There is a monumental hall and dining-room with wainscoting and ceiling of heavy carved oak; a drawing-room done in Wedgwood tiles of blue and white; a second drawing-room in empire style, a library that would not be out of place in one of the Oxford colleges, and other rooms of dignity and perfect order. There is a large courtyard upon which the offices of the estate and the stables open. The latter are now occupied by a battalion of troops, which have been considered necessary to protect the place since the revolution.
The grounds, which are unique, are always open to the public and attract many visitors to the town. They include a dense artificial forest of thirty acres at the foot of a precipice 4,000 feet high, filled with enormous bowlders that during the ages have fallen from the cliffs in odd shapes and lodged in positions which the landscape artist has utilized in an ingenious and artistic manner. There are said to be 1,140,000 plants. Every tree was planted by hand and 127 varieties are represented. Every plant and flowering shrub that will grow in that climate may be found upon the grounds, and we were told that some of the varieties cannot be found elsewhere in the Russian Empire.
Everything seems to be unique. For example, a large bowlder shaped like an irregular pyramid, with the narrow end upward, has been converted into a fountain. A hole has been drilled through it and a pipe has been laid which throws a stream of water an inch in diameter to the height of fifty feet, but strangest of all is the tomb of a pet dog, whose precious bones occupy a marble sarcophagus large enough for a child, placed in the centre of a cave formed by two enormous bowlders which lean against each other. Chiseled upon the rock at the side of the entrance is this epitaph:
CHEMLEK
Born in Brussa, May 20, 1861.
Died Aloupka, Nov. 24, 1874.
Near by is a grotto fitted up as a chapel, with an altar and the stations of the cross, where, the old bearded Tartar who showed us around said, the Princess Woronzoff-Dashkoff used to pray for the soul of her dog.
The owners seldom visit this beautiful estate. The prince has been viceroy of the Caucasus at Tiflis for many years and affairs there have been so troublesome as to require all of his attention.
In front of the park at Sevastopol is a monumental sea-gate called the “Grafskaya Pristan,” or “landing place of the nobility.” A stairway of white marble fifty feet wide leads from the edge of the water to the summit of the bluff, where is a classic marble pavilion, supported by twelve Ionic columns. Here the czar and other distinguished visitors are received with ceremony. This pavilion was erected as a memorial to Prince Mihail Simonovitch Woronzoff who, next to Potemkin, was the empire-builder of southern Russia. Traces of his ability and evidences of his energy and enterprise are found everywhere. He was one of the earliest governors of Odessa, where he founded numerous educational and charitable institutions and gave an impulse to trade and commerce. He was equally a benefactor to Sevastopol and the Grafskaya Pristan was a tribute of the people to the permanent benefit he conferred upon them.
Villa of the Czar at Livadia, Crimea
Another interesting place near by is called “Gaspra,” where three notorious women who had been banished from the Russian Court at St. Petersburg took refuge and not only repented of their sins but attempted the impossible task of converting the Tartar population to Christianity. One of them was the Princess Galatzin, whose amours were more notorious than those of Catherine the Great; another was the Baroness de Krudener, who told Alexander I, to his face, in a crowded ballroom, that he was an awful sinner. The third was the Countess de la Mothe, who was publicly whipped and branded in Paris as an accomplice in the theft of a diamond necklace from Marie Antoinette.