Bakota is a village in the Kamenetz-Podolsky district of the Khmelnytsky region of Ukraine. Located 55 km from the railway station Kamenetz-Podolsk, near the village of Staraya Ushitsa.

Archaeological excavations show that since ancient times, along the banks of the Dniester, this place has been home to many pagan sanctuaries and temples, as well as female burial mounds, which indicates that these territories have been densely populated since prehistoric times. There is also a legend, partially confirmed by underwater research, about a seven-foot stone imprint of the Buddha's foot, which is now at the bottom of the Smotrich River.

For the first time, Bakota is mentioned in the annals of 1024. In the XIII century - a large city, the most important political and administrative center of the Dniester Lower (from the XIV century - Podolia), which was part of the Galicia-Volyn principality. In the 12th century, Bakota occupied an area of ​​about 10 hectares and consisted of a population of about 2.5 thousand people.
The first mention of the rock monastery is recorded in the Kiev chronicle of 1362, where it is mentioned as "long-standing". The founder of the monastery was the Monk Elder Anthony (the founder of the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra). According to the Ipatiev chronicle, in 1255 the Mongol-Tatars took possession of the city. The monks and residents of the city hid from the attackers in the labyrinth of monastery caves. The invaders offered to leave, surrender and renounce the faith, but not having achieved success in the negotiations, they covered the exit with huge stones, thereby burying the population alive in its shelter. In 1258, the Bakota castle was destroyed by the Tatars.

In 1431, Bakota became a neutral border territory, as a result of a truce between Poland and Lithuania. This year, the inhabitants of the city organize an uprising, kill the landowners and proclaim independence. Three years later, Polish troops brutally crushed the rebellion, punished the instigators, burned houses, destroyed the castle and dispersed the population. After that, Bakota ceased to be a city forever.
During the last centuries of its existence, life in Bakot was calm and measured. After 1918, the town became a border town - a two-meter stone wall was built along the river, and "enemy" Romania was on the other side of the Dniester. The famine of 1933 bypassed Bakota, but the monastery was closed, and a little later the construction of a new church was suspended. There were no hostilities of the Second World War on the territory of Bakota. And only the famine of 1947 reduced the population of Bakota threefold. In the early 1960s, the service in the church of the monastery was stopped. The last monks died or left for other monasteries. Icons, crosses and books were destroyed, the church was destroyed.

The history of Bakota ended in 1981, when during the construction of the Novodnestrovskaya hydroelectric power station, the population was completely evicted to neighboring cities, and the settlement itself was completely flooded with water.
In 1996, the collapse of the upper cliff of the White Mountain destroyed the bulk of the caves and tombs with wall paintings and frescoes of the 11th-13th centuries. Only in one place are the remains of cells and burial places of monks, a few ruins of St. Michael's Church and abandoned fruit orchards.

Today, Bakota is conventionally called the places along the banks of the Dniester, located next to the remains of the monastery. According to meteorologists, in this area there is a kind of unique microclimate - the average annual amount of heat per 1 sq.m. here it is equivalent to Yalta, and rocks and forests protect the Dniester coast from northern air currents. The picturesque nature and romantic image of these places attract numerous streams of pilgrims and travelers. In recent years, Bakota has become a mecca and a haven for fans of "role-playing games" and followers of numerous exotic religions.