Crimean Legend - Fountain of tears in Bahchisaray
Khan Crim-Girey was severe and fierce man, nobody was spared by him. He never felt sorry for anybody. He ascended his throne having gone through the mass of dead bodies. Power and glory replaced everything for him - love, tenderness and even money. Khan Crim-Girey was said to have no heart in his chest. But one day khan had found himself in the twilight of his years, he had grew old, his heart had weakened and, suddenly, love came into it.
It appeared that a little girl-slave was brought to the khan's harem. Her name was Delyare.
Delyare did not want to warm the khan with her tenderness and love but nevertheless the khan loved her more and more. For the first time in his life the khan felt that his heart could suffer, ache and rejoice.
Delyare could not live long in captivity. She faded away as a fragile flower robbed of the sun shine.
When beloved person is dying, heart is crying with blood. The khan understood how heart could hard ache.
Then the khan called the craftsman Omer and told him:
- Do such a thing, so that the stone will be able to carry my grief through centures, will be able to cry like man's heart does.
Omer had been listening and thinking for a long time, how could he make a human tear from the stone? At last he told the khan:
- Even if your heart cried the stone would cry also. And all people will learn what man's tears can be...
So, Omer engraved the petals of the flower on the marble slab. There was a human eye in the middle of the flower, and from that flower a heavy man's tear should fall on the stone chest, so that to keep burning it for centures. So that the tear welled up the eye and rolled from one cup to another as if on the cheeks and the chest.
Also Omer engraved the snail, which was the symbol of the doubts. He knew that the khan's soul had been gnawed at doubts: what did he need his life for - joy and sadness, love and hatred, evil and good?
Until now the fountain has been crying and crying all day and night long...
"The Fountain of Tears", was founded under the khan Crim-Girey's order in 1764. It is the original monument of architecture extolled by the great Russian poet A.S.Pushkin.