First, I'll show you more photos of the complex itself. All caves are located in this rock-mountain. Here is a side view to the central temple, covered with a roof, just the part where the Chinese can get without booking tickets (only 4 large caves). The caves are located rather compactly on three levels, a bit like a dormitory: one door is a cave, behind it another door is another cave, and so on ad infinitum. And each cave is special.
See how many doors! Everything is done culturally, paths, railings, caves are numbered. Even for a second it seemed that some kind of nonsense, there was nothing behind the first door. Well, there cannot be something worth hiding behind such a sleek facade! In the photo, our group is just entering the first cave.
There are guards at the entrance to the most popular caves, the rest of the doors are opened by the guides with their keys. At the entrance of the frame, I do not know if they are connected and work, they did not squeak with us. The walls of all the caves are fenced with plastic shields, everything can be seen, but not touched. Otherwise they would have touched it! There are also surveillance cameras inside.
Some of the decorations on the rock have survived, but just a few fragments, everything else is encased in concrete.
On the right side (when looking while facing the rock) there are not so many people, these are people with tickets booked in advance and 1-2 groups of foreigners. Everyone walks with their own guide, but sometimes they intersect and you have to wait until the previous group leaves the cave. The guide encouraged questions to herself in every possible way, many times asked what we want to ask. And what could we ask, we went there like first graders, listening to how the caves were created and what is depicted there.
Promotional video:
Many people diligently photographed the numbers of the caves, including myself. Then I tried for a long time to restore what we visited and looked for information about these caves on the Internet. I wonder if you sign up for an excursion for a different time or a different day, you will see different caves? If I suddenly find myself there, I must try, or something.
Queue of those who could not book tickets.
We with our booked tickets after the central church joined the general queue. At first you somehow relax, but here these lines and you hate them. In the meantime, it gets hot, and we are only at the beginning of the line. The Chinese love to put up partitions and build a queue of "sausage". So everyone is marking time almost in one place for 20-30 minutes, pushing, but not much.
So, we visited:
"Small" caves on the right side, by ticket, 8 pieces: # 029, 332, 336-335-337, 16-17, 046, 259, 246, 231. Double numbers mean that there is a niche or a smaller cave in the cave (side), which go under a separate number. From memory, I can't restore anything at all, I remember only in one cave the blue paint, which was said to be a special azure color, it was very expensive and it was brought from abroad (Persia? I don't remember). The color is really special there.
From the visited caves I found only that No. 16-17 is the one in which the manuscripts were kept, and in No. 259 there are 2 (!) Buddha statues. They talk about the manuscripts even on excursions, the colors there are not as bright as in the first photo, but it was in this niche that the monastery library was kept. The statue depicts the head monk. And the black and white photograph shows the Frenchman Pelliot, who, as a sinologist, selected the most valuable manuscripts.
"Big" caves, on the left, where the Chinese can get, after standing in line, 4 pieces: №096, 100, 148, 138-139. At some point it seemed to me that I had missed one cave, but I checked the photos by numbers, I visited all 4 caves.
In these caves you need to go with all the flow, you cannot stay there for a long time. I stopped and looked at something for a couple of minutes, but the guards were getting nervous, so I left. If the Chinese stayed for a long time (more than a minute), they were asked to go further, not to disturb the others. By the way, the Chinese were like that, sometimes they accidentally photographed them on their phones, they yelled at them (not much), and they were like “yes, yes, we won't be anymore”. I don’t know if anyone has gotten normal footage.
No. 148 is a cave with a huge reclining Buddha, painted in yellow colors.
There are also recreated caves in the museum, which were painted just recently. This is an imitation of caves numbered 419, 003 (closed), 029, 217, 276, 285.
17. A huge number of people took part in the creation of the caves, these are various kinds of artisans (plasterers, artists, apprentices, diggers) who were engaged in construction, military, merchants and ordinary people who donated money for construction, monks, as well as rulers who sometimes enough money was donated to build and paint the entire cave. The walls of the dug cave were first covered with a solution of earth and straw, this layer was thick, several centimeters. A thin layer of clay was applied on top, and a white layer of clay (kaolin) on top, on which painting was carried out.
Then, referring to the preliminary sketches, the contours of the images were transferred to the walls and ceiling, the numbers indicated the desired colors, and the apprentices covered the images with the necessary paints. After that, small details were drawn. The paints were of natural origin, white and red were mixed with lead, which oxidized and darkened over time. White turned dark and red turned brownish brown. Now in many places we cannot distinguish the original color, we see a dark color, but we do not know if it is blue, gray, or brown. In ultraviolet light, gradients are visible, but color is not discernible.
Shades of colors:
The sculptures were made of frame, with a wooden base, straw entrails, which were coated with clay. Small details - heads, feet, hands in small sculptures and in large sculptures - fingers, as well as ornaments to decorate the walls - were cast into molds. This not only accelerated the process, but also made it possible to quickly replace the damaged part.
After the museum I already had no strength for anything (remember the heat), so I took a bus and went to the main building (where the cinema is). There are two cafes on the territory of the complex, one - with Chinese food - near the bus stop and the second in the main building, where there is a European food, and coffee is served. After lunch I bought a bunch of souvenirs, for the first time I had a desire to buy and carry with me through all of China books and postcards with these caves. Do you think you've opened a book at least once or went through postcards? But all the same it warms my soul that I have them.