The village of Sokolinoye is not to be passed by any tourist who went to explore the Crimean mountains. The reason for this «doom» lies in the geographical position of this object. The village is located between the Main and Inner ridge of the Crimean Mountains. In addition, on the lands of Sokolinoye is one of the most interesting objects of the peninsula — the Grand Crimean Canyon or BCC, as tourists affectionately call it. Above the village rises the armada of the Ai-Petrinskaya yaila, and through it runs the Kokkozi River, which collected the waters of the Sary-Uzen and Auzun-Uzen, the same one that did half of the work to form the steepest canyon in Ukraine.
The village was founded in the III century by the Goths, warlike Scandinavian-Germanic tribes. Making their own voyage in the beginning of our era across Europe, part of the blue-eyed Varangians settled in the Crimea. Specifically — in the picturesque foothills of Ai-Petri. This is evidenced by the historical name of Sokolinoye: Kokkozi or «blue eyes». Unlike the dark-eyed and swarthy descendants of the Turkic and Indo-Iranian language group, the locals were light-eyed, white-skinned and tall. Over time, the Goths assimilated with the Scythians and Alans, becoming the basis for the Christian principality of Theodoro.
With the arrival of the Crimean Tatars and Seljuk Turks to these lands, the blue-eyed descendants of the Goths were exterminated. The memory of them keeps only rock «Eagle’s flight» and a slightly changed name of the settlement — the village of Sokolinoye. The mentioned rock is a bare section of Ai-Petrinskaya yayla. From the center of the village it is distant distance of 5 km. The peculiarity of the rock «Eagle’s flight» is its similarity to the silhouette of a giant bird. It seems that the snow-white eagle is about to spread its wings and take off. It will soar and will hover for hours over dense beech and hornbeam forests, thickets of birch and hawthorn, over the intoxicatingly fragrant carpet of Crimean herbs: St. John’s wort and violets, wattle and adonis, wheatgrass and crocus, timothy and, of course, sleep-grass.
The fame of the rock «Eagle’s flight» is closely connected with the attack of the Tatars on the citizens of the Christian principality of Theodoro. This expansion was the cause of many troubles and the reason for the birth of a beautiful legend. When blue-eyed hunters and farmers became Tugan-bey’s subjects, the little tsarek imposed exorbitant taxes on men and took the most beautiful women into his harem. Naturally, there was a revolt. But someone revealed to Tugan-bey the plot of the conspirators. Bey sent messengers to Bakhchisarai to the khan, who was obliged to allocate his soldiers to vassals. The soldiers who arrived slaughtered half of the villagers, searching for rebels. Only a small group of young people managed to escape, who ran from Kokkoza towards Ai-Petri, to the bird-shaped rock.
Because of the steep relief of the Crimean mountains, the fugitives found themselves in a dead end. In order not to fall into the hands of enemies, they all threw themselves down the cliff. According to legend, the fugitives did not crash, but turned into eagles, flew up, turned around and pecked the offenders. After that, the name «Eagle’s Flight» stuck to the rock. When in 1945 began the forced deportation of Tatars from the Crimean peninsula in anticipation of the Yalta Conference, the original name of Kokkozy was inexplicably replaced by Falcon’s. It would have been more logical to call it Orlinoye.
Today the village of Sokolinoye is included in the list of sights of Crimea, which are worth seeing in person. In addition to picturesque views of the Kokkoza River banks, convenient approach to the BKK and access to the Ai-Petri Yaila, the former Gothic village has preserved the hunting palace of Princes Yusupovs, a mosque, a Tatar cemetery and its own ethnographic museum. Good — there is enough material here!