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Novyi Svit
Seven kilometers from Sudak, this tucked-away settlement is the site of a big nature preserve. The place is perfect, a nook full of sparkling bays, mountains that cantilever over you and stone grottoes that freak you out. The way it’s surrounded by cliffs keeps the bad weather out – the weather here is soft and consistent. And the air is tonic with the scent of pines and gnarled old junipers. When you think of Crimea in all its rustic, sun-baked, rocky, Mediterranean-vibing glory, Novy Svet is what you think about.
What to do here? Walk through the stone caverns of Golitsyn Grotto, named after Prince Golitsyn, the Russian nobleman who in 1878 founded in the settlement its eponymous champagne-growing vineyard. (It’s still in business.) Or swim in the Blue, Dark Blue or Green Bays, each hemmed in by rock and named after the color of its water when graced by the Crimean sun. (Blue Bay contains Tsar’s Beach, which is where, it’s said, Nikolai II liked to bathe his royal self.) Or hike through the hills first, and then hop in the water to reduce your temperature back to reasonable levels.
Some local screwball, by the way, offers an attraction called The Leap into the Future. Pay Lecha Hr 20, and you’ll be tied into a rope harness and dangled over a dramatic ropy precipice. We’re informed this is rather popular.
How to get there: Route buses from Sudak to Novy Svet leave every 10 minutes.
Novyi Svit Botanic Preserve. Founded in 1974. Covers an area of 470 hectares.
The preserve is a mountainous maritime massif on the Southeastern coast of the peninsula. It is one of the Crimea's most picturesque monuments of nature. In its territory rare species of plants - Crimean pines and relict Sudak pines - can be found, as well as a natural park of treelike juniper.