One of the last Crimean Khans, Quam Giray Khan, made this fountain of tears for his young Polish wife after her early death. Despite his unmoved cruelty, he was grievous and wept when she died, astonishing all those who knew him. Due to his muslim belief it was not possible for the Khan to add a figure of his beloved, and he had to express his grief by other means. He commissioned a marble fountain to be made, so that the rock would weep, like him, forever.
The fountain has been replaced from a garden to a place in the inner palace to the time of Catharina II, where it can now be visited in the Khan's palace.

The fountain of tears moved the great writer Alexander Pushkin to write a poem with the same name when he visited this place in Bakchessysarai. Today, a figure of Pushkin is placed left to the fountain.