Reading list | Simferopol

All roads meet in Simferopol, Crimea's administrative centre. It is a slight mystery as to why Potemkin chose the Greek Sympheropolis (the City of Common Good or City of Usefulness) as a name for his new capital, rather than translate the existing Tatar name Aqmescit/Akmesçit (White Mosque). Simferopol is a quiet capital, both of the steppe and very central European in atmosphere, with almost none of the trappings of a former Soviet city. At its centre are the remains of an earlier Scythian settlement. The Kebir-Jami Mosque, in old Akmeşçit, is Crimea’s main Friday mosque, though not the 'white mosque' of the town's name.