Sudak Fortress (Soldaia)
Genoese Soldaia: 30 hectares of walls and towers above Sudak Bay.
The fortress takes up almost 30 hectares on a cone-shaped hill 157 m high, with walls 6–8 m tall and two lines of defence; some of the towers carry carved Genoese dates, among them the harbour tower of Federico Astaguerra — 18 May 1386. Until 2014 the fortress was a department of the Sophia of Kyiv National Reserve. On the night of 17 November 2015 the Nameless Tower No. 19 of the outer line partly collapsed. From January to May 2017 a contractor worked on three towers and the curtain walls with modern cement mortar and concrete foundations, and in the autumn of 2016 soil in the protection zone was stripped with excavators; in 2014–2021 unauthorised excavations were run here and ceramics, coins and frescoes of the 14th–16th centuries were removed.
Travel here is impossible while the occupation lasts; the pre-war inventory documentation is held at the Sophia of Kyiv reserve, not at the occupation directorate.