Mount Chatyr-Dag
Chatyrdag Mountain, Mount Chatyrdag
Crimea, Alushta
The Chatyr-Dag mountain range (yayla and caves) is a natural monument and a reserved tract of Crimea.
Already ancient travelers paid attention to the original form of this mountain. It reminded them of a table, and on the old maps of Chatyr-Dag it is called Trapezus. When you drive up to Simferopol from the north, from the flat Crimea, or approach Alushta along the Black Sea, it seems as if a gigantic tent is spread out among the respectfully parted mountains. This explains the name of the massif - Chatyr-Dag, or Tent-mountain.
Karst funnels on Chatyr-Dag in some places reach 250 m in diameter and 50-60 m deep. And inside the limestone layer caves, mines, deep wells were formed. 137 underground cavities are known on Chatyr-Dag. Among them are caves - natural monuments: Ayanskaya (550/20 m), located at the large spring of the same name; the famous Binbash-Koba (Thousand-headed, 110 m), in which human bones were found, which served as the basis for ancient legends; Emine-Bair-Khosar (1460/185 m) with rich sinter forms and complex extensions of underground passages; Suuk-Koba (Kholodnaya, 210/43 m), in which there is an underground bath, where in 1893 the first analysis of karst waters in the Crimea was made; mines - Obvalnaya (110/59 m), in which the remains of the ice age fauna were found; Gugerdzhin (60/20 m), with beautiful ice crystals on the walls.
The most famous and frequently visited karst cavities on the Chatyr-Dag plateau are the Suuk-Koba (Cold) and Binbash-Koba (Thousand-headed) caves. The Suuk-Koba cave is a cavity in the form of a tunnel 210 m long. It has seven large halls up to 20 m high and wide. Binbash-Koba is somewhat shorter - 110 m. Here is how E. Markov describes it in 1886: "On the floor ... human skulls are strewn in a terrible pile ... They lie without count and prize, like kavunas in the Little Russian bazaar." Perhaps it was a tomb, a burial ground where the dead were buried, and perhaps civilians who had taken refuge from enemies died here.
There are several legends about this cave. In the underground labyrinths of caves and mines of Chatyr-Dag, stalactites, stalagmites, beautiful wall hangings and other forms of sinter formations have formed over many millennia. Going down into karst caves and mines without special training and equipment is dangerous: some of them are very deep and insidious. In 1987, Simferopol speleologists discovered a new large underground cavity, decorated with magnificent sinter formations (Marble Cave). Now the Marble Cave is well landscaped, electrified, and organized excursions from Simferopol are held here.
The Chatyr-Dag yayla is characterized not only by well-pronounced karsting, but also areas of forest have been preserved on its significant areas. On the lower plateau, these are mainly beech groves, in which hornbeam, aspen, mountain ash, pear, and yew also grow. In many places you can see green juniper cushions pressed against the yaila, reaching a diameter of 5 m. The flora of Chatyr-Dag is very rich: there are 520 species of plants on its area, among which are such rare ones as the yew berry (listed in the Red Book), the Chatyr-Dag rose Daga, sleep-grass, endemic buttercups, thyme, gorse, sunflowers. At the northern outskirts of the Chatyrdag massif, the Small Canyon of Crimea stretches like a stone snake; near Marble there is a large quarry of marble-like pink limestone. And on the slope leading to the Angarsk Pass, there is Yew Gorge with thickets of coniferous relics of the pre-Quaternary period.
