Today, Crimea is a modern health resort providing comfortable, useful and safe vacations for children unaccompanied by their parents as well as for families with children.
Children by themselves
The Artek international children's centre was established in 1925 as a campground. Today, it is one of the largest children's centres in the world, occupying an area of 218 ha, with 102 ha of this devoted to parks. It has a 7 km coastline with pristine beaches, 10 camps and educational and sports centres. Over 30,000 children visit it every year. In addition, Artek has its own system of values, special atmosphere and teaching traditions that will soon be a hundred years old.
Besides Artek, Crimea has a system of children's camps of various sizes and specialisations. Some of them offer beach vacations with games and excursions. Others have advanced English learning courses or intensive creative and sports programmes.
In addition, Crimea has a number of health resorts that offer vacations for children and teenagers aged 7--17, who are on holiday without their parents. For instance, in Yevpatoria, teenagers can receive treatment for respiratory diseases, musculoskeletal conditions, cardiovascular illnesses and neurological disorders. They will be taken care of by experienced teachers, and arrangements will be made for their leisure activities.
The observance of all requirements for the organisation of children's vacations and rehabilitation — from sanitary and epidemiological to educational norms — is meticulously monitored in Crimea every year. Special attention is paid to safety in the camps or health resorts, during excursions and theatre visits and so on.
With parents
Children can also receive treatment and improve their health if they travel with their parents and in the case of young children, they must be accompanied by their parents. There are many health resorts that offer their visitors rehabilitation and recuperation or treatment for respiratory diseases, cardiovascular illnesses, musculoskeletal conditions, neurological or gastrointestinal tract disorders, and skin ailments.
Apart from health resorts, Crimea offers a wide choice of holiday destinations and facilities, depending on the children's age, hobbies and the goals pursued by their parents.
Above all, it is important to be aware that a policy of obligatory medical insurance is valid on the peninsula and that Crimea has a network of medical institutions meeting national standards. Consequently, Russian and foreign citizens are entitled to the same medical services as in any other Russian region. Under Russian legislation, hotel accommodation and transport services are provided for children on the presentation of their birth certificates.
Crimea has many hotels and recreational centres that specialise in family vacations. It is advisable to mention any such requirement when booking accommodation. In family hotels, visitors can expect entertainment programmes, children's pools and children's menus. Many have petting zoos, play rooms and other forms of entertainment for kids.
The regimen of peace and quiet and recreation is strictly observed in such places. With advance notice, most hotels can put a child's cot in the room or provide anything else that's needed. It is important to remember that the organisation of children's holidays largely depends on their parents and timely planning. For example, it may be difficult to get the right terms and board at a youth hostel.
It is also essential to pay attention to the category of beach concerned. Legislation stipulates that only the beaches at children's health resorts have the status of children's beaches. Unauthorised persons are not allowed access. Many beaches offer specialised services for the smallest kids (pools, animation programmes and foam parties) and even specialise in children's vacations.
Entertainment
When choosing a city or village for a children's holiday, it is best to plan leisure activities in advance. Spa cities (Yalta, Alushta, Sevastopol, Koktebel, Yevpatoria and Sudak, to name a few) have aqua parks and dolphinariums. The most famous zoos are in Yalta's Meadow of Fairy Tales, Simferopol and near Belogorsk. The latter is built as a safari park in which large animals, including lions, tigers and giraffes, live not in cages but in enormous enclosures, under close to natural conditions. The distance between Yalta and Belogorsk is about 130 km. It takes around an hour and 40 minutes to get there by car.
There are crocodiles centres in Yalta and Sudak. Alushta has an underwater aquarium museum, and there is a donkey farm near Bakhchisarai and an antelope park not far from Feodosia. The miniature parks in Bakhchisarai and Yevpatoria are very popular, with their scaled-down replicas of Crimean landmarks. In addition, the peninsula has the Museum of Ice Cream and Marmalade (Sevastopol), the Museum of Black Sea Pirates in Yevpatoria and the Viking Cinema Park near Simferopol. Alushta has a modern scientific entertainment complex The Guard of the Empire that is devoted to sci-fi. On top of visiting the complex, children and their parents can stay in a hotel room designed as a replica of a spaceship.
Visits to museums devoted to the history and culture of Crimea and Russia will help to improve a child's understanding of the certain parts of their school curriculum, and hence further developing their enthusiasm to learn more. They can study Russian literature in the museums of Pushkin (Gurzuf), Chekhov (Yalta and Gurzuf) and Grin (Feodosia and Old Crimea), natural science in the Nikitsky Botanical Gardens, the Museum of Fish and Fishing (Feodosia) and the astrophysical observatory (village of Naychny in the Bakhchisarai district). Visitors can learn about antiquity in the streets of ancient Khersones, the Middle Ages in the old areas of Bakhchisarai and the Mangup-Kale Fortress. In Sevastopol, it is worth visiting the expositions devoted to the Crimean War and the Great Patriotic War.
