Alagir gorge. Monument to Uastyrji in the Alagir Gorge
Alagir gorge is a very remarkable and picturesque place. It is located on the territory of North Ossetia. This masterpiece of Nature once served as a fortress in ancient times. There are still remains of fortifications on its peaks:
- towers,
- fortress stone walls,
- protective ditches.
For a long time, mountain ledges were often used as fortresses in North Ossetia. Therefore, the Alagir Gorge can be called the southern outpost Russian Federation, indeed in appearance very reminiscent of the gate. It is from here that the path to the Near and Middle East lies, here lies the famous Transcaucasian highway (Transkam).
City of Alagir
Any trip to the Alagir Gorge starts from the small town of Alagir. Further the way goes through the mountains of the Alagir Gorge, and ends with the customs house "Nizhny Zaramag" on the border with South Ossetia. The Tsei gorge adjoins the Alagir gorge, in which the Rekom sanctuary, sacred to the Ossetians, is located. It is not so far from the village of Buron, only 9 kilometers along a narrow road, which lies at an altitude of 2000 meters above sea level. The very small glade of the “Recoma of the Phases”, where the sanctuary is located, is covered from the north by a ridge, from the south it is bounded by a river. "Phase Recommendations" is a landmark of the colorful Tsei Valley, where southern pines grow.
The original history of the ancient Ossetians - Alans is connected with the Alagir Gorge. For a long time it was the starting point around which the whole local life, both economic and political, seethed. There are enough sights in the Alagir Gorge at every turn. Our tourist club "Opening" will help you choose unique adventure tours to the unique places of the gorge.
History of Alagir in stone
memory of those old times remained in the form of sanctuaries and monuments that date back to the early Middle Ages. The most famous of them:
Nuzal chapel (the oldest building in North Ossetia),
. Nuzal and Ursdon fortifications,
. Kassar protective wall,
There are so many attractions in these parts that you definitely need to make a list of priorities. And our tourist club "Opening" will help in this. We can pick up any thematic excursions and unique author's routes to the most interesting places.
The beauty of the mountain streets of Alagir
Unforgettable hours can be spent walking along Alagir itself. It is very picturesque, its ancient streets, the unusual shape of the building - all this fascinates and sets you in a romantic mood. If you want to dine at a local restaurant, there are a lot of them here, the tourist infrastructure is thought out, there are small cafes, benches for relaxation, and souvenir shops everywhere.
The Alagir Gorge, a photo of which is presented on the website of our tourist club, is suitable for recreation at any time of the year. Contact the tourist club "Opening" if you want to spend your vacation in the Caucasus in an exciting and useful way.
Today from the Caucasian mineral waters we are heading to the republic North Ossetia-Alania to visit the Tseyskoye gorge, look at the Skazsky glacier, visit mountain waterfalls and swim in thermal springs. This pleasure costs more than the others, 1300 rubles each. per person and a long journey awaits us, instead of the usual two hours for all excursions, this one will take us three and a half hours one way. The tour bus picked us up at eight o'clock in the morning and we set off.
Monument in the rock: Uastirdzhi - St. George
The road to the Tsei gorge passes through the transcaucasian highway - transkam, and at the very beginning of the Alagir gorge we stop. There is a massive monument to Uastirdzhi. In Ossetian mythology, Uastirdzhi is the main deity, the patron of warriors and men, under the influence of Christianity, he was transformed into the image of St. 28 tons of metal, built into the rock above the transcam, along which the mountain river Ardon runs and smells strongly of hydrogen sulfide from nearby mineral lakes. For lovers of healthy lifestyle, camp sites are specially equipped on these lakes, treat yourself to your health.
Tseyskoye Gorge, North Ossetia
Near the village of Buron, where the mountain river Tseydon flows into the Ardon, the Tsei Gorge begins. Our path runs along a serpentine dirt road, and further along the green mountain ranges, where the turbulent stream of Tseydon flows in a gorge, which originates from the Tseysky glacier. Here, as in every mountainous area, many mountain streams originate, which, accelerating and connecting with each other, turn into full-flowing rivers: Ardon, Tseydon, Skazdon. Don is a word of Sarmatian-Scythian origin, in the Ossetian language it is preserved in the meaning of water, so here everything is extremely simple with names.
Getting to ski resort Tsey, we are in a fairy tale. The tale had a clearly Soviet connotation and time did not go in her favor.
A happy Soviet pioneer with the appearance of Yesenin, having taken a step into the Soviet future, froze in an absurd pose for many years, and time was not favorable to him.
Only recently the Tseysky resort began to revive.
Skazsky Glacier in the Tsey Gorge
Chair lift of the cable car for 200 rubles. per person takes us from a height of 2000 m, to the very tongue of the Skazsky glacier to a height of 2500 m.
On the right, Mount Monk rises, the height of which is 2990 m.
The climb is not steep and the calmest of those that we had to meet in the resorts North Caucasus. It takes about 12-15 minutes and during the ascent you can admire not only the supports of Samara production, but also beautiful mountain views.
At the end of the ascent, we find ourselves on a picturesque green hill, from which a wonderful view of the Skazsky glacier should open. But we were not very lucky with the weather and the sky was hidden from us by gray clouds.
The blue jeep left on the hill blended very picturesquely into the rocky green surrounding landscape.
In the lowland there was a cannon for the forced descent of avalanches. She's like The Last Frontier between man and the elements is always on guard.
But the most important sight is the Skazsky glacier.
Approaching the Skazsky glacier is very dangerous, it can come down at any moment, or it can lie for another hundred years, but in any case, the glacier is a very elastic substance of ice and rock. A glacier is not just a frozen snowball on a mountain slope, but a massive destructive ice mass with rocks frozen into it. As a result of the slow movement of the glacier, furrows and cracks form on the rocks, they are also called "ram's foreheads". Fragments of rocks, sliding along with the glacier, form the final moraine, on the basis of which this amazing grotto was formed. Sliding, the glacier melts, leaving behind ground rocks and clay, this natural formation is called a moraine. The moraine often forms ice grottoes.
On the left, you can clearly see the river Skazdon, which takes its source under the grotto.
This is where our acquaintance with the Skazsky glacier ended, but our tour did not come to an end.
Literally half a kilometer from the Tsey resort there is a private camp site, it is still unfinished.
After passing through its territory and paying an environmental fee of 150 rubles, we find ourselves in the forest. Our guide, represented by the owner of the hostel, leads us along the already trodden path to the waterfall. The owner himself always leads excursion groups, he strictly ensures that tourists do not stray from the path, because brown bears are found here.
Finally, we leave the forest and find ourselves at the rocky shore of the waterfall. Now the stream is weak, it is gaining strength and moving stones only in the spring.
We make our way up the huge boulders to the steep slope of the rock, from which water flows.
After eating wild raspberries and mountain sorrel, we went back to the camp site to a roadside cafe for a full meal. The meal here is very good and does not lean on the purse. Tsey salad, judging by what they brought us, is a summer salad with dressing from sunflower oil with fried eggplant. The lunch in the photo is not ours, we ate ours before the thought of photographing it came to mind. This is our neighbors lunch.
Thermal springs, North Ossetia
The last stop today is the thermal spring. The temperature of the water in such a source is 50 degrees Celsius. There are many such sources in North Ossetia, and we cannot even say with certainty where they brought us. This is a private territory and it is guarded accordingly: a huge alabai, automatic gates and broad-shouldered bearded men will scare away anyone. However, by the time we visited the source, we were already quite tired and were no longer able to adequately perceive reality. Entrance to the territory is paid 150 rubles. The infrastructure of the tourist complex is also much inferior to Ausheger, although everything is quite well equipped. There are places to eat and change.
Location:
North Ossetia-AlaniaTravel time:
20 minutes from VladikavkazPeculiarities:
It combines completely different natural objects and sights. It has its own city-center-Alagir.Pros:
Beautiful scenery, easy access.Flaws:
The gorge is not intended for vacationers. A federal highway passes through it, from the places of rest only the Tamisk sanatorium. Or rent housing from local residents.
The Alagir Gorge is formed by the turbulent Ardon River, which originates from the Main Caucasian Range and flows into the Terek. The Alagir Gorge is called the main gate of Transcaucasia, because the Transcaucasian Highway passes through it.Attractions:
At the entrance to the Alagir Gorge, you are met by the sanctuary of Uastirdzhi (the patron saint of men in Ossetia). A rider on a steel horse rises above the gorge, as if flying out of a sheer cliff. A monument was erected in 1995.
Here are these people.Under the rider there is a cauldron (altar), into which travelers throw money, asking for patronage and protection of the saint on the road.
A stone table at which men, with pies and beer, pray to Uastirdzhi.
Ossetian Uastirdzhi is a synthesis of St. George and the Patron of the Alans from the Nart legends) And often he is called St. George, which is erroneous and sinful.Female Alan Epiphany Monastery
The monastery is still quite young and has only seven monte nuns, two nuns and three acolytes. Mother Superior Nona, a kind soul and strong faith person) In the monastery there are particles of the relics of the Holy Martyrs Princess Elisovet and nun Barbara, a list from the icon Holy Mother of God"The Tsaritsa", who showed his miraculous power. This icon, according to Faith and prayers to the Most Pure One, heals even cancer patients.
Kayaking is highly dependent on the weather. As soon as heavy rain passes, mountain rivers turn into roaring streams and everything becomes much more complicated. So it was a few days ago on Gonachkhir. Now we are moving to North Ossetia, and the element manifests itself again, on the road from Dombai. Already at the entrance to the Alagir gorge, we were stopped by bad weather and rockfalls. The rain that had been falling all day and all night led to mudflows, the road was littered - we stayed to spend the night on the side of the road, instead of cozy rooms in the Tsey alpine camp. And on the Ardon itself - the "mad river" (Oset.) - another surprise awaited us - a man-made one.
“Going to this river,” writes the kayaker, rider of the Adidas Sickline team Egor Voskoboynikov, “we didn’t make big plans for it, according to friends, it was not of great interest for rafting. At the very top of the Alagir Gorge, a hydroelectric power station was built, which regulates the water level in the river, and it is almost impossible to guess what it will be. We saw how, within an hour, the water dropped from the maximum to the minimum, and immediately rose back ... When we arrived at the rafting site and saw a huge mass of white water rushing down the canyon with a roar and roar, we realized that we “lucky” with the level!!!”
“After much thought, looking at the lines of movement and other jitters, we finally got into the boats and set off. It is difficult to describe rafting on such a river. It is very similar to the African "big volume" *, only rushing at a furious speed of the Caucasian rivers. You are rushing in a huge mass of water at a speed of about 15 km / h and you feel that huge stones are rushing down the river along with you, which periodically crash against everything, including you. The structure of the water is so unusual that you cannot guess what is behind the next hillock, a shaft or a barrel. It remains only to try to see at least something when you are thrown out of the pits on the crests of huge shafts and hope that you have seen everything correctly, and then there will be a shaft, not a boiler. At the end, I had the impression that I had just come ashore after rafting along the rapids of the White Nile, and not the Caucasian river. Unfortunately, quite soon a cascade of hydroelectric power stations will be built in this valley, and all the water from this river will go down the pipe. And such an alloy is no longer caught here. So I am very happy that we had a chance to swim in the "African Caucasus"!
In addition to the Ardon, the riders of the Adidas/RideThePlanet team passed a section of its left tributary, the Tseydon, a full-flowing steep stream flowing through the Tsei Gorge. And before the start of filming, during the pre-scout, we managed to ride along the upper reaches of the Urukh River, which originates from the huge Harves glacier and flows into the Terek. Exploration showed that most of the Urukh is still inaccessible for shooting from the shore, and the road to the drop site is complicated by repairs and rains - so this most interesting river in picturesque canyons was left for the future. All participants in the filming wanted to return to this region.
“For me, this was the first trip to the region, so I didn’t really know what to expect from the upcoming trip. – Tomas Marnitz, an Adidas Sickline pro rider from Latvia, shares his impressions about the Caucasus. - Over the past few years, completely different people have told me completely different stories about the Caucasus. Therefore, I was interested to know how everything really happens there. And it turned out a little different than I expected. Maybe, of course, we were lucky, but it seemed to me that interesting people live there, good people who welcomed us well and at some point helped to solve several problems. Also, we had no problems with either the local police or the locals, everything is quiet, peaceful and calm. And, of course, the Caucasus is beautiful! Very beautiful mountains! Everything is much grander than in Europe.”
For a whole generation, North Ossetia was associated only with news releases about the hostilities in Chechnya, and not at all with the alluring landscapes of mountain resorts.
Fortunately, times are changing. And it seems that now is the time to remember what North Ossetia was for travel lovers - starting from the century before last. Healing mineral water of various properties, the oldest monuments of antiquity everywhere, snowy peaks over four thousand meters ... The Ossetian military road, along which romantics - cyclists already in the 1890s pedaled to Georgia, through the passes of the Greater Caucasus Range and to the sea ... The beauties of North Ossetia contemplated travelers with canvases and notebooks, and talked about them in other parts - Aivazovsky, Lermontov, Chekhov, Pushkin, Griboyedov. Vladikavkaz is the cultural, political, intellectual center of the North Caucasus; in the 1900s, it was here that societies dedicated to various species were created one after another. active rest. Alpinism since the 1880s, mountain tourism since the beginning of the 20th century, research, geological exploration and the first balneological complexes in the 30s, the rapid restoration of tourism infrastructure after the war, mass Komsomol rallies and ascents, school mountain tourism championships of the Russian Federation - in the 50s e, skiing in the mid 60s...
North Ossetia-Alania, according to Yegor Voskoboynikov, “is probably the most peaceful, friendly and hospitable republic in the North Caucasus. And, most importantly, this is the only republic where kayaking is cultivated by the local population. And one of the few places in our country where there is an active canal for rowing slalom. In general, this is probably the most promising place in the Caucasus for the development of kayaking in all its manifestations, and for tourism in general.”
Interesting facts about North Ossetia from any sphere can be read on the portal of the republic. Also published a lot of local history books with detailed description riches of the region and tourist routes are described in detail.
At half past eight we made a short stop at the sanctuary of St. George Uastirdzhi.
The sanctuary is new, built in 1995, before that it was located above the cliff in the narrowest part of the Elkhot Gate. During the construction of the road, the 14th-century sanctuary was dismantled to be assembled in a new place, but the drawings apparently were forgotten. It took more than 40 years for a similar complex to appear again in these places.
There must be a watchman somewhere here, but we did not see anyone, not one Ossetian would raise his hand to harm in a place holy to all Ossetians.
From here you can see a panorama of Dzhimarai-Khokh, one of the highest peaks of the Caucasus.
By 9 am we drove into Alagir. Is not Big city in 20 thousand population. Among others, this city is known as the birthplace of Stanislav Cherchesov, at different times a football player and coach of FC Spartak, the goalkeeper of the Russian national team and the Soviet Union.
Cinema "Komsomolets" is unlikely to cause anything other than despondency.
Across the road is a bust of Stalin and General of the Army Georgy Khetagurov.
By the way, Alagir does not mean "Saint George" (alla Geor), but "Upper Ossetia", which turned out to be surprising for me personally))
Here we spent half an hour. There was enough time to go around the perimeter of the territory of the Holy Ascension Cathedral, as well as go inside. Here for the first time I came across a commemorative 10-ruble coin 2 cm in size (without an external disk).
The cathedral was built as a church-fortress and had not only cultural, but also military significance. The height of the wall-fence is 2.1 meters. There are three massive entrance gates and five defensive round towers in the wall.
The height of each tower reaches 8 meters.
Interesting cathedral, built in the Byzantine style in the 50s. XIX century. In the outlines and architecture, one can hardly guess the Russian Orthodox Church.
From here, along the trans-Caucasian highway, we enter the Alagir gorge. Although no, before that we had been looking for another half an hour where to stock up on "liquid bread" at the price of the manufacturer's factory, and in fact we found it. Who goes to the mountains for what?
A 10-minute drive from Alagir, just behind Tamisk, there is another, perhaps the most famous sanctuary of St. George - Nykhas Uastirdzhi.
Here, the glorious hero, escaping from the depths of the rock, riding a gigantic horse trampling a snake under him, hangs over the road as if frozen in a jump.
The sanctuary, like the temple, appeared in the middle of the 19th century, but the statue was installed only in 1995. The weight of the statue is 28 tons, and the height of only one horse's head is 6 meters. This is the largest equestrian monument in the world.
Uastirdzhi - the patron of men, travelers and warriors - main character and a deity in Ossetian mythology, often mentioned in the Nart Epos. Under the influence of Christianity, Uastirdzhi among Ossetians eventually became associated with St. George the Victorious, but is revered by both Christians and Muslims. In general, according to our guide, the difference between Christians and Muslims is only in the first toast, the first drink for Christ, the second for Allah, the second toast for both of them is for St. George and everything else is the same.
And this large bowl is just a piggy bank for collecting donations for the maintenance of the sanctuary.
Here we lingered for about 40 minutes to have breakfast with the packed bags, and I didn’t have much time left to climb the path to the top along the cliff.
Below runs Ardon - "Raging River".
In half of the sources, the gorge is referred to just like the Ardon.
Here, through the passes you can get to. In general, a very interesting village, a 3-story high barrier wall stretches along the road, which either protects local residents from the road, or the road from local residents, but the impression is somehow surreal.
Top view of Buron village.
Behind the village is a quarry. The feeling is that a small scree at the top of a quarry is capable of burying not at all small excavators and dump trucks swarming below. I would not like to work in such conditions.
Behind Buron, by the way, is the Zaramagskaya hollow, which is called "Toiletia", but we don't need to go there. Then the road goes to the Roki tunnel to South Ossetia, and we, having moved over the bridge to the left bank of the Ardon, begin to climb up to the Tseyskoye Gorge.
The Tsei gorge is so grandiose and magnificent that it undoubtedly deserves a separate story, so we will skip it here, and for the sake of completeness of the story about the Alagir or otherwise Ardon gorge, we will end the story on the way back.
On the way back, from the starboard side of our minibus, one could see the Zaramag hydroelectric power station under construction. Work on the construction of the hydroelectric power station began in June 1976. According to the plans of the Ministry of Energy, the station should be launched in 2017.
And this is the Tsallagov tower in Nizhny Unal.
Unalskoye tailing dump - a complex of special structures and equipment for the storage or disposal of wastes from the enrichment of minerals from the Sandon deposit of lead-zinc ores, referred to as tailings.
Here the journey could be considered complete if our guide had not been too lazy to buckle up at the border post between North Ossetia and Kabardino-Balkaria, where we had to stand for another half an hour. I got back closer to 7 pm.