The Church of Christ's Resurrection is a popular tourist attraction on the outskirts of Yalta in the Crimea, known primarily for its scenic location, overlooking the Black Sea littoral from a 400-metre cliff near Baidarsky Pass.

The Baydar Gate (elevation 503 metres) is a mountain pass in the Crimean Mountains connecting the Baidar Valley with the Black Sea coast. It is enclosed by Mount Chelebi (657 m) and Mount Ckhu-Bair (705 m). The old Yalta-Sevastopol highway, dating from the 1830s and seldom used today, passes through here. When the highway was completed in 1848, the so-called Propylaea were built of local limestone to commemorate the event. This Neoclassical gate offers breathtaking views, including that of the picturesque Foros Church set atop a 400-metre cliff overlooking the sea coast.

On a cliff over Foros stands the elegant Church of the Resurrection, built in 1892 to the design of N. M. Chagin. Four years earlier, Tsar Alexander III and his family had been returning to St Petersburg from Crimea when the train he was in was involved in a major rail crash. Most of the train was derailed, but the carriage carrying the Imperial family remained unscathed on the tracks.

The construction of the church was funded by a rich local tea merchant, A.G.Kuznetsov, in gratitude for to God for saving the Tsar and his family. The mosaics were made in the famous studio of Antonio Salviatti and the interior was painted by the well known artists K. Makovetsky, A. Kozukhin and N. Sverchkov.

The church on the 400m high rock at Foros looks straight out over the Black Sea, and down at the resort where Gorbachev was on holiday at his dacha when the military coup took place in Moscow. He was held under house arrest here, while the State news media said that he was sick and receiving medical treatment in Crimea. The dacha remains, and is now the official holiday residence of the President of Ukraine.

Seven years after the 1917 revolution the church was closed, and its priest sent to Siberia. The church was vandalized , some of the murals were painted over, and the church was turned into a snack bar for visiting tourists until 1969, when this too closed, and the church was abandoned.

In 1992 Gorbachev's reforms enabled the church to be given back to the community, and after lengthy restoration work it has re-opened . Services are now held regularly.

Above the spring a church to be discovered - a monument to the past, a church in a cave - there is that kined of Christian temple among many others in the Crimean Riviera. Their architacture is varied: Byzantine, Russian, Gothic, ancient. The history of many of the Orthodox Christian churches is inter-twined with the great dynasty of the Tsars, the Romanovs.

In the streets and bouleward`s of Yalta can be found an impressive Lutheran kirk, a Polish Roman Catholic churches, an Armenian Orthodox church and many others, comfortably situated surrounded with exquisite landscaping. Their exterior and interior will attract your attention! Now with mosaics of Italian craftsmanship and elegants cupola murals. Now with skilful stone-carving, magnificient iconostasis, and multi-colored stained - glass windows.

The church overlooking the village of Foros was commissioned by a local landowner to commemorate Alexander III's survival in the Borki train disaster (1888). The landowner's name was Alexander Kuznetsov; he was a tea trader from Moscow. Nikolai Chagin, a celebrated architect from Wilno, designed the church in a bizarre blend of Rastrelliesque Baroque, Russian Revival, and Byzantine Revival.

The church was consecrated on 4 October, 1892 in the name of the Resurrection of Christ in a ceremony attended by Konstantin Pobedonostsev. The last Tsar, Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife prayed at the church on the day of the 10th anniversary of the Borki incident.

After the Russian Revolution the church was closed for worshippers, its priest exiled to Siberia and frescoes overpainted. The building was used as a snackbar for tourists until 1969 and stood empty throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It was returned to the Orthodox Church and went through four restoration campaigns under the auspices of Leonid Kuchma.

The Foros Church is a popular wedding location. In July 2003 Metropolitan Volodymyr Sabodan wed politician Viktor Medvedchuk and TV host Oksana Marchenko in the Foros church. Anastasia Zavorotnyuk and Peter Tchernyshev also chose to be married here.

The fastest way to get there is by flight to Simferopol and after that by car to Yalta.