The most famous among the many cave cities in Crimea and the most interesting for tourists is Chufut-Kale. This is a mysterious, mysterious place and anyone who came here does not leave the feeling of joining the ancient and great, and because of the stunning landscape opening from the tops of the cave city, experience an incredible unity with nature. Visiting Chufut-Kale is a kind of meditation and those who have been here once have a desire to return.
Cufut-Kale, which translates as «Jewish fortress» — not the first name of this city, earlier the Tatars who lived here in the XIII-XVII centuries, called it «Kyrk Yer» — «forty castles». The foundation of Cufut-Kale is attributed to the VIII century, but it is likely that the first settlements of Goths and Alans here appeared earlier. The construction of cave cities in high mountain plateaus in ancient turbulent times, when there was a constant danger of nomadic raids, was a necessity. The first cave cities appeared in the VI century, and life in them boiled up to the XVII-XVIII centuries.
Now it is even unbelievable that once people lived, loved and worked in Cufut-Kale. In 1731 the first printing house in Crimea even appeared here! Local residents on the nearby fertile lands grew grapes and fruits, traded in Bakhchisarai and even minted coins.
Today, Chufut-Kale is a dead town. The only fully preserved of more than 500 residential buildings is the museum-estate of the culturologist and prominent educator Abram Firkovich. Other residential buildings are completely or half destroyed, 
also from the past have reached us the prayer houses of Karaites: Small and Big Kenassa, looking at which you can imagine the traditions of this ancient people.
Those who wish to see the most interesting sights of Bakhchisarai and Chufut-Kale, visit the mausoleum of the daughter of Khan Tokhtamysh Dzhanyke-Khanim. Romantic legends are connected with her personality, but one thing is known for sure — she was really a great woman. According to legend, during a long siege of the city by enemies, she saved the inhabitants by carrying water from a cleft to the city in a small jug all night. By morning she died, and a whole mountain lake appeared in the city. Behind the mausoleum of Dzhanyka, preserved since the beginning of the XV century, a century-old tree grows, and its roots go to the heart of the sovereign, and if you make a wish, hugging this tree, it will certainly come true.
But, as reality has it, not only good things are connected with the history of Cufut-Kale. In XVI-XVII centuries in the local caves languished many prisoners, among them a nobleman and a close associate of Ivan the Terrible Vasily Gryaznoy, Lithuanian ambassador Lez, Hetman Andrei Pototsky from Poland. The hollows hollowed out in the dungeon-caves preserve the traces of chains that restrained the prisoners, and the semicircular notch on the ancient bench in the prison testifies to the fact that this bench was the place of execution of those condemned to death. The Russian commander V.B. Sheremetev, who lost the battle with the Tatars in 1660, languished here for more than 20 years; he went free as a gray-haired, blind, tormented old man and soon died.
Chufut-Kale is more than 170 caves, which were once living, household and working quarters, all hollowed out at a height of up to 600m above three valleys. The inhabitants of the town, who breathed in the healing high-mountain air, were always spared epidemics of cholera, plague and other diseases. Therefore, visiting Chufut-Kale and now, in our time — it is not only a fascinating tour of the ancient city, but also a health-improving event that will affect your health in the most beneficial way. And the soul will be pleased with the magnificent views, stunning panorama of the Crimean mountains and valleys. Here you feel delight, complete freedom and inexpressible closeness to the pristine, pure and incredibly beautiful nature.
If you want to see the most interesting attractions of Crimea, visit the cave city of Chufut-Kale — you can talk about it endlessly, because for more than a thousand years it has preserved many mysteries and legends. Every time in this amazing place you learn something new and understand this mysterious ancient city even better.