Sudak - Strands of the Silk Road

The first time we left, it was for western Ukraine and a week, which we hoped would have calmed things down. It didn't. The second time it would also be for a week, this time for Crimea. We harboured the same hopes but daren't expect them to be fulfilled, given the tilt of recent events.

And so it was that we flew to Simferopol, capital of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (still considered a part of Ukraine). The airport in Simferopol was by far the smallest we've seen on this trip. Baggage claim was conducted in an empty room into which passengers would be called once everything was unloaded from the plane. No conveyor belts, no trolleys, just plain old-fashioned grab and go.

We boarded a marshrutka for Kurortnaya Bus Station in downtown Simferopol. Our Lonely Planet guidebook describes the place as 'chaotic' - Lonely Planet often indulges in Orientalist overstatement - which was probably meant for the interminable welter of bodies in front of the ticket offices. There was an unspoken queue etiquette, though, and we quickly got used to it. Simferopol would become a frequent transit stop for us on our Crimea leg of the journey, since in the off-season many direct routes don't run. Mary would rest in McDonald's (located conveniently next to the ticket offices) while I queue for tickets.

Sudak was two-odd hours by bus from Simferopol. (Our ride took three.) Travelers come to see its Genoese fortress, perched precipitously on a half-cone from where both its seaward and landward approaches could be effectively watched. Bastion Hotel (you can guess where they got their inspiration), where we put up, was situated on the western end of town, just beneath the fortress. Our arrival barely ruffled its off-season lethargy.

The Genoese were far from being the first rulers of the fortress which bears their name. Their short-lived dominance in the Crimea only began in the thirteenth century, after they ousted their Italian rivals the Venetians from these parts. In that time, Sudak was one of many western terminals of the Silk Road, reached from the steppes east of the river Don through the slender Kerch Peninsula. From Sudak merchants sailed southwest with their shipments through the Bosphorus and onwards to the wider Mediterranean emporium.

There was a hint of Central Asia as we approached the main fortress gateway as we caught glimpses of golden steppe from under its stone arches. It was only the mirage of expectancy, for a town once flourished within the fortress walls, ruled as an ancillary from its more prosperous sister port of Kaffa further east. (Genoese merchants fleeing the Mongol onslaught on Kaffa, today's Feodosiya, were believed to have been responsible for subsequently introducing the Black Death to the rest of Europe in the early fourteenth century. As plague decimated the Mongol besiegers, they catapulted the bodies of their stricken comrades over the walls in what became one of the first recorded instances of biological warfare.)

Above: The whole fortress to ourselves. We had time to poke our heads into every photograph without worrying about anybody else's coming into the picture.

Below: the craggy Crimean coast with its multiple promontories.

Nothing remains today, save a couple of unroofed stone houses around which sparrows roost. A trail circumnavigated what was once the inner perimeter of the fortress, following the walls as they scale the ridge on the town's seaward end to its pinnacle 150 metres above the water before tumbling back down towards the plain on the other side. It was a splendid day, although neither nook nor cranny in amidst the fortifications sheltered us from the winds. Apart from two American travelers (Peace Corp volunteers based in neighboring Moldova), we had the whole fortress to ourselves.

We took full advantage as we let our imaginations take over - hopping, skipping and jumping amongst the silent rocks. We were pretend merchants. Warriors. Lords. All on a day when winter masqueraded as summer.