Outside of town Bakhchisaray, cut into the rocky cliffs of the Crimean Mountains, is the Assumption Cave Monasrery, an Orthodox Christian mens' monastery. (The monastery is also known, in English, as the Uspensky Cave Monastery, or the Assumption Monastery of the Caves.) By some accounts, the monastery was founded in the 8th or early 9th century by Byzantine monks devoted to the veneration of religious icons after the Council of Hieria in 754 decreed that all such icons should be destroyed (the first of two "iconoclastic" periods in early Christianity). This early monastery fell into disuse as Byzantium, and its influence on Crimea, declined.

 The monastery as it exists today dates to the 15th century. It was closed, however, by the Soviets in 1921 and fell into disrepair. After Ukrainian independence, the monastery was restored and in it reopened in 1993. The complex consists of a number of separate buildings, but the most interesting feature is a church built in a cave in the solid rock. Unfortunately, photography is not permitted inside the church.