[ July, 2013 ] This church is in a place called Foros in southern Crimea.
A man who became rich through trading tea built this and used the underground space as a warehouse.
This church was his trade mark.
Gorbachev, the last General Secretary and the only President of USSR had his dacha near here.
He used to have one somewhere else, but his wife Raisa disliked it being taken photos by paparazzi, so he spent 150m dollars to build a new one here.
Generally speaking, Gorbachev was popular in the West, but internally he did not seem to be liked very much.
In the end, he was house arrested in this dacha during 1991 coup d’etat.
In Russia (and Ukraine) the tradition of having a dacha started around the end of 17th century.
In Soviet era, they had a small hut with garden for growing vegetables.
Acting upon this tradition, the current Ukrainian president, Yanukovych bought up a camp site for young people not far from here to build his new dacha, apparently.
