Restless paradise from the Black Sea
Once God, distributing the land with different peoples, conceived to leave for himself the most beautiful corner. Only the progenitor of Abkhaz was late for the appointed hour, and his people remained without land. But an angry God still asked what the cause of late, and the guilty admitted that he could not remove from the house because he took a guest. As a reward for hospitality, God generously awarded Abkhazov his land, but warned that there will be a lot of those who wish to own this fertile clock and its people will have to be not easy.
- View of the surroundings opening with the Simono-Kananate Monastery
- View of the Simono-Kananate Monastery from the observation deck of the New Aphon Cave
On the border in our bus salon, a woman ran into a form, carefully peering into the face of the sitting to threate them with a photo in the passport, gathered documents, and cheerfully left the bus. After 3-4 minutes, she returned to us documents, declaring that everything is in order. The bus moved, drove meters two hundred and stopped again. The situation repeated: another lady was killed in the form, the documents were running fluently and gave green light. So, without unnecessary issues and wires, we crossed the border of the unrecognized republic of Abkhazia. Guests from Russia are always happy.
Soviet Riviera
Abkhazia – a real subtropical paradise – was once so popular among the party tops that these edges were called "Soviet Riviera". 15 km from the city of Gagra, in the middle of a pine forest, on the slope of the Gagr Range there is one of the five Abkhaz residences of Stalin – a cottage on a cold river. Painted in green and hidden among high fir trees and pines, it is almost imperceptible from the air, earth and the sea – such a conspiracy is nothing more than the tribute of Stalin’s paranoia. You can get on the cold river only on a winding mountain road leading through thick forests. Interestingly, Stalin never warned in advance, which Abkhaz Dacha will come to, so "The leader of peoples" waited and prepared immediately in several places.
On the cold river everything remained as it was when Iosif Vissarionovich. In the interior there is no and hint for luxury, everything without excesses, not counting the fact that the whole house is separated by the valuable rocks of the tree. Bathrooms are preserved, where Stalin was bought in the sea water delivered using pumps, a billiard table with shortened legs and a personal cinema hall, in which the fate of many Soviet films was often solved. Preserved and many beds made specifically under the low growth of Stalin. Every night he changed the bedroom to confuse potential conspirators. Even toilets brought from Germany as trophies – and those safe and preservation!
In Abkhazia to Stalin his claims. The fact is that it was with the light hand of Joseph Vissarionovich on February 19, 1931, a resolution was adopted to transform the SSR Abkhazia to the Autonomous Republic in the composition of the Georgian SSR. Such a solution led to a multi-day nationwide approach of the Abkhaz people (February 18-26, 1931), which expressed his distrust of Soviet power. After the death of the head of Abkhazia Nestor Noboboba in 1936, terror fell into the republic, hardly reflected in the entire subsequent political and intellectual life of the republic.
Perhaps that is why a few years ago, the Abkhaz leaders decided to let the Stalin Cottage with the hammer, thereby correcting the country’s budget. Initially, the amount of $ 10 million was named. In the press even appeared reports that the aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska is examined by the country. However, today, anyone who wants to visit the cottage on a cold river. And new owners, if they are, are in no hurry to settle.
While we crossed rural settlements, continuing the journey, I drew attention to the monuments in the courtyards. I looked like – it turned out that these are graves: Abkhaza bury the dead in the yard. This custom has already been several hundred years. During the invasion of the Turks soldiers, knowing the special, the reverent attitude of the Abkhaz to the dead, began to defile cemeteries. As a result, the Abkhaz began to bury relatives on the territory of their estate, at such a distance from the house, so that the bullet could fly.
Lake Ritsa
In the vicinity of the city Gagra Much natural attractions. Silkhazia and its high mountain lakes, which more than one hundred eighties. The most famous of them is the mountain glacier-tectonic lake rice, majestically located at an altitude of 950 m above sea level. The road to rithu is full of miracles. The path to the lake lies through the picturesque mountain gorge along the turbulent River Bzibe, past the shining, as if sapphire, blue lake (Abkhazian Adzyasitz), according to the Yupshar Gorge. Yupshshar Canyon – the most picturesque area of the road. Apparently, once a long-term giant fracture spread the rocks that the Yupshara River was ramped. Cleft between the mountains – no more than a hundred meters, and the height is about a thousand. The river flows from below, and from above they hang cliffs covered with green and reddish moss. Nothing is surprising that this canyon is called "Stone bag": In a narrow place, the distance between two huge rocks is only forty-meters. Sometimes it even arises a feeling that you have been tackling in this gigantic trap.
Finally we got to the rice. The lake is surrounded by high mountains – Agepsta (3256 m), acetheuk (2542 m) and psochishha (2222 m). Agepstan and acetheuk are covered with forest, and the obscure psochishha lifeless. Acquested and scientists who tried to reveal the rice of the origin of the rice. Apparently, in the area, there were more powerful tectonic shifts in this area, as a result of which part of the Lashupse River Valley, now falling into Ricitsa from the northeast, the earth’s crust has occurred in the zone of the PSOGISH. The shifts caused the grand collaborators of the northeast slope of the ridge. So it was born this was a wonderful mountain lake.
Novoafonsky monastery
One of the most picturesque resorts of the Black Sea coast – New Athos. On the hillside of the Athos Mountain, the Novo Ahophon Orthodox Male Simono-Kananate Monastery, built in 1875 who arrived here with the Holy Mount of Athos in the inquars of the Russian Orthodox Panteleimonovsky Monastery. The impassable thickets of this wild and deserted terrain were cleared, and the magnificent temple rose on the rocks, surrounded by residential buildings and economic buildings. Over the holy gates – the main entrance – the temple of the Ascension of the Lord is built, and the churches are located in the corners of the monastic quadrangle, the largest of which is dedicated to the Apostle Andrei First Called.
The cathedral in the name of the Great Martyr and Healer of Panteleimon, the most majestic structure of the monastery, was erected in 1888-1900 on the project of the architect Nikolai Nikonov with the participation of the monastery’s abbot. Jerona. The first stone in the foundation of the cathedral was laid during his arrival himself Alexander III. The emperor arrived with his wife Maria Fedorovna and Son Nikolai on a steamer "Moscow". Despite the fact that the imperial family spent only one day in Athos, to this event prepared properly. The monks built a chapel on the sea shore, installed a memorial plaque with the inscription from the waterfall, and along the road from the monastery to the Church of Simon Kananita, according to which the king was walking, kiparis landed.
With Simono-Kananate Monastery worked workshops: shoe, sewing, foundry, painting workshop. There were two large apicles, winery and horse factory, brick and olive oil production plant. In pre-revolutionary Russia, the Novo Aphon monastery was one of the largest Orthodox centers of the Russian Empire, and the number of brethren reached 730 people. The greatest shrine of the monastery was the miraculous icon of the Mother of God "Estimated".
In 1924, the monastery divided the tragic destiny of many other abode. It was closed as "The focus of counter-revolutionary propaganda". During the years of Soviet power, a tourist recreation center and a historical and local history museum. During the Georgian-Abkhaz war in the monastery there was a hospital for Abkhaz soldiers. And only in 1994, the NovoAhon monastery was reborn.
We rose to the monastery "Tropean sinners", laid out stones and cipher. Confess, to rise in the heat up this path is not so easy. But the stunning view of the sea, opened from the courtyard of the abode, immediately forced to forget about the experienced difficulties and enjoy the peace of these places and the extraordinary beauty of their beauty.
Cancer Mountain Mountain
For many decades, the inhabitants of the new Athon died out the side of the bottomless failure in the depths of the Apsear Mountain, the sense of legends and the building guesses about His origin. Huge well, whose sheer walls were lost in the darkness, got the name of the bottomless pit. And only in 1961, a local teenager Givi Smyr first ventured to overcome fear and go down to failure. But it was impossible to get to the bottom without special equipment, and a special expedition was organized for the study of the mysterious bottomless pit. Overcoming all obstacles, four – Zurab Tintilozov, Arsen Okroodzhanashvili, Boris Hergenedava and Givi Smyr – descended on the bottom. So it was open a unique miracle of nature – a huge Cars Cave. As a tourist facility, the cave began to act since 1975.
Next to the New Aphon Cave, or the Anacopian Possibility, as it is also called, is a small market where local residents sell homemade baking, wine, sweets and souvenirs. I kept tasting the Abkhaz honey and asked the sellers of life, and in response, they assured in one voice that "everything changes, and changing for the better, life gets up – so you come to us now". And at this time my group evaporated somewhere.
"And where is the entrance to the cave?", – I ask. "Yes, there". Turning in the specified direction. Before me a two-story administrative building. "Well, yes, there must be tickets sell, and the entrance where?". "Yes there and the entrance, daughter. Run to the second floor, and then you are late for the train, it goes away by schedule". Run to the second floor for a train, which on schedule goes to the cave? This is true. Tourists in the New Aphon Cave are delivered in small traps, almost cave metro.
Excursions are held in six halls, each of which has its name. To overcome the route long 1.5 km, passed 1.5 hours. During this time, you do not have time to enjoy the bizarre fantasies of nature: stone jellyfish hanging from the walls stalactite "Soselki", Frozen waves of limestone, County stalagmites, chaotic lined along the walls. Halls, alas, lit only partly: for the cave, light is bad. In the warm and bright rays of the spotlights on the surface of the founding formations, mosses and lichens appear, which are hiding under their green bedspreads. Beautiful cave crystals and destroy their thin structure.
Cave halls have good acoustics, but in the hall "Iveria" A completely special effect of sound. Numerous bizarre protrusions and niches are randomly located in the walls and the ceiling, that air waves, reflected from these natural resonators, develop in the center of the hall and gain amazing saturation and depth. Sometimes under the arms of the hall "Iveria" Even undergo concerts of artists of the Abkhaz State Choir Chapel.
But the most interesting expected us ahead – a luxurious cave waterfall in the hall "Anacopia". From thirty-meter height falls in the hall huge, forever frozen stone shaft. His heavy jets rush to the ground, flying on a hundred frozen droplets. And on a smooth, slightly wavy surface of the calcite waterfall flows real water. The spectacle of indescribable beauty, and, no matter how strange it, it did not sound, an incredibly live painting.
Leave Abkhazia without visiting local winery – unheard of business! Young boy, assistant technologist, dedicated us to his secrets, telling, from which varieties which wines do, how long and where they are kept. He completed his speech by an unexpected patriotic monologue about the revival of Abkhazia, with the words of gratitude for the fact that we had His country honor for their arrival and an insistent invitation to taste a real Caucasian Chaqi.
In Abkhazia, everyone believes that very soon the country will reconcile after the bloody war (it is war, and not the Georgian-Caucasian conflict, as it is customary to write in the history textbooks), that tourists will soon reach this paradise, and Abkhazia will return to themselves the best glory of the best Black Sea Resort. And in Abkhazia, they are confident that every person who in the country of the soul will certainly acquire human happiness here – beauty, health and longevity, and will find a confirmation of the legend about the division of land between nations.
