Kabardinka, Dzhanhot and Arhipo-Osipovka
Resort settlement Kabardinka is located on the bank of the south environs of Tsemesskaya bay in the broad valley, enclosed from the south-west by the mountain Doob, and from the north-east – by spurs of Marhotsky range, reaching height of 600 m above sea-level. Going far in the sea cape Doob protects Kabardinka from winds and storm surf.
The sea, mountains and woods created in the valley the gently damp climate, favourable for rest and treatment. By number of sunny days and absence of fogs Kabardinka may be compared with the South bank of Crimea. The average annual temperature makes up +12.4 C. The resort season lasts from May to November. Winter here is warm and summer is hot. The real scourge of the whole coast from
Novorossiysk to Tuapse is bora (western wind). It is good that it blows only in winter. Sea breeze helps to withstand heat. In summer rains are very rare.
Kabardinka is one of the best places of the Black Sea coast for rest and treatment. Depth of the sea rises very slowly. Water warms up well. Swimming is safe for a child. For the last years the quay of the settlement has been rebuilt in “Gelendzhik” style: paving slab was laid, balustrade was built, lamps were set, flower-beds were laid out. Beach is provided by everything for rest.
Slopes of Marhotsky ridge to a certain height are covered with small elms, hornbeams and oaks, strongly bowed by north-eastern. Higher on the slopes of the mountains grass grows, because trees can’t hold out at force of wind. At the foot of the mountains flora is much richer. On the fertile lands vineyards and fruit gardens are laid out.
The history of small settlement Marjina-grove is very interesting. It is located quite far from the sea, at the foot of Marhotsky range. They say during Caucasian war a duelist from Moscow was exiled here. On the heels of him his young wife Marje came. One day defending a fortress he was mortally wounded by mountain-dwellers. A horse carried out the lifeless body behind the walls of the fortifications. Realizing that their commander disappeared, Russians began to retreat.
Then Marja changed their clothes in her husband’s uniform and with the cry: “Forward! I’m here!” – conduct soldiers in attack. But Marja was so absorbed that turned out in encirclement. A bullet pierced her heart. When she fell down on the ground her service-cap fell down from her head, hair tumble down. And at that moment mountain-dwellers understood that they run away from a woman. Fear and horror before the people, women of which are equal to men in force, was so great that they didn’t take risks to attack the fortress Kabardinka. And Marja and her husband were buried in the grove, where the heroine was killed.
Walks about Kabardinka
From Kabardinka one can accomplish some a few interesting pedestrian walks. It is worth to be on the tops of the mountain “Three sisters – Vera, Nadezhda, Lubov”. From all tops wide prospects on boundless expanses of the Black sea. One can accomplish a longer walk on one of the mountains of Marhotsky ridge. The slope of it is rather steep, therefore measure your forces sensibly before the beginning of the way. Walk to the lake “Kaskalnaya kupel”, located in the juniper grove, where you may catch fish which may be cooked in the restaurant. A wonderful panorama opens from the viewing point.
On the very header of Doob cape not far from the hotel “Nadezhda” a monument to lost passengers and members of crew of the motor ship “Admiral Nahimov”, sunk in 1986 in Tsemesskaya bay, is assembled. On the vertical construction of some tubes a plate with clock, showing the time of the catastrophe, is fixed. At the foot there is a stele with names of the dead and a memorial wreath.
History and sights of Dzanhot
On the bank of quiet bay there is Dzhanhot – one of the most picturesque places on the coast. Dzhanhot formerly was a country name of Sherbina. At that time it was customary to give poetical names. Scherbin called his estate “Dzhanhot”, wishing to emphasize its kinship with a settlement of Adygeis. In Dzanhot there was a medieval sanctuary “Holy oak-wood” – a wonderful natural and archeological complex, at which Adygeis lived. Dzhanhot is another name of a river in the neighboring valley.
At the end of XIX – the beginning of XX century around the estate of Scherbin a resort settlement was formed. One of the first and permanent dweller was a brother of an outstanding Russian writer V. G. Korolenko – Illarion. For the first Korolenko himself visited these places in 1898.
A pinery and clear air of Dzhanhot was very suitable for treatment of tuberculosis, which the writer’s brother suffered. Korolenko bought a lot and built a house for his brother. Now in the writer’s house a museum works. Here there is an exposition, narrating about the writer’s life and oeuvre, things, which he used. A massive conifer, the height of which makes up about 20 m, with wide folding crown – cedar of Lebanon, grows at the house.
The estate of Scherbina is situated in 600 m from the bank at the turn of primary valley and Scherbinovaya scissure, from which both valleys, seas and distant mountains. Here he permanently used to live from 1904 to 1920.
The Dzhanhot pinery verges the shore of the Black sea and stretches from Divnomorsk to the Dzhanhot river. Pine-trees usually grow by moderate groups. Average age of the tree is about 100 years. The sea shore, on which the Dzhanhot pinery spreads, forms steep and upright precipice, the height of which makes up 40-60 m, with a narrow belt of beach at its foot.
Thick pines with orange trunks, transparent light-green crowns and palmate branches with long needles.
All these make the coastal landscape specific beauty. In the environs of Dzhanhot there is an interesting natural monument. It is a rock “Parus” (“Sail”). The rock is situated in 3 km from Dzhanhot at Proskovja scissure. This “Lonely” rock reminds in form a quadrangular sail, the length of which makes up 25 m, the height is 30 m and the width – not more than 1 m, standing transversely the shore. One of its end is submerged in water, the other one goes stretches from the main shore for 10 m and is circled with pebble beach.
The rock “Parus”, the rest of a compact massif in former times, serves as an evidence of intensive invasion of the sea on the land. Storms pulverized millions of cubic meters of rocks, turning them in pebble and sand. Only the deepest and the solidest lot of sandstone layer. The stone wall is covered with deep clefts, through which the sky is seen, but the giant firmly stands counter to environment.
At the foot of the rock there is a round hole. Many guidebooks writes that the hole is made by riflemen of a mountain artillery in the middle of 19 century. It isn’t true. S. Vasyukov, having investigated the hole in 1903, wrote: “…Sailors fired from the battleship, threw 4 fillers but the wall remained firm, although signs of balls, nowhere making a hole in the rock, are seen”.
After the turn to Divnomorsk and Dzhanhot highway M4 stretches away from the sea and slowly comes up the mountains to Mikhailovsky pass (20 km from Gelendzhik). Height of Mikhailovsky pass makes up 325 m. In order to clime up on its highest point it is necessary to surmount three-kilometer winding section of the road. From the right the mountain Mikhailovskaya rises to the sky. It is the highest on the whole highway. Its height, according to one data, is 793.5 m, according to another ones, is 787 m. At the road there is a monument in the form of a despectant red colour, erected in honor of Tamanskaya army campaign.
In the end of the slope of Mikhailovsky pass there is a ground, convenient for rest – a spring “Natasha”. Clear and cold water flows out of a stone girl’s jug. Near the spring there is a hotel, a fountain, a cascade of artificial waterfalls, a chapel , a restaurant, a small market-place where one may bought local souvenirs, for example, beads of colored snails, nuts, apples and splendid peaches or be photographed with a camel.
A romantic legend about unhappy love is connected with the spring “Natasha”. Therefore every Saturday Gelendzhik newly married couples come to the spring to surely strengthen conjugal ties. The water is absolutely safe for drinking. This ground was made at the time when automobile radiators boiled up, not sustaining the slope of the pass. Since that time techniques has developed very much and at “Natasha” observation buses often stop in order passengers may pluck up their spirit before the difficult section of the road.
Behind Mikhailovsky pass a valley of the mountain mountain river Doguab what means “Valley of plenty” begins. The river begins on the slopes of the mountain Thachegochuk (761 m). The name of the pass is connected with the name of Mikhail Jurjevitch Romanov – the fourth son of emperor Nicholai I, the Caucasian governor and commander of forces of Caucasian command.
The valley of the Doguab, on which the road stretches, fully justifies its name. Magnificent apple-tree, pear-tree give splendid harvest of the tastiest fruit.
Then a valley of the Pshada river stretches. There are at least two versions of origination of the name Pshada. According to one of them Pshada in translation from the Adygei language means “Valley of calm”. The legend says that God of winds Boreas settled when gods lived together with people on the land on the mountain Thachegochuk (the mountain of Gods). Boreas got used that nobody lived and was very surprised, when he saw a small house on the slope. There an old man with his daughter settled. They got used to cultivate the land, planted a fruit garden. Boreas decided to kill impudent fellows. He gained height and fly to the house. But it didn’t measured its speed and run into the slope. The old man decided to kill the enemy, but the girl considered it unseemly. It brought it in the house and nursed it back to health.
When he recovered, Boreas made the girl a proposition. The girl denied. Then he offered suggested her to fulfill her most fond wish. The beauty asked him to leave the valley. He fulfilled her ask. Since that time people have settled in the valley, cultivated the land, planted gardens. By the other version this name has existed since ancient times when lands were settled by Shapsoug and Natkhuay. In the valley there are many waterfalls and springs in the forest foliages. The nature here astonishes by its beauty. It is mostly pineries.
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