Kachi-Calon is one of the brightest representatives of the legendary cave towns of Crimea, for many years attracting Ukrainian and foreign tourists with its venerable age, interesting history, riddles and mysteries peculiar only to such ancient places. Many guests of these amazing places, coming to Bakhchisarai, necessarily make tourist walks in its vicinity to see with their own eyes such fantastic places as Kachi-Calon. It is an unforgettable experience, priceless and impressive.
The cave city of Kachi-Kalon is located 8 kilometers south of Bakhchisarai in the valley of the Kachi River. On the approach to the ancient archaeological monument, the traveler’s eyes are opened to a breathtaking panorama of a huge rock massif overhanging the hill, looking like an ancient ship, on the «bow» of which is carved a drawing in the form of a cross — it is an amazing creation of nature itself. Such landscapes are memorable for a long time, leaving a vivid trace in the imagination. Many historians believe that it is because of the resemblance to a ship that the settlement got its name, which translates as «cross ship».
The history of Kachi-Calon begins in V-VI centuries, when at the foot and in the caves of a huge rock massif the descendants of Tavro-Scythians and Goto-Alans set up their dwellings. Due to its favorable position at the crossroads of important trade routes connecting the southwestern part of Crimea with its southern coast, the settlement was destined to become one of the most developed among all local provincial settlements. The leading activity was wine production, as evidenced by the large number of grape crushers, of which there are more than 120 in the caves and on the slopes of the mountain.
In iconoclastic times, natives of Byzantium arrived in Kachi-Kalon. So in the settlement in the VIII-X centuries appears a monastery, which existed in one of the most picturesque — the Fourth Grotto — until the end of the XVIII century, despite the Tatar-Mongol invasion. The monastery was preserved thanks to the help of Moscow, it is known that under Boris Godunov at the end of the XVI century the church of St. Anastasia, where the monastery existed, received help among other temples that suffered because of the conquerors. The monastery ceased to exist at the time of the resettlement of Christians in the Azov region in 1778, and today only the walls of the grottoes and the remains of artificial buildings remind of the former greatness of the monastery, to which pilgrims flocked from all over the world.
There are 5 grottoes in Kachi-Kalon, and the number of all the caves is still unknown. Natural and artificially created caves were used as dwellings, households, monastic cells and temples. You can wander through the caves that preserve the memory of the past times of prosperity of the city and the monastery endlessly, and each of them will tell its own story, take you back centuries, reminding you of the times when man lived in unity with nature.
The panorama opening from Kachi-Kalon to the Kachinskaya valley, Alimova gully, the tops of snow-capped mountains in the southeast is no less interesting, mesmerizing with its natural beauty. The grottoes also amaze with their scale and monumentality. The fourth grotto is a high 70-meter high rock vault, reminiscent of the architecture of European temples. For all those who come to holiday in Crimea, a visit to the ancient Kachi-Kalon, where for more than a thousand years boiled life, which gradually died out, paying tribute to the change in human lifestyle, will be an invaluable and interesting experience. Unity with nature, magnificent views, a walk along the now empty rock massif, which was once a lively city, will not leave anyone indifferent.