Livadia Palace Ukraine

Legendary

The Yalta Conference was held here in February 1945 to discuss the post-war fate of Germany.

Photo by Vyacheslav Argenberg

When Franklin Roosevelt arrived here in February 1945, he didn't know he was sleeping in a tsar's bedroom. Neither did Winston Churchill.

Both leaders were told they were staying at a Crimean villa. Only later did they learn the white palace above the Black Sea had been built for Russia's last emperor.

Tsar Nicholas II had it finished in 1911 as a summer retreat. He had fallen in love with the villas of Italy and wanted one of his own, so the palace was built in white granite with an Italian courtyard and 116 rooms.

His family spent just four summers there. When World War I began in 1914, they never came back.

After the revolution, Nicholas asked if he could retire to Livadia. The request was refused, and the family was killed in 1918.

For decades the palace served as a hospital. Then Yalta was chosen for a meeting that would reshape the world.

From February 4 to 11, 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met here to decide what Europe would look like after World War II. The Americans stayed at Livadia, the British at nearby Vorontsov Palace, and Stalin at the Yusupov Palace.

Roosevelt was too ill to travel far each day, so Stalin agreed to hold the meetings in Roosevelt's building. The three men sat at a round table in the White Hall, the palace's largest room.

The agreements were signed in the tsar's old billiard room. They set new borders for Poland, divided Germany into zones, and laid plans for the United Nations.

Roosevelt died two months later. The palace became a museum in 1974.

Look for the round table where the three leaders sat, still on display. Walk upstairs into the private rooms of Nicholas II and his family, filled with their photographs. Step out into the Italian courtyard, which has appeared in several films.