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Pictures of Simferopol, Crimea

Simferopol is the administrative and commercial center of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (Sevastopol has its own administrative unit). It is a busy, multi-ethnic city with Russians, Ukrainians, Tatars, and large groups of foreign students (esp. Chinese, Turks, and Arabs) who take advantage of the high-quality but low-cost instruction in the Russian language at Simferopol's numerous colleges and universities.

Simferopol has an airport and a very busy train station. Buses reach out to every location of interest in Crimea, but the bus stations are far apart. A trolleybus runs from the train station to Yalta through the mountains — the longest trolleybus line in the former USSR.

Apart from being a transportation hub, Simferopol has quite a few sights of its own: the ancient town of Scythian Neapol, the 500-year-old mosque Kebir-Dzhami, Petropavlovsk Cathedral, Saint Troitskyy Monastery, and numerous museums. Unfortunately, I have not yet visited much of anything in Simferopol and do not yet have pictures.

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Some shots of Simferopol's much visited train station			The Simferopol train station is the main transportation hub of Crimea.
An unfinished building from the Soviet era. Nearby are the remains of the ancient Scythian settlement of Neapol.	View of north Simferopol	Chatyr-Dag (1527 m) looms in the distance.	Wealthier homes have clustered at the foot of this hill.
Nauchnyy village is home to some of the most powerful telescopes in Europe.	Nauchnyy is the highest settlement in Crimea at nearly 600 m above sea level. It is an hour's drive from Simferopol.	Town residents (just 1500) come from all ends of the former Soviet Union to study the skies.	Hoarfrost on a winter morning in Nauchnyy. There are buses to Nauchnyy from the western bus station of Simferopol several times a day.

All photos are the original work of Rick DeLong. To learn about purchasing originals, go here. Please contact me at before using my pictures for any purpose.