Yalta

Yalta is a resort city on the south coast of the Crimean Peninsula, built around a deep bay that faces the Black Sea and backed by the Ai-Petri mountain range. It is the administrative center of Yalta Municipality and had a recorded population of 76,746 at the 2014 census. Internationally it is recognised as part of Ukraine's Autonomous Republic of Crimea, though Russia has controlled it in practice since annexing Crimea in 2014. The site was an ancient Greek settlement, later a Byzantine port, a Genoese trading colony and, from 1475, Ottoman territory, and the Russian Empire annexed it in 1783. In the nineteenth century it became a fashionable resort for the Russian aristocracy, and Anton Chekhov lived in the White Dacha here from 1898. Under the Soviet Union it was a principal holiday resort, and in 1945 the Yalta Conference of the Allied leaders was held at the Livadia Palace nearby.