After our excursion to Inkermann we left Sevastopol the same day, glad to quit the Russians and their naval capital for Bagtche Serai, that ancient city, which previously to the Muscovite conquest might still vie in power and opulence with the great cities of the East. Even now, though much decayed, Bagtche Serai is the most interesting town in the Crimea.
The road which leads to it runs parallel with a mountain chain, and commands very beautiful scenery, which we beheld in all the fresh luxuriance of May. The hills and valleys were clothed with forests of peach, almond, apple, and apricot trees in full blossom, and the south wind came to us loaded with their fragrance. We had many a flying glimpse of landscapes we would willingly have paused to admire in detail, but the pereclatnoi whirled us along, and towns, hillsides, winding brooks, farms, meadows, and Tatar villages shot past us with magic rapidity.
Notwithstanding a temperature of 25 deg. Reaumer, the day appeared to us very short. Yet we were impatient to see Bagtche Serai, its palace and its fountains which have been sung by Pushkin, the Russian nightingale; and this impatience, which increased as we approached our journey's end, prevented us from visiting different spots which less hasty travellers would not have disdained. Every mountain, valley, or village has some peculiar interest of its own. There were aqueducts, old bridges, and half-ruined towers in every direction to tell of an ancient civilisation; but all these interested us less, perhaps, than the modest dwelling in which Pallas long resided, and where he ended his days.
Bagtche Serai has completely retained its national character in consequence of an ukase of Catherine II., empowering the Tatars to retain exclusive possession of their own capital. You would fancy yourself in the heart of the East, in walking through the narrow streets of the town, the mosques, shops, and cemeteries of which so much resemble those of the old quarters of Constantinople. But it is especially in the courts, gardens, and kiosks of the harem of the old palace, that the traveller may well believe himself transported into some delicious abode of Aleppo or Bagdad.
It was in 1226, that the Mongol or Tatar hordes led by Batu Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, after invading Russia, Poland, and Hungary, made their first appearance in the Crimea, and laid the foundations of the Tatar kingdom, which was soon to attain a high degree of power. The Genoese about the same time took possession of several important points on the southern coast, and founded Caffa and other towns, which became extremely flourishing seats of commerce. Their prosperity lasted until 1473, when the Turks, already masters of Constantinople, drove the Genoese out of the Crimea, and took under their protection the Khans of little Tatary, who became vassals of the Porte, whilst retaining their absolute sway over the Crimea. From that time until the eighteenth century, the history of the peninsula is but a long series of contests between the Ottomans, the Tatars, and the Muscovites.
Russia, coveting this fine country, took advantage of its continual revolutions, and sent a large army thither in 1771, for the purpose of putting the young prince Saheb Guerai on the throne. By this stroke of policy, she took the Crimea out of the hands of the Porte, and brought it under her own sole protection. In return for the empress's good offices, Saheb Guerai ceded to her the towns of Kertch, Yeni Kaleh, and Kalbouroun, very advantageously situated on the Dniepr. In this way Russia took the first steps towards the celebrated treaty of Kainardji of 1774, which conceded to her the free navigation of all the seas dependent on the Turkish dominions. But it was not until 1783, that her sway was irrevocably established in the peninsula, and the Tatars submitted to a yoke against which they had so often and so boldly struggled.
During the brilliant period in which the khans reigned in the Crimea, the seat of government alternated between Eski Krim and Tchoufout Kaleh, until the beginning of the sixteenth century, when Bagtche Serai was made the capital.