Do you know what Yalta is at night?

I'm reading through the short stories in The Wall in my Head: words and images from the fall of the Iron Curtain, a wonderful anthology published last year.  Whenever I now find references to Crimea, I can't help but dally over them and think about them.  I found this in Dmitri Savitski's Waltz for K. You can find the full text here.

In Tsvetnoy market the Georgians were selling tomatoes for exorbitant prices, someone had brought some plump gladioli into town, and the Prime Minister of Australia was due to arrive on an official visit, and an aphorism by the mayor of the city made the rounds of Moscow, to the effect that if anyone flew during the visit, heads would fly too—in a word, a pal! of ennui and desolation had descended, and Katenka and I finally got two plane tickets to Simferopol; from there we would make our way by road to Yalta, rest a while, take a look round. and, going out to sea one night on a plea sure boat, leave the country for ever.

Kolenka's warning—not to fly over large expanses of water—naturally made us a bit apprehensive, but we had no choice. The Western frontiers were now being patrolled in earnest.

Do you know what Yalta is at night? No, not Soviet Yalta, full of drunks and street brawls, reeking of cheap perfume and suntan oil! A different Yalta. Mute, dwindling, sprawled on its side like a dis tant dying campfire. A city from which so many have fled. ... A last memory, spiced with cheap jokes.. ..

It was a close, moonless night. I had a child's compass, bought at the last minute. I was so afraid the pointer would come off the needle-----