Monastic Chronicles 2

If you are wondering why “Monastery Chronicles-2” right away - the first episode was not written by me, you can read it here

It’s August again, again the Simferopol train station, again a backpack with a mat and a tent attached... But this time the backpack is much lighter, there are compression stockings on my knees, and in addition to the usual hiking kit, I’ve taken telescopic mountain poles with me. As time has shown, it is an extremely useful thing for any hike.

This time the route is completely different: more historical than natural history, it goes through populated areas - the valleys of the Crimean rivers, and in general - much simpler than last year. And the group gathered larger than last year, and during the hike did not decrease, but on the contrary, grew.

From Simferopol we went by train to Bakhchisarai. Crimean commuter trains are more reminiscent of those running through our station than, for example, suburban trains. Well, could you imagine, for example, a ten-minute stop for an electric train at a station in the Moscow region? And in Bakhchisarai it costs exactly ten minutes, and thanks to this, we calmly, without fuss, unloaded onto the platform and after a while loaded into a minibus, which took us to the Khan’s palace.
Crimean minibuses deserve a separate story and even, perhaps, a separate genre, which would most appropriately be called a “comedy thriller,” but I will not distract the reader.
I had been to the palace before, so on this visit I preferred to sit in the courtyard, in the shade of the poplars, and look at the audience. Although the palace itself is interesting - it is built of wood, in the traditional oriental style, and its main attractions are not only the Fountain of Tears, praised by Pushkin (which, like almost everything in Crimea, has a legend), but also the tree in the backyard - either a plane tree or a mulberry, I don’t remember now, but it is remarkable because the palace is a little older. The palace itself was built in the middle of the 17th century, so the tree is almost four hundred years old.
From the palace our path lay through the Assumption Monastery and the first cave city on the route, Chufut-Kale. It should be noted right away that the name “cave cities” is somewhat arbitrary: yes, the Crimean Mountains are distinguished by an abundance of caves, and many of them were probably inhabited in prehistoric times, but the cave cities were built on flat peaks, characteristic of the mountains of the South-Western Crimea. And natural and artificial caves were used mainly as utility and service premises. The city of Chufut-Kale remained inhabited much longer than other cave cities - back in the 80s of the 19th century, the city lived a very active life; on the wall of the kenas - the Karaite prayer house - a plaque was preserved about the visit of the city by Alexander III.
However, the sun was already setting, and we had to quickly get up for the night. And, despite the rush, we set up camp already at dusk, and had dinner in the dark, by the light of flashlights. By the way, a headlamp is an extremely convenient thing: your hands are free, and it shines where you are looking.
The second day began with a descent from Mount Chufut-Kale. The mountains of Southwestern Crimea cannot be confused with anything else: a flat top, a steep cliff and a fairly gentle slope. At one of the stops, we thought about why they were like that, and came up with this: Crimea was once the bottom of the sea, and these mountains were coral reefs. When the reefs became mountains, the eternal destroyers - water and wind - got to work. As a result, they came up with the idea that in a few million years, the existing cliffs would finally collapse, and the mountains would take on a more familiar appearance to us.
Well, yes, this is by the way. The descent was quite difficult - along a steep path, and even scree underfoot - and hiking poles turned out to be very appropriate on it: four points of support are much better than two.
We descended from one mountain and after a while climbed another, where another cave city is located, Tepe-Kermen. It fits the definition of “cave” much more closely, because almost all the surviving buildings and premises are caves, natural and artificial. On the neighboring mountain there is another, very similar city - Kyz-Kermen, and there is also a legend about the neighborhood of these cities, which, as usual, involves rival tribes, their leaders who had a son and daughter, an unsuccessful wedding attempt and, of course, the “shame of the mountains”, which the mountains could not withstand and forever separated the two cities.
The day's trek turned out to be quite difficult - first of all, due to the fact that there was no water on the route, we finished off what we had managed to stock up the night before at the Assumption Monastery. And since we left already late - around nine in the morning (in Ukraine, let me remind you, the time is an hour different from Moscow, so, one might say, at ten) - the heat came on very quickly. So, when you decide to take this route, firstly, stock up on water, and secondly, go out as early as possible, preferably with the sun.

The goal of the second crossing was the valley of the Kachi River. There we visited a very interesting place called Tash-Air (“the stone separated,” from Turkic), where, as the guidebooks say, ancient rock paintings have been preserved. True, we couldn’t see the drawings, but we got some water. And before visiting Tash-Air, we went up to the cave monastery Kachi-Kalyon (translated as “Cross Ship”). Now no one lives in the monastery, but it cannot be called abandoned either - judging by the St. Sophia's icons and candles, they visit it regularly. And in this monastery there is a spring dedicated to St. Anastasia. You probably shouldn't drink from it, but washing in it after a whole day in the heat was very appropriate.
We stopped for the night on the banks of the Kachi, and from that day on, three more joined our group of eight people.

On the third day we crossed the watershed and walked along the Belbek Valley - once the center of Crimean gardening. The orchards still grow along the river, but are completely abandoned; nevertheless, we managed to pick apples along the way. Perhaps the most pleasant moment of the day was swimming in Belbek, which in itself is surprising: the Crimean rivers, even the largest by local standards, for us, residents of the Middle Zone, look like just streams - narrow, fast, shallow... But on Belbek, not far from the village of Tankovoe, a backwater either formed naturally or was artificially made, where the depth reaches about two meters. It was very appropriate to cool off and wait out the heat by the river.
After a day's stop, we went through the village of Bolshoye Sadovoye (then, looking from above, it was funny to notice that Bolshoye Sadovoye was noticeably smaller than Maly) to look at the ruins of the Syuren fortress and visit the Chelter-Koba monastery. Both the fortress and the monastery are located on Mount Ai-Todor, only one tower and a fragment of a wall remain from the fortress, and the monastery is gradually being restored; now two inhabitants live there. Near the monastery there is a spring with wonderful water, but since we had girls in our group, we were not allowed to spend the night on the territory of the monastery.
According to the original plan, we were supposed to go further to the southwest - to the cave cities of Mangup and Eski-Kermen and go to Balaklava, but people wanted to get to the Great Crimean Canyon. Therefore, the next day we boarded a bus, arrived in the village of Sokolinoe and from there we went to the canyon.

The canyon carved into the rocks by the Kokkozka River is a very interesting place: beech forest, rapids, waterfalls, lakes... Although “lakes” is a very conventional name: in the rocky riverbed the water drilled deep gullies, and they were called lakes. There are two of them in the canyon - Blue and Black. The Black Lake - Kara-Gol in Turkic - is better known as the “Bath of Youth”, so many tourists always gather around it, eager to plunge into its waters. However, this pleasure is quite risky - the water temperature in the lake, even in summer, is only +13.

Another attraction of the canyon is the Paniya spring, probably the largest spring in Crimea: the flow rate is not much, not little, but 230 liters per minute! In other springs, in the same minute, maybe a mug, or, at best, a flask... The canyon is good for everyone, except that you can’t get up there for the night - it’s a protected area - and it’s too crowded.

The next day we went to Ai-Petri, probably the most famous of the Crimean mountains. The transition, perhaps, did not stand out in anything special - we went around the Canyon on the starboard side, judging by the flow of the river, descended into the valley between the Boyka and Ai-Petri massifs and came out to the Ai-Petrinskaya Yayla. At the end of the day we approached the top of Ai-Petri, where we stopped for the night. For the first time in Crimea, I was able to see the sea from there, and with it almost the entire Southern Coast from Bear Mountain to Simeiz. In the evening we had a small feast, and here I can’t help but cry from the heart: if you’re on Ai-Petri, never, ever, under any circumstances, buy wine from the traders who have settled there! Under the guise of the noblest Crimean wines, they will sell you outright poison.