Chufut-Kale, Eski-Kermen, Mangup - stone pages of ancient manuscripts, painted with silhouettes of dilapidated towers, the silence of abandoned houses, the formidable weight of the fortress walls. Empty cities in the rocks is one of the highlights of the Crimea, rich in miracles. Today, only curious tourists and incorrigible romantics revive their deserted streets. Set up a tent - and your whole city! These ancient settlements have long been firmly united under the name "cave". Now they are similar - empty openings in the rocks, like eyes looking through the moment in times long past, when each of them was unique and peculiar and had its own culture, architecture, history of origin and death. Take a closer look at them - and you will understand: each of the cave cities still has a bright personality. And how much interesting they can tell!


The mysterious Chufut-Kale To the east of Bakhchisarai, on a plateau of a mountain spur, over three deep valleys, a ghost town rises to the sky. For more than a millennium, people lived among these rocks, stubbornly erecting fortresses and temples, houses and mausoleums on a waterless plateau. The city has existed for so long that it has already forgotten the name of its childhood and the language of the people who first stepped on these stones in order to live life here. Now there are riddles and secrets. To meet with them, the lazy traveler will have to go more than one kilometer. Moreover, these kilometers are mountainous. And then the reward for perseverance will be towers, walls, deep ditches, caves in the rocks. The gate arches gap in emptiness. An inexorable river of time flows freely through them. But the streets remember their names. Burunchak leads to the ancient market. Kenasian - to the temple. Glavnaya - there are sidewalks made of limestone slabs, it was a driveway - much wider than others. In the confusion of narrow alleys lives an echo. Two-story gray-tiled houses stand almost close to each other. They hide behind their blank walls dry hard grass, slabs of sun-heated courtyards, the soft shadow of galleries. And behind their backs, it is either the creak of the wheels of a heavily loaded arba, the rustle of footsteps, or the quiet guttural voices ... The wind of Chufut-Kale whispers a story: at the end of the 6th century the descendants of the sons of distant Iran - Alana - came here. These swarthy people laid stones, grew grapes in the valleys. In the XIII century, the city on a rock fell under the blows of the Tatar hordes.



The conquerors called it Kirk Or - "the city of forty fortifications." In the XIV century, there appeared immigrants from the Jewish Khazars - Karaites, the city grew, and the Tatar khan Hadji Giray turned his old part into his fortified residence. His descendant Mengli-Giray preferred a more comfortable life - in the new palace of Bakhchisarai, and Kir Or became the Bakhchisarai citadel and a place of imprisonment of noble captives. In the middle of the XVII century, the Tatars left the city on a rock. But for another 200 years, Karaites lived in it. They were distinguished from the Tatars only by religion, but Muslims considered them Jews. And the city received a new name - Chufut-Kale, a Jewish fortress. The last inhabitants left it at the beginning of the 20th century, and for almost a century now it has been empty. But the memory of him is alive. Slippery uneven steps lead into the damp darkness of the stone casemate sacks. How many tragedies these walls saw, as if saturated with suffering! Here today is really creepy. Noble captives languished awaiting the ransom in stone bags of Chufut-Kale: the Lithuanian ambassador Lez, the Polish hetman Pototsky, the favorite of Ivan the Terrible - Vasily Gryaznoy.
But the most terrible trials fell on the lot of Vasily Borisovich Sheremetev.



The prince was captured in Tatar in 1660, in the battle of Chudnov. The ransom requested by the khan was huge - two cities: Kazan and Astrakhan. Russia could not agree to this, and Sheremetyev himself did not want freedom at that cost. For twenty years he sat in a stone sack, not seeing sunlight.

Only in 1681, a blind, mutilated old man who received freedom passed through Chufut-Kale Street.

But Vasily Borisovich did not succeed in using it: he died in Russia, six months after his release. At the end of the 20th century, a distant descendant of the prince came from France to Chufut-Kale. Silent stones sacredly keep secrets. For almost a century, archaeologists have been struggling with the riddle: how did the fortress go without water during a siege? Today, scientists are close to a solution. In the half-forgotten legends of the Karaites, there are preserved references to soldiers who simultaneously attacked the enemy from the fortress and from the rear. There is a fairy tale about the mysterious golden staircase Altyn-merdven.

And in 1998, scientists discovered a bombarded well. Excavations that lasted several years yielded stunning results: a gigantic underground hydraulic system was discovered. At a depth of 25 meters, the well enters an extensive inclined gallery leading to another well, the helical steps of which descend into a large underground hall with two catchment pools. Incredible efforts were required to break through the rock to a 45-meter depth, but it was filled up very quickly. What made the inhabitants of Chufut-Kale abandon the fruits of such hard efforts? Who built galleries and wells when? What do mysterious graffiti tell on the walls of the dungeon? The mysteries of the ghost town are waiting for a solution.

Multi-storey Eski-Kermen Translated from the Tatar Eski-Kermen means "old fortress". It is really so ancient that in the 16th century the traveler Martin Bronevsky wrote: “Neither the Turks, nor the Tatars, nor the Greeks themselves remember its name ...” And today, standing on a high plateau surrounded by 30-meter-long cliffs, amidst the sunny silence and absolute silence, one wonders involuntarily: why climbed to dizzying heights?
Why did they live in the twilight of caves, setting up tiny churches in stone bags? But here once life was in full swing, and a vine snaked on the rocky roads and golden clusters ripened ... Fourteen centuries ago, the Byzantine allies - Goth-Alans - built a noisy craft Doros at the crossroads of trade routes.

The city on an impregnable rock became a stronghold that protected the allied Chersonesus from the invasions of the Turkic steppes. But the rock city did not live in war, but in craft, trade, and agriculture. Its inhabitants grew fruits, vegetables and grapes (you can still see feral vines around the city). And Doros was not a cave - he was multi-story. The stones for building houses were taken right there - underfoot, leaving voids in the thickness of the rock. Man-made caves were used as cellars and stalls for cattle. At the beginning of the VIII century, the bustling and rich city was the real capital - the center of Gothic. Since the area of ​​the mountain plateau is quite small - about eight hectares - Eski-Kermen could grow only in height and depth.

Time has not preserved neither houses, nor towers towering above crevices, nor powerful fortress walls. But you can see about 400 caves for various purposes. Caves-bastions, storage caves, caves-temples ... The most visited of them is the Sudilishche, a temple cut down on the right side of the rocky corridor leading from the main gate to the main street of the city. In antiquity, it had two entrances and a window between them. The ceiling was supported by four columns. The Church of the Assumption became a temple only at the last stage of its existence.

On its ceiling and in the eastern corner traces of fresco paintings of the 13th century have been preserved. And the temple of the Three Horsemen received its current name due to the well-preserved fresco with images of Fedor Stratilat, George the Victorious and Dmitry Solunsky.

But perhaps the most striking construction of Eski-Kemen is the siege well. Six flights of stairs lead to a ten-meter gallery, where a spring fired from a natural cave, the water of which was used by ancient builders (the gallery could hold about 70 cubic meters). However, the water left the city with people ... And it happened in time immemorial: in 787, the Khazars completely destroyed the fortress that defended the city. But life on the rock continued for another four centuries. In 1299, Eski-Kermen burned the hordes of Temny Nogai. Scientists suggest that in the XIV century, after the raid of Edigheus, the last inhabitants left the city. Capital Mangup Buses do not go to Mangup-Kale, it is impossible to get here by car. And if you are not a fan of extreme sports, then a bicycle will not help you either. You have to forget about laziness and a good three hours to climb the rocky mountain paths. Silver crowns of pines, bright sky and ... complete deserts. But we are heading to ... the capital! Yes Yes. Lost in the Mangup Mountains for a long time was the capital of a fairly large (from the Kacha River to the possessions of Chersonesos, from Alushta to Balaklava) and the very influential medieval principality of Theodoro. Today, few people know about the existence of this state. But at one time it was one of the few survived the invasion of the Mongol hordes. Theodoro forced to reckon with himself and the aggressive Turks, and enterprising Genoese. Tsar Ivan III himself tried to intermarry with the rulers of the state - the princes of the Armenian clan Gavrosov. Theodoro flourished. It was inhabited by farmers and merchants, sailors and artisans. Probably, these people were beautiful with such a mixture of blood: the descendants of the hardened Taurus, Scythians, Sarmatians, Alans, and also Karaites, Greeks, Armenians and Tatars. One thing is certain - they knew how to build well! And to choose places for construction - too. Mangup-Kale on a two hundred meter columnar mountain is a clear confirmation of this. Until now, historians have not come to a consensus on the date of the city. Perhaps this is the VI century, but most likely still the X when, after the destruction by the Khazars of Eski-Kermen, they began to build a powerful fortification here. Until our time, these buildings have not been preserved. Only the younger ones remained. They are attributed to the XIV-XV centuries.

The impregnable Mangup was not easy to conquer. Moreover, nature has endowed its inhabitants with two never-ending sources. At the end of the 15th century, the invincible army of the Turks, which captured the powerful fortress of the Genoese Kafa (Feodosia) in three days, stood at the walls of Mangup for more than six months. To conquer the "stubborn" city helped guns and famine. Winners did not spare captives. Mangup is almost empty. But for several hundred years, Christians, Karaites, and Jews lived in the city. Since 1774, the Tatars took possession of the fortress for a short time. And after the annexation of Crimea to Russia, its last inhabitants left Mangup-Kale. Tall grass rustles underfoot at the entrance to small cave rooms. Yellow flowers climb the ruined fortress walls. But the source water has some special, completely unique taste. It seems like a taste of boundless radiant spaces. Dizzying lilac-blue distant.

Mountains like stormy ocean shafts. The charm of the city is unique. No wonder he is so desperately loved by contactees, psychics and Tolkienists - those who are waiting for miracles. And this is a real Mecca for musicians, artists and photographers. Mangup Kale is the city where inspiration lives.

 https://www.otpusk.com/articles/1041/