Velvet season (Russian: Бархатный сезон, Ukrainian: Оксамитовий сезон) is a term[1] for early autumn,[2] one of the most comfortable times of the year for people to vacation in the subtropics, particularly in the mediterranean that was known as the "Russian Riviera".
The term appeared in the late nineteenth or early twentieth centuries in Imperial Russia when it was fashionable to vacation in the Crimea.
According to Alexander Levintov, at the beginning of the twentieth century "velvet season" referred to several weeks in April and May, when the court and the royal family moved from St. Petersburg to the Crimea.
The well-known Russian author Alexander Kuprin, described Velvet season in his 1914 short story "The Wine Barrel" (Винная Бочка):[5]These are golden days for Yalta, and, perhaps, for the entire Crimean coast.
And I must say that it is at this early spring time that Crimea, all in a pink and white frame of blooming apple trees, almonds, pears, peaches and apricots, not yet dusty, not fetid, refreshed by the magical sea air, is truly beautiful.