Gurzuf

the first mention of Gurzuf , historians found in the treatise of the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea on the buildings, which was written in 553-555 years. It says that on the orders of Emperor Justinian I had built the castle and the castle Aluston County Gorzuvitskoy .

Archeological excavations during the 1965-1967 period found that the fortress built by the Byzantines in Gurzuf, lasted more than nine centuries - from the middle of VI by the end of XV century.

The fortress on the rock Dzhenevez -Kai played the role of an outpost on the southern coast of Crimea at first the Byzantines, the Genoese and then the Khazars (the last named city Gruzui ).

In 1472, Gurzuf visited the famous Russian traveler - Tver merchant Athanasius Nikitin - the first European to journey to India. When the traveler returned from a trip to India, his sailboat for 5 days in hiding from the storm in the Bay Gurzuf . This was Athanasius Nikitin wrote in his Going Beyond Three Seas .

nearly 300 years - from 1475 to 1774 years Gurzuf, like the rest of southern Crimea was part of the Bailiwick of Turkish sultans. While Gurzuf , like other settlements Southshore, there was a small village. After the Crimea to the Russian Empire in 1783, land in the area Gurzuf moved to the imperial treasury.At the beginning of the XIX century they were granted the Duke Emmanuel Armand de Richelieu, one of the founders of Odessa, who was then governor-general of the Novorossiysk Territory . The Duke of Richelieu in the period from 1808 to 1811 years, built a house in Gurzuf . It was a brick two-storey building at the time - the most monumental building in European style on the southern coast of Crimea.

The house , with minor alterations Richelieu preserved to this day . It is located on the park resort Pushkino about 100 meters from the sea. It was in this house in 1820, three weeks he lived the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

After the death of the Duke of Richelieu in Gurzuf estate passed to Prince Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov , who did much for the development of the Crimea , and especially the South Coast . In particular, he initiated were new roads Simferopol-Alushta -Yalta (1825-1837 gg.) And Yalta -Sevastopol (1845-1848 gg.) .During the construction of roads Alushta- Yalta at the direction of Vorontsov has been traced as the descent from it to Gurzuf .

In 1840, Mikhail S. Vorontsov has sold his estate Fundukley II , who was then governor of Kiev . In contrast to the Richelieu and Vorontsov , I.Fundukley spent every summer in Gurzuf At this time, there were imported from Spain and Portugal, the best grape varieties , and laid the extensive vineyards . In 1847 was built in Gurzuf large wine cellar.

In 1925 there was founded Artek Pioneer Camp . .