This place near Kozelsk cannot be called beautiful or amazing, it is rather unusual, abnormal, and therefore attracts
Where did it come from
In science, the Devil's settlement is described as a place of natural outcrops of sandstone rocks. Their origin is not entirely clear to geologists; there are disputes about whether there was a glacier on the site of the ancient settlement. For example, it reminded me of the vicinity of Beijing, where sandstone comes to the surface in the same way. It seems that you are about to see the Great Wall of China.
The huge wall, as they say, was here until 1932, when suddenly they began to dismantle it and take out huge stones for economic use. But it turned out that the stone was unsuitable for this, and the Slavic "Stonehenge" - another name for this place - was destroyed beyond recognition.
Botanists are surprised by the growth of relict plants on the territory of the Devil's Settlement, which simply cannot be in our area: the luminous moss of the schistotega and the fern of the centipede. Their main habitat is many thousands of kilometers from here. Archaeologists, in turn, claim that a real settlement existed here in the 1st-5th centuries. AD and was well fortified. In one of the boulders of sandstone, they identified a cult stone.
Mysterious meetings
In general, the Devil's settlement keeps many mysteries, and they begin to tell all sorts of legends and incidents that happened in it even on the way.
“Once I was here with my archaeological friends,” says local historian Valery Tsvetkov. - I walked away not far from the camp and suddenly saw a girl sitting alone on a stone, who was meditating. We got to talking with her. It seemed to me that all this took very little time, but in fact it took about an hour and a half. And my friends called me, thinking that I was lost, but I was almost there and did not hear anything. Later that day, I saw this girl returning on the road to Sosensky. She pretended not to recognize me, and when she tried to smile, instead of a smile on her face, I saw a terrible grin … Then he wrote a story about this, which he called "The Witch."
Dead forest with an unusual smell
… The Devil's Settlement begins with a bridge over a river with a characteristic name - Chernogryazka. Then you need to climb several wooden stairs and walk up the well-trodden paths along which delicious forest raspberries grow. But it is not recommended to turn off the paths: there were cases when people began to literally wander among the huge trees and could not orient themselves. By the way, even our journey through a relatively small area - about 2 hectares - lasted more than 3 hours, although it seemed to us that it was much less.
Climbing the hill, you notice that the birds stop singing and the trees stop making noise. If you could still hear them below, then at the very top - it is about 27 meters - there are practically no extraneous sounds. The forest is dead. At the same time, there is a strange smell, the nature of which cannot be determined.
Everyone who was with cameras immediately noticed that reliable equipment began to fail. Cell phones also did not work, although the tower was very close.
Who worked these stones
Huge blocks of sandstone lie at the top of the hill. They are heavily overgrown with moss, lichens, but they look completely "fresh". Traces of processing are visible on them. For example, in one stone, which is called "Devil's fingers", there are many holes drilled that have some kind of symbolic meaning. In the other, the Devil's Well, there is a hollowed out container in which there is thick black water. They say that if you take out water from a container, then even in a drought it will re-fill overnight.
On the western slope there are grottoes that can easily accommodate people. It is believed that there is even an underground passage that leads almost to the modern town of Chekalina in the Tula region.
There are other sights on the hill, but now it is difficult to say what their meaning is, because the purpose of this unique place has changed over time to the opposite. Perhaps, at first it was a sanctuary of the ancient Slavs in honor of the god Sventonit, then - an ancient fortress in the Zasechnaya line and Dedoslavl - the legendary city of the Vyatichi priests. They also say that after the closure of the Optina Monastery by the Soviet authorities, some monks hid here … One way or another, this place has a special power.
How to get there
Drive from Kaluga to Sosenskoye, then through the village through the "Builder", then there will be signs.