crimean peninsula will still prefer not Feodosia. Here they are:

• the main tourist "magnet" is the southern coast of Crimea, attractive for its subtropical climate, but Feodosia is not included in it, even despite the rather good local climate;
• due to the fact that the city is located in a temperate climate zone, the nature here does not differ from that that millions of our fellow citizens see every day, and in fact it is enough to drive a little further to relax under the palm trees;
• the town itself is not too big, but for the two reasons described above, there are relatively few tourists here, so lovers of first-class resorts may get the impression that they have come to an ordinary small town;
• an oil depot and a small port are located not far from the beaches, and although their activity cannot be called lively, this can be a huge disadvantage for connoisseurs of the purity of the sea;
• for many citizens of post-Soviet countries, from a purely logistic point of view, it is easier to go to the same Turkey, where the level of service is completely different than in Feodosia.

A pleasant climate is extremely important for a beach holiday. In the case of Feodosia, the conditions are special: it is located exactly in the middle between the two distinguished climatic zones, one of which is moderately hot, and the other is subtropical.

Feodosia, like most other Crimean cities, is very sunny - the number of hours when the sun is shining here is 2320, which is 3% more than in the popular and promoted Yalta. The sunniest month is August. The swimming season is estimated at 114 days on average; it begins in May and can last until the first half of October.

Despite the proximity of the sea, Feodosia does not differ in rainfall - the average annual rainfall here is 495 mm. Naturally, there is no something like a dry season and a rainy season, but it is July that is considered the least dry with an average of 30 mm of precipitation. If you look at the statistics on days with precipitation, it turns out that watering in Feodosia quite often - 114 days a year, but in August there are only 6 of them.

This resort is often criticized for the fact that the city, unlike the southern coast of Crimea, is not protected by mountains from the northern winds, which are quite strong and cool here. However, their peak occurs in the winter months, but in the summer, judging by the reviews of many vacationers here, the influence of winds is not so significant, and they do not particularly interfere with rest.

The city, whose history goes back two and a half millennia, simply cannot but have some attractions that could be of particular interest to tourists who do not want to be limited to just one beach. Again, in this sense, Feodosia is not a must-see city, but there is still something to see.

At the same time, there are no ancient monuments available for review, but fragments of the main fortress and individual defensive towers - Dock, Thomas, Round, St. Constantine - remained from the Genoese times. Some parts still look very picturesque and remind of the colorful history of the city.

What else is notable about the city is the abundance of ancient Christian architecture. A feature of the local architecture is that the buildings here are completely atypical for this region, since the local Christian population, as already mentioned, at a certain period consisted mainly of Armenians, and they used their own motives during the construction.

At least you should see Armenian churches of John the Baptist, St. Sergius, St. George and the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. All of them have a long history and were not destroyed, even despite the long stay of Kafa as part of the Muslim states.

If we are talking about religious architecture, it is worth looking and mosque Mufti-Jami. Apparently, the Slavs, who seized the peninsula at the end of the 18th century, were not so supportive of the religious buildings of the Gentiles, since this is the only mosque that has survived since Ottoman times. The building was built in 1623, and although it was rebuilt several times after that, it is still of cultural and historical interest.

For those who know that a museum can also be interesting, Feodosia has an impressive number of museum institutions for such a small town. It's worth starting from the picture gallery of Aivazovsky, which has been given the status of a national - since the famous seascape painter was born and lived here, this is the best place in the world to admire his talent and learn as much as possible about his life.

The theme of art can be continued outside of painting, since here are the museums of the romantic writer Alexander Grin, known to the general reader for his "Scarlet Sails", and the sculptor Vera Mukhina.

Ancient Kafa, delighting with an abundance of fountains, is able to offer its guests more active rest. It hosts many different thematic festivals dedicated to chamber and authorial music, non-traditional fashion and theater, tourism and Christianity.If you are an athlete or an avid fan, here you can also watch various interesting competitions - from sailing regatta to hot air balloon races, from judo to the championship of mountain rescuers.

Most tourists who come to Feodosia for their summer vacation simply cannot pass by Black Sea embankment. No one knows exactly when this street was first laid, but for a long time it was not particularly popular until in recent decades it was built up with luxury hotels and private villas.

Some of the sights described above are located here or within walking distance, in addition, there is a beach and any infrastructure that a tourist may need.

If you look at the map of Crimea, it turns out that Feodosia is located in that part of the peninsula that is located closer to Kerch and the Krasnodar Territory. With the opening of the Crimean Bridge, the task of getting here has become much easier for residents of southern Russia - from Anapa, the closest large city on the mainland, the distance is only 215 km, the duration of a trip by car will be approximately three and a half hours.

Despite the fact that Feodosia has a railway station capable of receiving trains up to 20 cars long, since 2014 there has been no long-distance travel along the station, therefore this type of transport is hardly suitable for tourists arriving in Feodosia. Moreover, the few commuter trains that still run do not connect the city with Simferopol, which remains the main air gateway to the peninsula.

Bus routes mainly connect Feodosia with other Crimean cities, there is even a direct route to the Simferopol airport, largely designed specifically for arriving and departing tourists. If we talk about large cities of Russia, from where you can come without transfers, then these are Moscow, Volgograd, Rostov-on-Don, Astrakhan, Krasnodar (and many other cities of the Krasnodar Territory), as well as Stavropol, Bryansk, Lipetsk and other settlements through which these buses are passing by.

As for the airport, it is possible to arrive in Feodosia by plane only through the Simferopol airport. Since 2014, it has not accepted international flights, however, in contrast to this, a very intensive air communication has been established with all regions of Russia - for example, during the tourist season, you can fly here without transfers from almost any airport in the country, except those in the Far East. Due to certain difficulties in order to get to the peninsula through the bridge, preferential terms of air travel to Crimea were invented for some categories of the population.

The port of Feodosia provides services, including the transportation of passengers, but we are not talking about full-fledged transport routes - only excursion and pleasure boats leave from here.

You can move around Feodosia itself and its immediate environs using a developed network of intracity public transport routes, of which there are about two dozen. Public transport is represented exclusively by buses and taxis.

As befits a fairly large resort, there are opportunities to accommodate tourists of any type. At the same time, a certain provinciality and silence of this city, as well as the fact that the bottom slope is rather gentle, leads to the fact that this place is often chosen for family holidays.

For Feodosia, as for most other resorts in the post-Soviet space, the tourist infrastructure is a huge problem, because many local hotels, boarding houses and sanatoriums were built in Soviet times, and since then have never been fundamentally reconstructed. At the same time, prices can be equal to Turkish prices, although the service, of course, is completely different.

For this reason, one of the best ways to settle in Feodosia is to rent housing from private individuals. Enterprising locals offer city guests not only apartments, but also houses - both full-fledged individual estates and guest houses. The price of such a pleasure can fluctuate significantly, since it all depends on the proximity to the sea and the level of comfort provided, but it is almost always somewhat cheaper than a hotel.

The most budget tourists or those who want maximum unity with nature can come here and expect to relax as a savage. In Feodosia itself there are no full-fledged campgrounds, but in its vicinity they can be found, for example, in Cape or Tikhaya Bay. In the latter case, there are no outstanding amenities, but the tent city is free here, there are several cafes nearby, and this place was once chosen by Soviet filmmakers, which, yes, says something.

Reviews about Feodosia, as well as about rest in Crimea, in general, are very ambiguous - there are both positive opinions and very critical ones. A positive attitude towards the town usually develops among those of its guests who wanted a quiet family vacation without being too close to the exuberant nightlife.

Such tourists are usually relatively undemanding, all they need is peace and a warm sea. Ancient Kafa is of particular interest for those who want not only to lie on the beach, but also to see something new and interesting - for such people, the main purpose of the visit may be not only and not so much the sea, but the same Aivazovsky, picturesque Genoese ruins, yes various festivals with competitions.

If we consider the negative comments, then the main charges can be distinguished two - the excessive provinciality of the town and the very mediocre service, which seems especially bad against the background of local prices. It has been known for a long time that many Crimeans put price tags at the Turkish level, although they offer typical Soviet "comfort", and this applies to both private owners and hotels with infrastructure.

In the next video, see an overview and features of recreation in the city.