Mount Mithridat

To overview Crimean Kerch City, Black Sea, bays and endless sky from bird's-eye-view you should climb Mount Mithridat, the large hill located in the center of the city. To climb the mountain (just 91.4 metres (300 ft) in elevation), you have to overcome 428 steps of the old staircase, built in 1800 and decorated with sculptures of griffins - mythical creatures with a lion's body and a bird’s head and wings. On the Mount Mithridat you will find yourself in an ancient acropolis and its ruins. Two and a half thousand years ago there was the capital of Bosporus, the state successfully resisting the Roman Empire.

The top of the hill is crowned with its Obelisk of Glory to immortal heroes - a monument dedicated to the generals, officers, sergeants and privates of Independent Coastal Army, the sailors of the Azov Flotilla and all the soldiers who fell in the battles for the liberation of Crimea. The monument was built by warriors of the 9th moto- engineering battalion of Lieutenant Colonel F.I. Kinevskogo in 1944 under the project of architect A.D. Kiselyov. Stones from the destroyed by bombing Trinity Cathedral ere used in the construction.

The monument was opened on October 8, 1944 and became the first monument dedicated to the events of the Great Patriotic War in the Soviet Union. May 9, 1959 at the obelisk of Glory the eternal flame was lit. Flaming torch was brought from Sevastopol, from Malakhov Hill. The honor of lighting a fire in the bowl was provided to the former potemkin sailor M.P. Panfilov.