Museum 'Polyana Skazok'

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Polyana Skazok is Ukraine’s only outdoor museum of sculpture and floristics. It is situated in one of the most beautiful corners of the Southern Coast of Crimea: on the protected forest edge at the foot of the peculiar Stavri-Kaya cliff, two kilometers away from Yalta’s center. Its exhibits are more than two hundred characters of folk fairy tales, embodied in unique sculptures and placed on cozy forest glades.

In the first half of the 20th century, an oil-engineer from Moscow fell ill with hard form of tuberculosis and came to the Southern Coast of Crimea in the hope of recovery. He settled at the foot of the picturesque mountains near Uchan-Su Waterfall and soon, thanks to miraculous Crimean air, he got better. To express gratitude to the sorceress nature, he decided to create a fairy-tale world in this area. Soon, several dozens of amazing sculptures appeared not far from Yalta, on a spot, which later became one of Yalta’s most visited museums.

Unfortunately, Polyana Skazok, created on the initiative of a skilled folk craftsman, was destroyed in 1970. However, locals, for whom it has already become a favorite recreation place, insisted on its revival, and it was restored a little bit later as an outdoor museum of fairy tales. Local sculptors and painters created figures of the most famous and loved by people fairy-tale characters. And as far as the museum gained popularity very fast, professionals and folk craftsmen from all over Ukraine and neighboring countries, such as Russia, Lithuania, Armenia, contributed to the replenishment of its unusual exposition.

Today, Polyana Skazok’s collection numbers more than two hundred original figures, sculptural compositions and whole theme complexes, harmonically fitted into charming landscape. It is yearly replenished by new and new works, made by skilled craftsmen from various materials: wood, decorative stone, plexiglass. Many works were created in ‘co-authorship’ with nature, which provided fertile material in form of intricately entwined roots, crooked branches and thickset stumps. Later, they were turned into heroes of fairy tales, legends and bylinas (Russian heroic epic) by folk craftsmen.

A visit to Polyana Skazok includes a guided tour and a special performance for children. In summer you can visit an outdoor theater and see a performance.

Getting here. You can reach the Museum 'Polyana Skazok' on a bus № 115/26 or № 102/27 from Yalta bus station, or on a route taxi №24 from the bus stop Spartak.