Nature has been creating and destroying landscapes for thousands of years, daily changing the appearance of its masterpieces. This fully applies to Cape Panagia on the Taman Peninsula, the Black Sea “gate” to the Kerch Strait. Every day the sea reclaims a piece of land, exposing reefs of amazing and unique shapes. This is a place of wild and untouched beauty, open to all winds and the hot southern sun.
Description
Cape Panagia crowns the southwestern part of the Taman Peninsula, near which Black Sea smoothly flows into the Kerch Strait. Its name in Greek means “all-holy,” and the legend about the appearance of the name tells about the Apostle Andrew the First-Called, who began his path as a Christian preacher in the North Caucasus in the 1st century. This version is confirmed by archaeological finds, including many sacred objects of early Christianity.
Representing a 30-meter-high rocky coastline, covered with small vegetation, without trees or sources of fresh water, the cape juts out into the sea with a chain of reefs of bizarre shapes and various sizes. They consist of an innumerable number of dead colonies of bryozoans, whose calcareous and chitinous bodies served as building material. The Trutaev Reefs (their official name) extend from it in a straight perpendicular line for 3.5 kilometers and turn towards the shore at a 45-degree angle, continuing for about another 2 km. Many of them practically look out to the surface, and the entire chain serves as a natural breakwater, protecting the coasts from southern destructive currents and waves.
The most famous and largest reef is sometimes called the “Sail” rock because of its size (not to be confused with rock "Sail" near the village Dzhanhot in Greater Gelendzhik). It rises like a stone giant above the surface of the sea, as if brought here from another planet, its shape is so unusual.
For a long time, the rocks of Panagia were under layers of clay and sand, but the sea gradually erodes them, annually exposing a new meter of land and changing the surrounding landscape. Including the outlines of small bays located on the sides of the cape. This unique and “deadly” feature allowed it to receive the status of a natural monument and state protection.
From the height of the rocky cliff you can get a pretty good view of the Crimean coast and Cape Takil, which is located 15 kilometers away and is the left “gateway” to the strait. Just between them the Black Sea ends and the path to the Azov Sea begins.
Why go to Cape Panagia
Holidays in Panagia have its own characteristics and attract people who are not particularly concerned about comfort, the benefits of civilization and the availability of tourist infrastructure. This simply isn't here. The cape is an ideal place for lovers of pristine nature and sea spaces, “tent campers” and divers. They represent the majority of coastal guests.
There is a particularly large group of tourist divers who study the eventful history of Panagia underwater. On the seabed in the waters of the cape, underwater archaeologists discovered many fragments of ceramics, amphorae and household utensils, the remains of a destroyed lighthouse from antiquity and anchorage, and fragments of Byzantine anchors. The purest clear water makes it possible to see the finds as well as possible, making dives real excursions into the past.
A similar picture can be seen 2 kilometers north of the cape, in Kholodnaya Balka, where the remains of an ancient Greek settlement were found in shallow water. Moreover, 250-300 meters from the shore they discovered a 40-meter wall made of limestone blocks, which was probably part of it.
The Trutaev Reef stands out for its beauty, which, in addition to shipwrecks, boasts a wide variety of marine life. In addition to submarine archaeologists, hunters also fell in love with it, rarely being left without worthy prey or vivid impressions.
Firing point at Cape Panagia. Photo: https://fotki.yandex.ru
However, not only the seabed of Panagia is rich in finds, but also the shores of the cape. In particular, several small pillboxes from the Great Patriotic War still survive. The firing points covered an artillery battery that had been removed and moved to the coast from the cruiser Comintern. Soviet soldiers fired at fascist fortifications on the Kerch Peninsula from its guns. A small obelisk erected by their descendants serves as a witness to the heroism of the warriors.
How to get there
The road to Cape Panagia is used by several thousand tourists every year, mostly choosing the dirt road that runs along the coast, starting at the village of Taman. It is well-trodden and there are no impassable areas. Without turning anywhere from it, vacationers go straight to the location of the artillery battery and then to the cape itself.
Not far from Panagia is the village of Volna, from which you can also get to the cape, but between them there is construction of a port terminal, so the road may be dug up or blocked, inaccessible to a passenger car.
Getting there, as it turned out, is not at all difficult. We need to go towards the Tuzla spit, and at the very end turn left, drive past the old village on the right to which there is an old asphalt road, but we need to drive straight along a good gravel road that goes around both the village and a small hill. Then the road leads to a steep seashore, where, by the way, there is a very beautiful cove, suitable for a family holiday, the place is simply wonderful:
I’ll definitely come back here again, but for now I’m driving further to Cape Panagia, along a good dirt road, there was only one unpleasant place to drive:
And ahead is the Parus rock:
Along the path I go down to the sea, I walk around the cliff past huge stones:
Once upon a time the cape was much further into the sea, but the water and stones are destroying...
After examining the cape, I decided to take a walk further along the road along the steep banks, in the distance several bunkers from the war were visible. It turned out there was a very extensive network of these fortifications, many small bunkers:
Moreover, they are connected to each other by underground passages, and are located at a considerable distance from the shore. On the cliff itself, only two large bunkers have survived:
Now only the new terminal remains to guard these formidable structures:
I’m returning “along the cliff, over the abyss, right along the edge”:
Thanks to my “iron” horse for not letting me down this time...
Cape Panagia (translated from Greek as “prosvira”) is located in the southwest of the Taman Peninsula, at the Black Sea beginning of the Kerch Strait, 12 km from the village of Taman. Opposite it, in the middle of the sea, is a white chain of high and narrow rocks, “at sunset, reminiscent of the wake of sailing frigates.”
The cape, about 30 m high, is composed of Maeotic limestone. This is an ancient sea reef made up of the delicate skeletons of bryozoan colonies. On both sides of it, the coast is composed of layered clays, in which gypsum occurs in layers, while the chain of rocks, stretching from the cape for 1.5 km, again consists of mossy limestones. These reefs, formed in the warm Maeotic sea, were then buried under clay sediments, and in the modern era the sea “unearths” the ancient relief.
The coastal cliffs of Panagia are destroyed not only by the blows of sea waves, they are also subject to karst processes.
The formation of the cape and rocky islands is explained not so much by the presence of limestones (especially since they are highly cavernous and relatively easily destroyed), but by the large difference in the mechanical stability of clay and limestone in relation to the action of sea waves. The clayey shore erodes even faster than limestone, and the shore retreats at high speed, leaving a chain of limestone rocks in the sea.
Between the capes of Panagia and Tuzla, the Greek city of Korokondamma existed 2000 years ago. It was destroyed long ago by the sea, which has since “eaten away” 2000 m of coastline (an average of 1 m per year). This is indicated by the rocks in the sea, as well as the geological structure of the seabed and shore.
In the past, dozens of prominent scientists - academicians Andrusov, Gubkin, Arkhangelsky and others - came to Cape Panagia to personally see such an intense advance of the sea onto the land.
Why does it happen? As shown by underwater archaeological excavations in Phanagoria, carried out by V.D. Blavatsky in 1958, the remains of ancient structures of Phanagoria are now located in places at the bottom of the Taman Bay, 3 - 4 m below modern sea level. These finds indisputably indicate that since the time of the Bosporan kingdom, that is, over the last 2 - 2.5 thousand years, there has been a significant rise in sea level relative to the land or a lowering of the land relative to sea level. This is why the sea is advancing on land.
The heroic events of the battles of the Great Patriotic War are associated with Cape Panagia. Here in 1943-1944 there was the 743rd battery from the cruiser “Comintern”, Lieutenant Commander S.F. Siakhov, which fired at the fascist invaders settled on the Kerch coast. In honor of the artillery sailors, a modest obelisk was erected on a low ridge adjacent to the cape.
Cape Panagia and the coast adjacent to it can be turned into a kind of testing ground for studying the dynamics of the coastal zone. It can also be used as a natural excursion object when organizing field practices for geography students and school local history excursions. It is clear that he needs strict protection.
Cape Panagia (Anapa, Russia) - detailed description, location, reviews, photos and videos.
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The eastern point of the demarcation line between the Black and Azov Seas falls on a treeless coast, from which a chain of surf-eaten rocks extends into the sea. Perhaps because of their shape, reminiscent of a church prosphora bun with the image of the Mother of God, the cape was called Panagia, that is, “all holy.” But there is another version - they say that from here in the 1st century AD. e. Apostle Andrew the First-Called began his missionary journey across the North Caucasus. He built a church here and consecrated it in the name of the Mother of God. But a landslide destroyed the temple.
The legend has a natural basis. The sea actually eats away several meters from Cape Panagia every year. Its base is soft limestone, formed by the skeletons of ancient animals - bryozoans. Over many millennia, it was covered with clay, and when the shore rose above the water, the surf began to methodically destroy the fragile stone. Picturesque rocks near the shore are the result of this work. The largest and most bizarre even has its own name - “Sail”.
What to see
The land of the Taman Peninsula and the sea off its shores are full of historical artifacts. Perhaps this is where the Amazon tribes lived. The Greek colony of Phanagoria traded grain with might and main. At Cape Panagia, mountains of clay shards and ancient burials are constantly found.
Not a year goes by without another team of scuba divers trying to find the legendary church at the bottom of the sea that gave the cape its name. So far, at a distance of 3 km from the current coast, only the ruins of an ancient lighthouse, the remains of piers, and lead weights of the anchors of Greek galleys have been discovered.
Modern ships, victims of shipwrecks and military operations, also lie there. During the Great Patriotic War, the 743rd coastal defense battery fired at the German occupiers from a cliff 30 m high. Now all that remains of it are underground passages and two powerful concrete pillboxes. The sea has washed away the shore here, and the observation post is already hanging in the air. At the top stands a modest obelisk.
The road was blocked with an earthen embankment because there is a real danger of a landslide. Tourists will have to walk several hundred meters and exercise extreme caution.
The area on the cape is deserted and unkempt, and will appeal to extreme tourists. There are no sources of fresh water or firewood. A little further along the coast, construction of piers for a new port is underway, but it is impossible to get there due to ravines and embankments. The road is dirt, quite passable in dry weather with a regular car. But in bad weather it is difficult to get out of there.
Taman land has a rich and interesting history, and Cape Panagia in the southern part of the peninsula (12 km from Taman) is one of the places where the saturation of historical events is greatest. Some of these events have left practically nothing to indicate them, while some still remind us of themselves.
2000 years ago, on this land, near Cape Tuzla, there stood the large city of Korocondama - one of the cities of the Bosporan state. Antique anchors, fragments of ancient amphorae, and various ceramics were found underwater near Panagia.
There is a version that Cape Panagia is the birthplace of Christianity on Russian soil. The name of the cape itself comes from the Greek “all-holy” and originally belongs to the image of the Mother of God. The penetration of Christianity into the Northern Black Sea region is associated with the preaching of Christianity in the Northern Caucasus by the Apostle Andrew the First-Called in the 1st century. n. e.
Cape Panagia is also inscribed in the history of the Great Patriotic War. It was here that from the late thirties until 1942 the 33rd battery of the Kerch naval base was located under the command of Captain B.E. Petrov, equipped with 203 mm guns, and subsequently the 743rd battery of Lieutenant Commander S.F. Spakhov was located. The remains of the latter are quite well preserved to this day.
743rd battery was redeployed here from near Tuapse, and four 130 mm guns of the battery were dismantled from the cruiser Comintern, which perished in 1942. The cruiser was built in 1881 and had eight 130 mm deck guns on board. In July 1942, during a massive air raid by German aviation, the cruiser received a direct hit from a bomb, and two weeks later, in another port, during another air raid, an unexploded bomb penetrated the ship. In the absence of a repair base, the heavily damaged, outdated and worn-out ship was decided to be disarmed and scuttled.
The battery was redeployed to the Taman Peninsula immediately after the liberation of Novorossiysk. At this time, two more batteries also arrived here - the 723rd - near the village of Krotkovo and the 770th, included in the 163rd separate artillery division - on the Tuzla Spit. The work of dismantling old positions and constructing and equipping new ones was carried out in record time. At the firing position of an old exploded battery (half a kilometer north along the coast), it was decided to set up a false one. Subsequently, the enemy dropped many bombs and fired shells on it, as evidenced by the terrain to this day. 45 mm anti-aircraft guns were installed next to the main guns to protect the battery from air strikes.
The battery fired at enemy positions on the Crimean Peninsula, but was ready to fire at targets on the water - at fascist ships in the Kerch Strait and in enemy ports. Thanks to the most advantageous position, the 743rd actively participated in artillery preparation during the landing in the Crimea on November 1, 1943, and also covered the further build-up of forces, and in December 1943, a German high-speed landing barge was sunk by coordinated fire with the 663rd battery.
Today, all that remains of the battery are covered courtyards of guns, an observation post on a cliff, several pillboxes, underground rooms and passages. There is a modest obelisk near the lighthouse. In this place, the sea is actively advancing on the shore, eating about 1 meter annually. The underground part of the observation post is already hanging over the cliff. When visiting the site, try not to get close to the cliff - landslides are not uncommon here.
