On the Southern coast of Crimea, near to the Mount Ai-Petri, in Koreiz town is situated The Yusupov Palace and Park Complex. The palace dates the XVIII century and the beginning of Russian colonization of Crimea. Yusupov Palace it became a former "Pink House", built in the style of a modernized Italian Renaissance by a talented architect N. Krasnov. The palace’s owner were Prince Felix Yusupov, Prince Sumarokov-Elston - was governor-general of Moscow, and his wife - Princess Zinaida Yusupova. They were one of the richest aristocratic dynasties of Russia, close to the imperial court.

The view from windows offer a spectacular view of sea, sky and the near environs of the palace. Most of the furniture is manufactured in a modern style.White enamel panels with shelves and bronze sculptures, comfortable chairs, corner sofas beautify the palace’s rooms and halls. Among the artistic style of the palace, can be noticed its special collection of sculptures.

During the time, in february 1945, The Yusupov Palace served as residence for Stalin, during the Yalta Conference. It also served as a venue for a festive dinner in honor of President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. In the postwar period, the palace became a summer residence of the CPSU Central Committee.

For many years, The Yusupov Palace and Park Complex was reserved. Now the palace is owned by the Security Service of Ukraine. Now, the complex is going to be opened as a museum, and then you personally will be able to apreciate the amazing and fabulous beauty of this unique palace and park ensemble. Therefore it is clearly visible and unique for its mysterious and romantic places on the southern coast.

The Yusupov Palace, a unique historical landmark of federal importance showcasing architectural trends from the 18th through 20th centuries, has been rightfully acclaimed as the "encyclopedia" of St. Petersburg aristocratic interior design.

The history of the palace and surrounding estate dates back to the epoch of Peter the Great, who founded St. Petersburg as his brave new Russian capital. The palace and estate took nearly 200 years to acquire its present shape with contributions from the best architectural talent of the time: J.-B. Vallain de la Motte, A.M. Mikhailov 2nd, B. Simone, H. Monigetti, W. Kennel, A. Stepanov, A, Vaitens, and A. Beloborodov.

Five generations of Russia's elite aristocratic dynasty, the Yusupovs, owned the palace between 1830 and 1917. Many of Russia's and St. Petersburg's historical highlights were associated with the Yusupov family nest on the Moika.

The palace went down in Russian history as the place where the mysterious monk Grigory Rasputin was assassinated, a Siberian peasant who became the spiritual mentor and friend of Nicholas II and the Royal Family in the early 20th century. The tragedy took place the night of December 17, 1916 in the private annex of the young Prince Felix Yusupov, now housing a historical exhibit recreating the assassination scene.

In 1925, the Yusupov Palace was handed over to the city's pedagogical intelligentsia. The palace still serves as a Palace of Culture for Educators, which in the 1990s was reinvented as a diversified historical and cultural center promoting museum activities, theater performances, music concerts, cultural and educational events.

The Yusupov Palace is one of the few aristocratic mansions still in existence in St. Petersburg that have retained both their bold facade suites, and their less glamorous premises: an art gallery, private mini-theater, and luxurious private chambers of the Yusupovs, where the warmth and charm of their erstwhile owners still glows.

The palace's magnificent interior decorations, restored through the hard work of St. Petersburg's best restoration artists, welcome Russian and international fans of history, art, music and theater.

It took the Yusupovs' Palace, or, more precisely, their sprawling downtown estate - one of the very few similar properties extant in St. Petersburg - nearly two centuries to shape up. Like other aristocratic estates in the historical city center, the Yusupov Palace was associated with many prominent figures in St. Petersburg's history, not just the Yusupovs. In fact, its pre-Yusupov period had lasted more than a century. In the early 18th century, a small palace was built for Princess Praskovia, Peter the Great's niece, on the left bank of the Moika River. In 1726, Praskovia gave her estate to the Semyonovsky Royal Guard Regiment, which would make the palace its headquarters until 1742. In the mid-1740s, the palace was merged with a larger estate belonging to Count Pyotr Shuvalov. This wily politician, master of backdoor intrigue, came into prominence following Peter's daughter Elizabeth's palace coup, and wielded enormous influence in the government throughout her reign.

Time has erased the name of the architect who built the palace as part of Count Shuvalov's new, larger estate. The only historical evidence is a 1760 drawing by M. Makhaev, which shows a fairly typical Russian Baroque mansion. Evidently, Count Shuvalov hosted his sumptuous parties and received his royal patroness here. The birth of Tsarevich Paul, the would-be Russian Emperor, was marked with a luxurious fancy-dress ball at Shuvalov's Palace on the Moika in 1754.

Pyotr Shuvalov's son, Count Andrei, sold his father's mansion. A young, ambitious exponent of a new breed of courtiers favored by Catherine II, Andrei probably despised his parental nest as obsolete and archaic. The young Shuvalov, who was an acolyte of the emerging new fashion for Classicism - was planning to build another palace more to his taste farther up the Moika.

The new palace, designed by the celebrated architect J.-B. Vallain de la Motte, was built in the 1770s. De la Motte placed the front entrance inside the courtyard. The seven meter-high fence of the courtyard, adorned with an elegant Classical colonnade, is the only original palace structure that has survived from that period.

The government purchased the Moika mansion from the Shuvalov descendants, and Empress Catherine gave it as a gift to her maid of honor, Countess Alexandra Branitskaya, in 1795. There is no historical evidence of any substantial remodeling performed in those years.

Bolshevik government officials G. Zinoviev and A. Lunacharsky issued a decree for the Yusupov Palace to be nationalized on February 22, 1919, but fortunately for the palace, the Museum Committee under the Education Commissariat decided to conserve it as a public museum. The Yusupov Gallery, featuring art from the family collection, was opened to the general public on September 20, 1919. Tours of the historical rooms related to the assassination of Grigory Rasputin began in 1924. But the period when the Yusupovs' treasures were on display in their ancestral trove turned out to be pitifully short-lived. Like many other "noble nests" in the city, representing a lifestyle alien to the new ideology, the Yusupov Palace was closed in 1925, and thoughtless, uncontrolled plundering of its riches began.

Despite the adversities and neglect that followed the 1917 Revolution, the Yusupov Palace was better off than most other old aristocratic estates in St. Petersburg. Shortly after the museum was closed, it was handed over to the city's education community, and became the convention center and creative headquarters for Leningrad's intelligentsia. This way it avoided the fate of other "monuments to rich people's lifestyle," which were used and abused in the most barbaric fashion. The palace's gala suites and private rooms have survived relatively intact.

The Palace on the Moika shared the bitter fortunes of the city during the Russian part of WWII, hosting a field hospital as the Nazis laid siege to Leningrad. A sweeping restoration of the buildings and interiors, badly damaged by bombing and gunfire during the Siege, began immediately after the war.

In 1960, the Yusupov Palace was designated as a historical landmark of federal importance.

Following a dedicated, well-researched restoration effort, the bulk of the palace is now accessible to the general public, including the second-floor gala suites, art gallery, the amazing private theater, and the so-called "parents' wing": the prince's rooms and princess' elegant boudoirs, the private suite of Felix Yusupov, which recreates the historical scene of Grigory Rasputin's assassination, and Felix and Irina Yusupov's annex with recreated original interiors and a documentary exhibit on the family history of the Yusupovs from the 10th to 21st centuries.

The Yusupov Palace has retained its value as a truthful reflection of the lifestyle of Russian aristocracy. Having been home to one of Russia's richest and most influential aristocratic clans for nearly 100 years, the palace has volumes to tell about the ways, tastes and fantasies of its former noble owners, and as much about the prevalent mores and cultural milieu of the epoch.

Although much of the palace's erstwhile pictorial and sculptural splendor is missing, it is still a supreme masterpiece that cannot fail to impress with both its artworks and its well-preserved "homey" atmosphere.

You can get there by direct flight to Simferopol or through Kiev or Odessa.