Detour #109: Bakhchysarai Highway, Crimea, Russia/Ukraine
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The Bakhchysarai Highway is one of the world’s most dangerous roads – and not just because it’s in a war zone, says Simon Heptinstall.
A simple stone needle stands in an empty, windswept valley near Balaclava, Ukraine, marking the site of the heroic but tragically foolish Charge of the Light Brigade.
Catching their spirit of foolhardy bravado I decide to ignore locals’ warnings… and tackle the nearby 48-mile Bakhchysarai Highway. It’s an obvious journey for a visitor – from the glittering ancient Islamic Tatar capital of Bakhchysarai to the world-famous resort of Yalta on Crimea’s Black Sea Riviera.
There’s a choice of modern roads looping round 4,000ft Crimean Mountains between the two cities… or you can drive through the heart of them on what locals call ‘the old highway’.
Hairy road aficionados have judged this Bakhchysarai Highway one of the world’s most dangerous. I set off amid the backdrop of Crimea’s status as an unstable semi-war-zone, claimed by both Ukraine and Russia. I see plenty of men threatening people with guns, including me.
Never mind, that’s nothing compared with what the Light Brigade went through. So I sit back to enjoy the journey… in a creaky old Toyota Hiace, driven by a moustachioed local with wild blue eyes that I’ve never met before. What could possibly go wrong?
The good part: the officially-titled TO117 is beautiful. It winds through forest gorges and traverses spectacular rock cliffs. I pass gorgeous villages and see virtually no traffic.
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Less good bits: more than 50 gulp-inducing hairpins including sequences of blind narrow bends where I close my eyes. Unguarded verges crumble away into bottomless chasms as the Hiace bounces over huge potholes and drifts vaguely across swathes of gravel.
Finally, I can breathe, as the Highway plunges down through forests with sparkling Black Sea glimpses below. Yalta is famous for Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt’s 1945 meeting. I clamber from the Hiace, take a deep breath and thank the bored-looking driver. Then like the wartime trio I slump at a table overlooking the sea, order vodka and start to ponder the fate of Eastern Europe.
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