Cape Atlesh Crimea. Big and small atlesh. Maly Atlesh - overview of natural beauties

Bolshoi and Maly Atlesh are two parts of the protected natural boundary in the west of the Crimean peninsula, a striking natural attraction. Sheer cliffs hanging over the sea are dotted with picturesque ledges, grottoes and bays. Nature here has been preserved in its original form. Transparent sea, clean air and rich underwater world attract tourists and allow you to fully enjoy your vacation.

Photos from visitors:

Geographical information

The rocks of the Big and Small Atlesh are located near the small steppe village of Olenevka on the Tarkhankut Peninsula. The height of the rocks ranges from 40 to 60 meters. The total length of the protected area along the coast is almost 4 kilometers.

The composition of the rock is soft white limestone. Over the course of centuries, the surface of the stone, under the influence of water and air masses, was destroyed in places, acquiring bizarre outlines. The sea stubbornly sharpened the inaccessible rocks, washing out tunnels and caves in their thickness.

Interesting to know!
The name Atlesh has roots in the Persian language and is translated as “fire”. In the old days, signal fires were lit on the top of the cape, which, like a lighthouse, served as a guide for sailors, helping to avoid shipwrecks.

Excursion to the Great Atlesh

Big Atlesh is a cape that attracts tourists with the creation of sea waves: a giant 40-meter stone arch and a through grotto. Initially, it was possible to climb up the steps carved into the limestone. Recently, a metal staircase has been built for the safety and convenience of visitors.

On the coastal part of Bolshoi Atlesh during the holiday season you will be able to visit:

• Chapel of St. Nicholas (patron saint of sailors);
• Dolphinarium;
• Fishing camp.

You can have a light snack or a hearty lunch in the numerous cafes on the territory.

Entrance to the tract is for a nominal fee - 50 rubles per person.

Video review of the big Atlesh

Maly Atlesh - overview of natural beauties

Small Atlesh is famous for its giant tunnel, through which small nimble boats easily pass. The height of the tunnel vault is 9 meters, the approximate length is 100 meters.

An interesting object to visit is a semi-flooded cave, the entrance to which is 10 meters below sea level.

The natural Cup of Love, 7 meters deep, is recognized as the most romantic place. A beautiful legend says that a couple who managed to jump into the bowl and emerge without opening their hands will have a happy future and a strong marriage. The lovers who came here seek to experience the power of the legend for themselves and hold each other's hands with all their might.

Video review from a bird's eye view

Variety of holidays at Cape Atlesh

Most often, tourists choose boat trips along the entire Tarkhankut coast. Such a trip will allow you to admire the sights of the cape from the sea, swim in clear water, and take beautiful photos as a souvenir.

Cape Atlesha is one of the favorite areas of divers. Nearby you can find many interesting dive sites: sunken ships, underwater caves, and the “Alley of Leaders” underwater museum.

Atlesh is ideal for lovers of camping and unity with nature. The views from the shore offer magical beauty. Fiery sunsets will forever be etched in your memory. The panorama of the starry sky at night is mesmerizing.

Sea fishing from a boat will allow you to relax and get a lot of positive impressions and fish for a delicious dinner. And there is always a catch here! After all, fishermen here catch mullet on an industrial scale.

Helpful information!
The unique natural beauty made the Atlesha capes the property of Soviet cinema. Many favorite films were filmed here: “Amphibian Man”, “Pirates of the 20th Century”, “Men and Dolphins”.

How to get there

The nearest settlement to Atlesh is the village of Olenevka, from where hikers can walk a distance of 6 kilometers. The road through the steppe will take about an hour.

The easiest option is to travel by car. The dirt road to Tarkhankut, due to the popularity of this place among tourists, is well-trodden.

The landscapes of Big and Small Atlesh have become a symbol of the Western Coast of Crimea. Once you have visited this wonderful place, you don’t want to leave at all. Many tourists return here year after year to re-experience emotions that cannot be expressed in words!

Small and Big Atlesh on the map of Crimea

GPS Coordinates: 45.335728, 32.557431 Latitude/Longitude

But for now there are azure bays in them:

And the nests of solitary people:

Behind the next cape the white tower of the Tarkhankut lighthouse and the gloomy “Ibrahim-Yakim” appeared again:

On December 17, 2010, it sailed under the flag of Cambodia from Nikolaev to Turkey with a cargo of scrap metal. The owner of the cargo ship was a Syrian company, the crew also consisted of citizens of Syria and India. At night, caught in a storm, the ship dropped anchor opposite the lighthouse, but another wave broke the chain, the Ibrahim flew onto a rocky shoal and received a number of holes. The crew was safely rescued, but the ship sat dead, and the Syrian owners simply stopped communicating, so Ukraine had to pump out fuel and dismantle the cargo at its own expense. Over the course of 5 years, the waves distorted the skeleton, so that all that was left of the Ibrahim was the stern that had fallen on its side:

The fairway near Tarkhankut is generally a rather dangerous place, and on the Dzhangul side, since 2005, the Russian dry cargo ship Sirius has been lying aground in the same way, sailing from Yeisk with a cargo of not scrap metal, but lumber, but also to Turkey. However, by the time of the death of “Ibrahim” there was little left of it, and now, quite possibly, it completely disappeared under water.

The boat makes a circle, and the waves here, as soon as you move a little further from the shore, are already quite noticeable - the tourists even squealed sometimes.

I could remember the "Sevastopol", a giant ship aground in the Pechora Sea... but I'm on my way.

The loop around “Ibrahim” is the extreme point of the excursion, the boat heads back to the Cup of Love:

The rest of the passengers all got there by car, and I was the only one who hitchhiked, so I asked to be dropped off at the lighthouse. The Tarkhankut lighthouse, built in 1816, is the oldest in Crimea. Its height is 39 meters, and a cast-iron staircase leads up, and it seems that I saw something similar in Estonia... and this comparison, in some century, is a flashback, not a flashforward. The Tarkhankut lighthouse is operational, but this is not Estonia - no one takes excursions to the site, and there is barbed wire around the lighthouse town.

Tarkhankut is often called the extreme western point of Crimea, but this is not so. In fact, the western tip of the peninsula is this: the modest and nondescript Cape Priboyny, or Kara-Burun on the other side of Karadzhinskaya Bay. It protrudes into the sea literally half a kilometer further, and opposite it, 200 kilometers later, is the Danube Delta below.

I was given a lift from Mayak to Olenevka by a military man who, it seems, was sent here from the mainland and competently combined his service with rest. And in Olenevka I was again picked up by a charming couple who spoke with such familiar intonations, not even from the Crimea - they called themselves Simferopol residents who have relatives in Nikolaev, but I quickly realized that they were Nikolaev residents who had relatives in Simferopol. One of the few Ukrainians who came to Crimea in the summer of 2015, when mutual hostility reached the peak of hatred. They, of course, were not happy about the loss of Crimea, the funeral of a neighbor next door, and “these redheads from the Caucasus who came to Donbass,” but they did not curse anyone and did not complain about anything. And the fact that there are such people is what keeps the world going...

"It's better to live in a remote province by the sea..."
(2014) and (2015).
near Kerch.
. Chernomorskoe and Olenevka.
Tarkhankut. Atlesh and Tarkhankutsky Cape.
Secret level of the South Bank. Malorechenskoe.
Secret level of the South Bank. Next to Sudak.

Forming an abrasion cliff with a height of 45–60 m. Over the course of three kilometers between capes Big and Small Atlesh, various original spongy rocks, coves, sea grottoes and sea caves, abrasion arches and outcrops were formed by weathering in limestone. A colony of fossil oncolites was discovered in one of the gorges. The plateau-like surface of the atlesha is occupied by petrophytic steppe. Since 1968, Atlesh is a protected area (10 ha).

origin of name

The name Atlesh comes from the Persian word atesh (fire). The name is obviously due to the fact that since ancient times, fires were laid on the coast of steep rocky areas, which in inclement weather and at night showed ships the way to the shore. The rocks of Tarkhankut are very dangerous for sailors, and the coastal waters can easily compete with the waters of Sevastopol and Kerch in terms of the number of sunken ships. At the same time, since ancient times, the small bays of Atlesha served as a reliable shelter for pirates and smugglers.

Attractions

• the arch of the Great Atlesh - a symbol of Tarkhankut;
• end-to-end 98-meter tunnel;
• a half-flooded 150-meter cave;
• “The Cup of Love” is a place of pilgrimage for lovers;
• picturesque coastal cliffs where the films “Taman”, “Amphibian Man”, “Pirates of the 20th Century”, “Men and Dolphins” were filmed.

Description

Here a picture of extraordinary beauty opens up: snow-white 40–60-meter cliffs, yellow beaches in small cozy coves, blue sky and sea, greenish-white caves and grottoes. The coastline here bends in an arc, forming small bays. It’s hard to imagine, but the white rocks and limestone deposits are the bottom of an ancient sea. Here you can trace how sedimentation took place (the process of deposition on the bottom of the sea or lake of the remains of organisms that lived on the bottom and in the water mass, as a result, over time, sedimentary rock is formed from these remains) in the distant geological past. Areas of rocks located above sea level are younger. Blocks separated from the shore rise bizarrely above the water. One of these rocks is called “Turtle”. At the western end of Bolshoy Atlesh Bay, a rock protrudes into the sea, in which a huge Arch- symbol of the Great Atlesh. A metal staircase, which was built quite recently, leads to it. Not far from the Arch, another two-flight staircase breaks into the sea, which in ancient times was carved out of limestone by unknown creators. It was along it that the main character of the film Taman (based on the story of the same name by M. Yu. Lermontov) went down to the boat.

The lower part of the stairs was hit by waves. Not far from the Arch there is a grotto with a peculiar shape. Episodes of the films “Amphibian Man” and “Pirates of the 20th Century” were filmed here.

Atlesh is divided into two parts: Big (located 6 km southeast of Olenevka) and Maly (one kilometer from Bolshoy). The coast between Big and Small Atlesh is replete with stone canopies, grottoes, and niches. The bottom of the sea is littered with strange small blocks, processed by the waves.

On Maly Atlesh, a gigantic 98 meter tunnel pierced by waves in the thickness of the cape. The height of the tunnel from the water level to the top of the arch is 8.51 m, vault thickness - about 10.7 m. This is an amazing natural formation, the journey through which will take your breath away. The hero of the film "Pirates of the 20th Century" passes through this tunnel to the pirate island. In the upper arch of the tunnel there is a “hole”, in other words, a through well on the surface of the earth, which is mentioned by researcher K. F. Kessler (see below). It can be seen while sailing through the tunnel itself. This exciting journey can be made on a small boat, an inflatable mattress, or by swimming.

The area where the well is located is not fenced off from above, so it is better not to come close to this through hole.

Near the entrance to the tunnel there is the lowest 150-meter cave in Crimea, known to specialists, but not yet explored, the entrance to it is at 10 m below sea level. It ends in a small hall. To get there, you need to swim about 5 m, in the place where the arch hangs almost above the water itself. When the roof of the cave becomes higher, you can freely swim to the very end, to the miniature sandy beach. You can only go to the cave in calm weather.

The so-called Cup of Love is also famous; it is surrounded by natural rocks. The depth of the sea here reaches 6 meters. The Cup of Love is connected to the open sea by a small underwater tunnel. The main character of the film Amphibian Man - Ichthyander - followed it to his father’s house.

Popular belief explains the name of this picturesque area as follows: before getting married, local young people had to check whether their union would be strong. Holding hands, they jumped into the Cup of Love together. If their hands open under water, then the marriage bond will not be strong. If not, the union will be strong.

Since ancient times, this area has been chosen by fishermen. The Atlesh coast has a magnificent autumn and spring run of mullet and mackerel. There is still a fishing camp on the territory of Bolshoi Atlesh. One of the Tarkhankut researchers, P.D. Podgorodetsky, in his book “North-Western Crimea” gives a description of catching fish using an original net-lifting device, called "caravias", which was used for fishing in the 18th–19th centuries. Caravias were placed near the shore during the autumn and spring runs of mullet and mackerel. The main part was a huge rectangular network “kezne” (cauldron), which was supported by ropes mounted on pile towers driven into the seabed and spread across the shallow seabed. Three edges of the net were raised to hold back the fish that entered it, and the fourth lay at the bottom. Two fishermen, constantly monitoring the sea from special platforms, warned of the approaching school of fish. After the fish entered the net, its fourth side quickly rose. The skiffs immediately approached the net, and the fishermen used large scoops to select the fish.

K. F. Kessler, who visited here in 1858, did not ignore the fishing industry on Tarkhankut. He wrote: “Two mullet factories have been established on Karadzha land, of which one, called Otleshsky, is located on the southern side of Tarkhankut and is 7 versts from Karadzhi. The other, Charotaisky, is located on the northern side, at a distance of 4 versts from Karadzhi... Otlesh fishermen in the past were burdened by the fact that they had to drag the caught fish on their shoulders up a steep and dangerous staircase, but the last chieftain had the idea to break through a wide a hole into the tunnel, and this made the work of the fishermen much easier. Now boats with fish enter the tunnel and there they dump them into large baskets, which, through the gate, are easily pulled through the hole to the surface of the earth.”

In 1966, enthusiastic athletes from the Ichthyander underwater research club visited Atlesha. In a special house, which was adapted for long-term immersion under water, they conducted research related to changes in the human body during a long stay at depth. Doctor A. Khaes and engineer D. Galaktionov spent three days under water. Not far from the site of the sinking of the house, a limestone stone was preserved, on which were carved the words: “Donetsk. Ichtnandra. Underwater house dive site. August 23, 1966" Unfortunately, much of the inscription has been erased by time and is difficult to read.

In the Atlesh area the water is clean and transparent. People have also created amazing and unusual creations under water here. This is a museum at the bottom of the sea, an underwater gallery of busts - Alley of Leaders, which is located one hundred meters from the shore at a 12-meter depth. The scuba divers built busts of Lenin, Kirov, Dzerzhinsky into the stones... Nearby there is a sign that states that the museum was opened by Vladimir Borumensky on August 25, 1992. Then the first bust was installed. His initiative was supported by fellow scuba divers. Sculptural images of cultural figures, writers, poets, and composers appeared next to the busts of revolutionaries. You peer with interest at familiar faces: Pushkin, Yesenin, Dobrolyubov, Beethoven, Blok, Mayakovsky, Tchaikovsky. And around there are piles of blocks overgrown with algae and mussels. Simferopol filmmakers made a film about this amazing and unusual museum. There is no such underwater museum anywhere else in the world.

The territory of Atlesha attracts not only those who like to relax, sunbathe and scuba dive. Scientists also come here: archaeologists, hydrologists, biologists, paleontologists. Tarkhankut can rightfully be called an inexhaustible storehouse of various scientific discoveries. Thus, paleontologists discovered in one of the limestone outcrops the imprint of a fossil fish that lived in the distant geological past. The length of the fish is more than 1 meter. Another unique find - a colony of fossil oncolites (rounded limestone nodules) - the size of individual specimens reaches more than 40 cm in diameter. This is the paleontological museum on Atlesha.

How to get there?

From Olenevka to Atlesh there is a dirt road along the sea. In some places it branches, but you need to stay on the coast so as not to circle around the steppe expanses. The roadway is replete with limestone ledges of various sizes, so you must move very carefully.

Be sure to stock up on drinking water, since there are no water sources at the final point of the route. However, these and some other inconveniences do not deter lovers of “wild” recreation.

In 15 minutes (if traveling by car) or an hour (if traveling on foot) you will get from Olenevka to Bolshoy Atlesh.