Kebir-Jami Mosque

The oldest building in Simferopol and the spiritual heart of its surviving Crimean Tatar community. Founded in 1508 under the Crimean Khanate, the mosque is a low, stout structure of pale local limestone with a single tall minaret, set in a quiet walled courtyard a short walk south-east of the old town centre.

The interior is small and plain — whitewashed walls, an arched mihrab, woven carpets — and most striking for its quiet after the busy streets outside. The mosque is in active use; visitors are welcome outside prayer times, with shoes off and shoulders and knees covered.

things to do sight architecture
A story
Kebir-Jami means 'the Friday mosque' in the Crimean Tatar tongue. When Catherine the Great annexed Crimea in 1783 the mosque survived but was downgraded to a regular community building; it was deconsecrated in Soviet times and used as a library, an archive, and a bookshop before being returned to the Tatar community in 1989.