The Swallow’s Nest is located on the 40-meter-high Aurora Cliff on the Cape of Ai-Todor in the village of Gaspra. It resembles a medieval knight’s castle and is a kind of an emblem of the Crimea’s southern coast. The Swallow’s Nest acquired its current look owing to the oil magnate Baron von Steingel who made an order to engineer and sculptor Leonid Sherwood to build this romantic castle on the ground seized 10 to 20 meters.
In a while a serious earthquake nearly destroyed the building. Part of the cliff collapsed, and the monument remained hanging above the sea. The building was kept closed for 40 years, only in the 1960s the castle was reinforced and revamped. For this aim the farthest block of the building was placed on a console iron-concrete plate, fastened under the main building, and reinforced it by antiseismic belts. The main tower, decorated with four spires, was also built.
Yalta has held many interesting events dedicated to the anniversary of the Swallow’s Nest. Those included the “Crimea – a miniature world” ethno-festival, a festival of folk trades and crafts, the Swallow’s Cup sailing regatta, the All-Crimean Competition of Children’s Art “Swallow’s Nest – a Territory of Happiness,” exhibits “Masterpieces of Landscape Painters,” “Romans and Taurian-Scythians in the Crimea,” “Underwater Historical Findings – Treasures of the Black Sea.”
The Crimean artist Natalia Muravska dedicated her exhibit “A Flight over the Sea” to the anniversary. Experimental theater performances for children and adults were held twice on the territory of the palace-museum. In particular, the theater studio My (We) from Simferopol showed Eyes of a Blue Dog and Who Offended Auntie Faia. Apart from that the Ukrposhta issued an artistic stamped envelope, dedicated to the anniversary.
Last week a documentary movie was presented on the observation ground of the Vitrylo Health Resort, as well as the new modern brand style of the palace, and numerous partners of the Swallow’s Nest received awards. The concerts of the duo Hanna-Maria (twin-sisters Opanasiuk) and musician Tymofii Vinkovsky were a treat for the participants of the feast.
According to the Head of the Committee on ARK Cultural Heritage Protection Larysa Opanasiuk, it was decided to hold the festivities outside the unique castle, because 1.5 months ago a crack was revealed there, so the number of the visitors should be limited. The local authorities reacted quickly to this. The Council of Ministers of the ARK created a working group to draft some proposals and several days later an extraordinary session of the Verkhovna Rada of the Crimea allotted 770,000 hryvnias for the project-research works on reinforcement of the cliff and constructions of the Swallow’s Nest. Currently specialists are studying the condition of its foundation.
People are worried the most about the fact whether the cliff on which the castle stands is safe. During the reconstruction works in the 1970s over 150 tons of liquid glass were poured into the cliff holes. Some people suggested “dressing the cliff in an iron-concrete skirt,” but this idea received no support because it was unaesthetic. Today more and more proposals are heard to disassemble the palace and establish it in its initial design on a solid foundation far away from the steep (the cracks between the stones are growing, as a result the architecture monument may collapse).
