Yalta

Yalta , city (1989 pop. 89,000), S Ukraine, in S Crimea, on the Black Sea. Picturesquely situated near the seashore, Yalta is on the site of an ancient Greek colony. It is the largest resort in the Crimea, with numerous hotels, sanatoriums, and tourist and rest homes—many of which were built as villas by the nobility before the Russian Revolution. Nearby is the town and palace of Livadiya , where Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met in Feb., 1945 (see Yalta Conference ).

Yalta, Ukraine Dzhalita, Healita Now a popular holiday resort in the Crimea, the name is derived from the Polovtsian original, itself derived from the ancient Greek yialos ‘sea‐side’ or ‘shore’. According to legend, Greek sailors were blown off course one night in the Black Sea and lost their way in poor visibility. When the mist lifted the next morning the lookout saw the Crimean coast and shouted out ‘yialos’. This was the name given to the place where they landed. The Polovtsians were a Turkic‐speaking tribe of the Kipchak confederation living north of the Black Sea in the 11th century. Although the area came under Russian control in the late 18th century, the modern town was only developed at the beginning of the 19th century.