Gurzuf or Hurzuf is a resort in Crimea, Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Distance from an International airport in Simferopol is about 80 km. Population of Gurzuf is up to 10,000 inhabitants. Gurzuf. Present-day Gurzuf is the eastern environs of the Greater Yalta. The city is very old. The Tauris built a sanctuary in the mountains above the city before Christ, which is the largest in the Crimea. The settlement was of interest to the Romans. The emperor Justinian I ordered to build a fortress on the shore, and name it Gorzuvity. In the 13 th century Gurzuf was part of the Theodore principality, later it belonged to the Genoese, and then to the Tatars. After the Crimea was joined to Russia it became a city of the Russian empire.

Gurzuf is a former Crimean Tatar village, now a part of Greater Yalta. It was made famous by Alexander Pushkin who visited the place in 1821. The famous ballet master Marius Petipa died here. The International Children Center Artek (former All-Union Young Pioneer camp Artek) is situated just behind the mount of Ayu-Dag (Bear Mountain). The World Organization of the Scout Movement's Eurasian Region is headquartered in the town.

In the early 19 th cen­tury Armand de Richelieu, the founder of Odessa, built there a building. He visited the estate only two times, but invited nu­merous friends of his to put up there. In 1820 the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin sojourned at the house. Now it is the poet’s museum; it can be visited with an excursion. Don’t miss an opportunity of visiting the park of the Military sanatorium, which has a number of the so-called Gubonin’s hotels built in the latter half of the 19 th cen­tury by the owner of the resort, Peter Gubonin. In front of two of them there are the fountains “Night” and “Rachel.”

Between Gurzuf and Mount Ayu-Dag is Cape Suuksu. At the top of the Cape is a tower, a medieval cemetery, and a small monument to Pushkin.

Gurzuf is settlement of city type, the subordinate to the Yalta City Council, the center of village Council. It is located on Southern coast of Crimea in 16 km to northeast Yalta. On seacoast is landing stage for boats. The population is 10,4 thousand persons. To village Council are subordinated sct Krasnokamenka and villages Danilovka, Lineynoe, Partizanskoe.

Assume that the settlement name has occurred from Latin ursus (bear). The heavy humpbacked weight the mountains Ajudag (Bear-mountain), covered with woods and bushes and acting as cape far in the sea, has the form of a having a rest huge bear (height of 572 m, length is about 2,5 km). The territory of Gurzuf and its vicinities has been occupied more 30 thousand years ago. Near village Partizanskoe there were found silicon tools of an epoch of an early paleolith. During a resort season gursufs accept also more than 100 thousand vacationers, coming without permits.

The first written reference about Gurzuf occurs in the writings of the Byzantine writer Procopius (500–562) who lived at the time of the emperor Justinian I (483–565). Procopius writes about the construction of a Byzantine fortress “in the district of Gurzovit”.

In the 8th century, the fortress had grown in size and soon was surrounded by a second ring of fortification. Though the fortress was destroyed by Khazars, by the middle of the 12th century it was rebuilt again. The Arab geographer al-Idrisi was able to write about the “flourishing town” of Garzuni. The town was destroyed and changed hands so often that by the end of the 15th century it had become a small village.

At the beginning of the 19th century Gurzuf became the property of the Novorossiysk governor-general, the Duke de Richelieu (1766–1822). A house was built for him. It was the only two storeyed house on the Southern coast of Crimea. In 1920 it was rented by a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, General Nickolai Rayevsky.

With the Rayevskys the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin spent 3 “the happiest” weeks in Gurzuf. Here he wrote a cycle of poems about Taurida. Later he promised: “My spirit to Yurzuf will fly…” On June 6, 1989, on his 190th birthday A. S. Pushkin Literary Memorial Museum was opened in Gurzuf.

After Richelieu’s death in 1822, the Gurzuf estate went to Count Mikhail Vorontsov (1782–1856), and later, in 1840, Senator I. Funduklei bought it. Then it passed to the merchant Gubonin, who built several hotels and opened a restaurant in the park around the estate.

The picturesque scenery of the park is adorned with fountains, which bear beautiful names, like “The Nymph”, “Rachel”, “The First Love”, and “The Muse”.

Gurzuf is a famous resort. Its main attraction is the unique “young republic” of Artek, which history began in 1925. The names of great writers, artists and composers are associated with Gurzuf, including llya Repin, Maxim Gorky, Alexander Kuprin, Fyodor Chaliapin, Anton Chekhov, Adam Mickiewitch. You can get there by direct flight to Simferopol or through Kiev or Odessa.