The Space Opera of the Crimean Mountains

Bakla (Baqla) is the Turkic name of the valley and the ancient cave-town at the top of a cuesta mountain located halfway between the cities of Simferopol and Bakhchysarai in the Republic of Crimea, Russia. From the IV century A.D. until the invasion by the Tatar-Mongol khan Nogai of the Golden Horde in 1299, Bakla was a prominent Orthodox Christian center with churches, monasteries, and a famous winery. There’s historic evidence that at the end of the 1st millennium A.D., Byzantium used this town to baptize the locals. For a period of time, a Byzantine military garrison was stationed there, too. Goths made up the majority of the population which made the town of Bakla the center of Crimea’s Medieval Gothia.

Art materials used: black ink, Russian sauce pastels, white chalk, charcoal on class E factory Kraft paper.