The unsolved mysteries of archeological monuments of the Middle Bronze Age excite the minds of local historians, historians and non-professional lovers of antiquities and attract a huge number of people.
Sometimes people are rather strange, although these monuments themselves still represent one of the most difficult mysteries of history. A story that, after centuries, does not want to reveal its secrets.
The era of the megalith lasted from the 3rd to the 2nd millennium BC, and most of the monuments of this era are located in the Lazarevsky district of the city of Sochi. Each of them, be it a dolmen or a menhir, is surrounded by a host of conjectures and legends that have little to do with the real state of affairs.
When an opportunity is given to communicate with specialists and people who are simply passionate about their work, it must be used. Therefore, I went to the vicinity of the village of Tkhagapsh to "hunt" for dolmens, in fact, a census, in the company of Dmitry Markov, a specialist in historical and cultural heritage of the Sochi National Park.
"God's water". The story of one aul
The history of each meter of land on the territory of Greater Sochi is like a patchwork quilt: some peoples were replaced by others over and over again, forming a unique cultural layer. Now it is difficult to say who was the first in these blessed lands. Hunters and farmers, traders and saints lived here, religions replaced each other century after century, and life went on in its own, not always calm, sequence.
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There are many villages in the Greater Sochi. Now this word sounds with a contemptuous connotation, and meanwhile the history of the seaside city is connected with the auls more than deeply: most of them are many times older and more mysterious than the city itself, and even more hospitable, do not be offended by the city's.
Thagapsh - from the first time not used to the language, this name simply cannot be pronounced. They translate it as "God's waters" from Shapsug, and as "the village of the Tkhagapshevs", and Soviet times turned it into an aul named after Kirov.
The aul is small, in fifty yards, but there is a club, a museum, a shop and even the only mosque on the coast (in ancient times, there was a madrasah at the mosque, where students from all over the coast gathered).
Mainly indigenous people of these places - Shapsugs - live here. Interestingly, the researcher of the history of this mysterious people, Leonty Yakovlevich Lyulie, considered the Tkhagapsh region to be the ancestral home of the Shapsugs, but there are other theories on this score.
In tsarist times, it was here that the road to the Grachev Pass passed, it is natural that to protect the strategic road from the attacks of the mountaineers, security posts were built. The military post where the headquarters of the 1st Caucasian line battalion and the 1st rifle company were located was called God's Water.
As time went on, the importance of the road decreased, and the posts were eliminated. Meanwhile, the acquired place cannot be empty for a long time, and the military was replaced by people from the village of Khadzhiko in 1890-91, who called the aul Tkhagapsh, which also translates as "God's water".
Where did this name come from? The legend, which to this day guides gladly tell, said that one who bathed in the water of a local spring heals from wounds and many diseases and can rejuvenate by 10 years. A large number of centenarians among the population confirmed this legend only from year to year.
The aul is beautiful with its special beauty. There is not so much that is abandoned and old - it is I, bit by bit, collecting the flavor of the past only because I myself belong to them in my soul.
For most tourists, a visit to the aul begins with an excursion to the mysterious Stone Dam - a heap of monumental boulders that once blocked the bed of the Negysh River (Bzhizhu River).
But today we are not tourists and our plans are somewhat different: we are on our way to the archaeological site, dolmens are waiting for us, located on the way to another excursion route - Tigrovaya Cave.
Dolmens of aul Tkhagapsh
We go the usual road, which is calmly gaining height. In Soviet times, there were gardens and numerous bee farms, until that time the area was also extremely densely populated, as evidenced by the remains of the "Circassian gardens".
In a radius of several kilometers from the aul in the early 1950s, there were more than 20 dolmens - megalithic monuments of the Bronze Age. Some of them were destroyed due to the rapid development of agricultural activities.
Those dolmens, whose location we need to clarify, and whose condition we need to describe and catalog, are located next to one of the waterfalls and near the road. To help specialists there is a navigator and an accurate map with the coordinates of all registered monuments.
We ascend to a huge barrow field, the symbolic "entrance" to which was once a dolmen couple.
At the same time, dolmens are many thousands of years older than the burial mounds, which they now protect: a mixture of cultures and times takes place here. The tribes who came much later found dolmens on their lands and began to use them at their own discretion, often for burials or any other rituals.
However, researchers suggest that dolmens were originally burial chambers, often family or even ancestral crypts.
After the survey, it is characterized to what type the dolmen belongs, the degree of its preservation, distance from the stream or river, and at what height it is located.
Both dolmens belong to tiled ones and were seriously damaged as a result of agricultural activities: in Soviet times, no one was particularly concerned about historical and cultural monuments. The piles of stones silently testify to the era of the bulldozer in these lands.
The construction of these structures is almost standard: four monolithic slabs and a fifth one that serves as a cover.
All dimensions of the dolmen sides are measured: height, width, length. The front side is determined, whether there is a hole on it. The hole is measured from the camera side and from the outside.
After carrying out all sizes, based on the results of the work, a visit report is prepared, entered into the list of objects located on the territory of the National Park.
A registration map of the object is formed, and then these data are sent to the forestry in the territory of which this monument is located.
We now have all the data we need, we have photographed the dolmens and we can move on. The Thagapsh area is also rich in recreational facilities: one of the waterfalls, Sparkling, is noisy nearby.
After admiring the natural grandeur and having a bite to eat, we go up the road to the Tigrovaya Cave, which got its name for the peculiar pattern of rocks and drip, similar to fangs.
It is small, partly watered and mysterious, like all caves.
There remains quite a bit of daylight and we return the same way back to the village of Tkhagapsh and the Lazarevskoe - Maryino highway.
The aul amazes guests with its calmness, regularity, cleanliness, green mountains covering it and the incessant noise of the river with its restless tributaries. It is cozy and a little mysterious, as if hidden in the shadow of the past centuries and untold stories.
It is worth returning here, you need to come here for the first time. Moreover, in the absence of your own transport, a regular bus starting from the bus station will help you out.