Kerch Embankment is an object similar to the Venetian Lagoon or New York’s Manhattan. Every square meter of the Alexander Embankment is saturated with legends and history. It was admired by Maximilian Voloshin and Pushkin, Igor Severyanin and all Russian emperors, starting with Peter the Great. In addition, it is here that the borders of the real Tmutarakan principality began.
So, Kerch’s embankment is «only» 42 km long. It is turned «facing» to the odious Kerch Strait, which divides Ukraine and Russia and connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Azov. Therefore, everyone who walks along the shore along the strait can admire military and merchant ships of the two countries, traveling from one inland sea of the Atlantic Ocean to the other, as well as small fishing boats engaged in catching numerous «migrants» — hamsa, mullet, mullet, mullet, herring, mackerel and pilengas.
But no modern tourists, citizens and Russian-Ukrainian politicians understand the meaning of Kerch coastal landscapes. Neanderthals were the first to appreciate this beauty, having settled on the shore of the strait about a hundred thousand years ago. To this day, local utility workers, laying or repairing another pipe, regularly find mammoth tusks, primitive weapons, or even the remains of Stone Age people.
Over time on the embankment of Kerch appeared Greek colonizers, «ponaezhaschie» mainly from Miletus. Thanks to them, the city was named Panticapaeum, became the capital of the Bosporan kingdom, and the views for those who are on vacation in Kerch, enriched silhouettes of a number of mounds and fragments of columns of the temple of Apollo. Acropolis to our days, unfortunately, did not survive. The beginning of the end for this Kerch Hellas was the reign of Mithridates Eupator the Sixth. Although, thanks to the tsar, the guests of the peninsula, walking along the embankment, can still admire the mountain with the beautiful name Mitridat, later crowned with the Obelisk of Glory.
Kerch saw many personalities from the eventual Encyclopedia of Monarchs and Generals. Byzantines, Mstislavovichs from Kievan Rus, Turks, Tatars, Genoese, German generals and participants of the Yalta Conference stomped their boots on the city embankment and admired the same views of the Kerch Strait.
Today the main part of the shore for promenades has become the so-called Alexander Embankment — the central part of the 42 kilometer line of contact between the city and the sea waters. It is a wide enough strip, conventionally divided into 3 paths with the help of green plantings. Besides the sea and silhouettes of Mithridates, barrows and harbor cranes, Alexandrovskaya Embankment is decorated with several objects that are categorized as cultural and aesthetic.
First, it is the Fountain-Flower, erected in the 70s of the last century. The granite slabs lining the reservoir have been perfectly preserved, so when it occasionally works, vacationers are genuinely happy.
Secondly, in tone with the metal structure of the Dandelion Fountain, the monument «Gifts of the Sea» rises on the shore. It was installed in 2008, on the day of the city. It is a six-meter long hand-forged metal net, in which 10 most popular fish species extracted from the waters of the Kerch Strait are entangled.
Thirdly, there is a very unusual monument dedicated to Rossi’s friendship with Ukraine. It is a sea knot, connected from metal pipes of medium diameter.
Fourthly, no city in the world has a memorial depicting an explosion. And on the Kerch embankment there is a monument dedicated to miners, sappers and divers, which very accurately conveys the visual image created by exploding shells.
For those who stay on vacation in Kerch, acquaintance with the seafront can continue in one of the many restaurants, made in the marine theme. Here you will be treated to the famous pilaf with mussels, rapan kebabs, fried mullet, kalkan, legendary Kerch herring and salted hamsa, as well as mullet baked with herbs in foil. Traditionally, the meal is accompanied by young local wines, the grapes for which are grown on vines brought to these regions by the Miletian Greeks.