Winter Garden of the Vorontsov Palace (Zimniy sad Vorontsovskogo dvortsa)

The palace at Alupka was built between 1828 and 1848 for Mikhail Vorontsov, Governor-General of New Russia. Early designs by Francesco Boffo and Thomas Harrison were dropped when work restarted in 1830 to plans by the English architect Edward Blore. Blore never travelled to Crimea; his assistant William Hunt ran the site, and construction took some twenty years.

Between the central block and the dining-room wing, Blore had drawn a billiard room in the form of an open gallery. By 1838 the space had become a winter garden; English-language Wikipedia notes that this arcaded loggia, open at first, was glazed later. The museum's own website gives the same 1838 date and states that a single plant survives from that time.

Nationalised in 1921, the palace became a museum. During the Second World War the occupiers removed several hundred works of art and decorative pieces, and the museum did not reopen until 1956. Recent years have tested the glazing itself. On 7 June 2019 a storm tore away the temporary covering laid during roof repairs and water flooded several rooms; according to Krym.Realii, the Winter Garden was also damaged by a window broken by a badly fitted lantern, and the contractor was fined for breaching heritage law. In spring 2024 RIA Novosti Crimea described a six-year programme nearing completion, with 5,500 m² of new copper roofing on five buildings and renewed utility networks, during which the palace never closed.

The Winter Garden fills the large arcaded loggia that links the main corps de logis, on its west side, to a later secondary wing holding the state dining room, so that it doubles as a passage between the two buildings. Its south side is glazed throughout, and a large lantern was opened in the centre of the ceiling to bring in more light. The layout is arranged around a fountain, while marble portrait sculptures line the south wall.

The surrounding palace is a monument of the Romantic era, built of blocks of greenish-grey diabase quarried nearby and chosen to blend with the landscape; every other building material was imported from beyond the Empire. The complex comprises five buildings with towers, open and enclosed courtyards, terraces and stairways. None of the sources consulted gives dimensions or a floor area for the Winter Garden. Its fragility showed in 2019, during the re-roofing of the palace, when a window broken by a badly fitted lantern and leaks from a blocked drain damaged the room.

Of the original planting only a Ficus repens remains, an evergreen climber that still covers the walls. Around it the museum displays rare plants and flowers from warm climates: araucaria, cycads, several kinds of palm, figs, begonias and camellias.

The Winter Garden is also a sculpture gallery. Near the fountain stand three marble copies of antique works: the Apollo Belvedere, a Bathing Aphrodite and Urania, muse of astronomy. They are joined by 'Girl', an expressive marble by the Italian Quintiliano Corbellini, and 'First Steps' by the French sculptor Laurent Marqueste. Along the south wall, the portraits of the Vorontsov family were carved in Paris in the 1820s by Denis Foyatier, and the jalita.com guide also lists busts by Joseph Nollekens. The pairing of evergreen foliage with white marble sets the room apart within the sequence of state apartments.

The Winter Garden is seen on the route through the state rooms of the main block: after the vestibule, the Chinese Cabinet and the Blue Drawing Room, it leads into the state dining room, and the tour ends in the billiard room. The palace stayed open throughout the works of recent years. A visit continues in Alupka Park, laid out by the German gardener Karl Kebach, which covers 34 hectares according to the museum (about 40 according to Wikipedia) and holds some 200 species of exotic trees and shrubs. Crimea, Ukrainian territory under international law, has been occupied by Russia since 2014; the UK government advises against all travel to the peninsula.