A small Gothic Castle Swallow`s Nest is located on the edge of a 40-meter sheer cliff on Cape Ai-Tudor. It is located in the village of Gaspra, which is one of the districts of Yalta. The romantic appearance of the castle and the beauty of the place where it is located made the Swallow`s Nest the main symbol of the Crimea.
The rock where the Swallow`s nest is located is called "Aurora Rock". Cape Ai-Tudor consists of three rocks. In the era of the Roman Empire, a small fortress Charax was located in the central part of Cape Ai-Tudor. The fragments of its foundations have been preserved here. In the Byzantine era, there was a monastery here. Now it is the territory of the Haraks Park.
Since the 1860s, a boom in the construction of dachas on the Crimean coast began. The royal family came to the Crimea every summer. In the vicinity of Yalta, the Livadia Palace was built for them, and later the Massandra Palace. Wealthy people from St. Petersburg and Moscow actively bought land on the southern coast of Crimea.
The first villa on the edge of the Aurora Cliff was erected in 1888 by the famous doctor from Yalta Adalbert Tobin and his wife Elizabeth von Steingel. At first, the villa was called Generalife. The picturesque place attracted the attention of vacationers. They called this villa "The Castle of Love", and later the name Swallow`s Nest appeared.
The first version of the house was not like the romantic castle that we see now. Then there was a two-room house with a small tower on the edge. The famous photographer Prokudin-Gorsky made its photo.
In 1911, Tobin`s widow sold the villa to a wealthy Moscow businessman Sergei Rakhmanov. He decided to build a fairy-tale castle that would attract everyone`s attention. The project of a small Gothic castle Swallow`s Nest was prepared by architect Vladimir Sherwood.
The architect had a difficult task: to build a castle with a tower on the very edge of the cliff, on a foundation of 10x20 meters. He coped with this task perfectly. So, there appeared a small Gothic castle Swallow`s Nest, which eventually became a symbol of the whole Crimea.
In Soviet times, various institutions were located in the Swallow`s Nest, and now it is an exhibition hall where various creative evenings and exhibitions are held. Inside the Swallow`s Nest there is only one hall and a small space of the tower.
Usually, tourists combine a visit to the Swallow`s Nest with excursions to the Livadia Palace (6 km to the north) or to the Vorontsov Palace (5 km to the south). 2.5 kilometers from the Swallow`s Nest Castle, in the village of Miskhor, there is a lower cable car station where you can climb Ai-Petri Mountain. Its teeth are also called one of the symbols of the Crimea.
