Those who do not know enough foreign languages have to believe the information posted on the Internet, which says that from the ancient Greek Una-Koz means "go and be afraid"
Rock of the Devil's Finger / Yuri Kuzminykh / vechorka.ru
More specifically, the name is associated with a trade route that ran along and along the ridge, in the vicinity of which in the past there were frequent meetings with robbers. According to the Adyghe version, Unakoz is a strongly distorted form from Unek'ezh - "old burial ground", "dolmen".
Many people associate Una-Koz with the village of Dakhovskaya, which stretches on the banks of the Belaya and Dakh rivers. "Dakhe" means "beautiful", and "dakho" is an ancient genus of Circassians-Abadzekhs, who previously lived in the mountain valley.
Adygs and now no, no, yes, they call Belaya Shkhaguash (patron saint of deer).
The current name has many interpretations, but the most popular is associated with the beautiful princess Bela, whom the local prince brought to a foreign land by force. Unable to withstand the violence, she stabbed him with a sharp dagger. Faithful servants decided to punish Bela. Trying to hide from the pursuit, the princess jumped into the depths of the river. For a long time, travelers who came to the river bank heard the waves whispering: "Bela I …" Over time, the more familiar to the Russian ear "Belaya" replaced the Adyghe "patron of deer".
View of the Bolshoi Tkhach mountain / Yuri Kuzminykh / vechorka.ru
But let's return to the Una-Koz ridge, where the cave of primitive man, explored in 1958 by the archaeologist A. D. Formozov, is located. On December 13, 2014, from the outskirts of the village of Dakhovskaya, a pair-chairlift with a length of 1250 m and a vertical drop of 450 meters was launched to the plateau-like top of the ridge. The event expanded the circle of those wishing to touch the wonderful world of this corner of the Caucasus.
Promotional video:
On the way to Adygea we are accompanied by clouds, in the Shkhaguash valley, literally frozen in the form of giant steel strips in the azure ocean of the atmosphere.
The first thing that a sightseer who leaves the station platform meets is a signpost with the direction of movement to the main attractions of Una-Koz. We choose a natural object called the Devil's Finger as the end point of the trip. The cliff is approximately 2.5 km away.
Almost immediately, the road enters the forest, and on our way here and there we come across handsome beeches. The Azish-Tau ridge, a visiting card of the Lago-Nak highland, can be seen through the trunks.
Dakhovsky cliff / Yuri Kuzminykh / vechorka.ru
We try to enjoy his charming picture to our fullest from the observation platforms of the so-called Dakhovsky cliff, chosen by enterprising people who have created the Tethys extreme park here. Fossilized shells found right on the path are a reminder of the grandiose ocean splashing in the Mesozoic on the territory of present Adygea.
The rocky verticals of the park offer a view of the grandiose fragment of these very verticals, lying at their foot on the border of the forest and popularly nicknamed the Iron. They say that the rock broke off in 1942 during the shelling of the ridge from the village of Dakhovskoy by the Germans, who thus tried to "smoke" the partisans from the forest. Even from a height, the Iron is striking in its size. In the literature, modestly keeping silent about the weight, indicate its following parameters: height 20 m, length about 50 m.
On the next segment of the path, closer to the edge, single specimens of hellebore come across.
This plant, often called a wintering house, is surrounded by legends. One of them tells about a kind of hellebore, popularly known as the "Christmas Rose", which blossomed in the snow from the tears of a young girl, and not just anywhere, but in Bethlehem, so that she could give a flower to the Christ child. In Greek mythology, it is said about the king of Argos, who suffered from madness, forcing his own daughters to run naked around the city, screaming, screaming and crying. Melamrus of Pylos used the plant to heal the monarch. A decoction from a large amount of hellebore is poisonous. It is believed to be capable of summoning demons. Some historians believe that the death of Alexander the Great was due to an overdose of the hellebore, with which the commander was trying to recover.
Bats inhabitants of the dungeon / Yuri Kuzminykh / vechorka.ru
… On a huge glade that suddenly appears in the middle of the forest, there is a decent area of snow with a blue eye-lake - a kind of Savrasov landscape.
When you exit to a herd of horses grazing on a hillock, the thought flashes in your head that the target is somewhere nearby. Premonitions do not fail. In the hollow, literally a couple of tens of meters away, the group that came to the planned place before us is collecting firewood, which is pleasant in itself, but much more satisfaction comes from the other.
Before the gaze - the longed-for Finger or, rather, Fingers, since the rock is two-horned. This natural masterpiece is the undoubted dominant of the gorgeous composition with the snow-covered peak of the Bolshoi Tkhach massif in its depths. The gray-lilac undertones of frozen clouds and the boundless azure depth of the sky, the snow-white hills and ridges with black dotted lines of the March forest are a combination of colors of rare beauty.
After a traditional campfire with lunch along the path, in a steep descent enveloping the rocky vertical crowned by the Devil's Finger, we leave in search of new impressions, which should be the views of the Unakosovo cliffs from below. On our way we will meet grottoes and caves, rock ensembles and intricate heaps of stones.
The first underground cavity is called Meander. The name, in my opinion, is illogical, well, God bless him. The main thing is impressions. The ceiling of the hall, with which the cavity ends, sparkles with sparkles of some kind of inclusions. Handsomely! Bats "rest" under the arches, which is also attractive.
The hellebore bloomed / Yuri Kuzminykh / vechorka.ru
In front of the entrance to the next dungeon, hellebores are pulling up the corolla of the buds in the sun. This cave with a length of several tens of meters is called Dusty and fully corresponds to its name. The entrance to it is unusual: as if an unknown architect had cut a narrow, ragged, triangular multi-meter opening in the limestone rock; then, recollecting himself, he decided to close the mystery of the inner world of the dungeon from prying eyes, piling up a pile of boulders at the entrance. The black gaping hole seems to draw inward by itself, into a rather wide, spacious corridor, where neither rain nor snow can penetrate. It is absolutely dry inside the cave. Dried rock ground into dust covers its "floor" in a thick layer …
And again the sunlight. Over the "shelter of the young god" (Bol. Tkhach), heavenly guests gather - the wanderers of the cloud …
We leave to the Utyug, once again admire the rocky verticals of the Una-Koz ridge and … "dive" into the radiant March forest filled with the aroma of blooming cyclamens. We finish the trip at the old stone bridge across the river. Dakh To give the structure special strength, the protein of chicken eggs was added to the lime-milky sand mortar that binds the stones.
A cozy minibus is waiting for us in the area of the structure declared an architectural monument, more than a century ago, erected by the 2nd Urupsky Cossack regiment, sent to the village of Dakhovskaya to work after the uprising of 1905 in the city of Yekaterinodar.