Project: what the Ai-Petri plateau will look like after reconstruction (photo). What the Ai-Petri plateau will look like after reconstruction (photo) Ai-Petri mountain range, tourism center

You can appreciate the beauty of the Ai-Petri plateau only once you get there. Rarely is nature so close to man. Feeling one with environment, it is unlikely that anyone will not set a firm goal to return here again.

In addition to all its other advantages, the Ai-Petri plateau can boast of relative accessibility to tourists. Firstly, in numerous settlements The western part of the yayla can be reached both by personal and by car. public transport, and from there you can start your walking routes, secondly, the plateau reveals its riches to the tourist through passes of varying degrees of difficulty, some of which are relatively easy to cross, and some of which will make you sweat.

How to climb the Ai-Petri plateau

As for the first way to see the beauty of the Ai-Petri plateau, the easiest seems to be arriving at the station cable car to Ai-Petri from Yalta by minibus or private cab. In less than an hour you will already inhale the incomparable aromas of yayla. In addition, paths and roads run away from the station in all directions. In the same way you can leave the Ai-Petri plateau. Actually, the cable car itself from Miskhor will take you here.

You can use the Baydarsky Pass, arriving from the direction of Sevastopol or Foros. The point is that the pass Baydar Gate is a natural border between Ai-Petrinskaya and Baydarskaya yayla.

Baydar Gate - car route on the Ai-Petri plateau

There is an opportunity to get into the very heart of the Ai-Petri plateau by arriving in Rodnikovskoye by regular bus, which you should take on the Yalta-Sevastopol highway near the turn to Tylovoe.

If you see the goal of tourism in overcoming the hardships of the journey solely with your own feet, then well-trodden and popular passes are at your service. The same cable car station can be reached along the Koreiz trail, which, as the name suggests, leaves from Koreiz.

The ascent will allow you to get into the rhythm of the hike and enjoy the beautiful pine forest through which the trail runs.

However, one of the most famous passes not only on the Ai-Petri plateau, but throughout the entire Crimean mountains is the Shaitan-Merdven pass. He owes his wide popularity to his rich history, since the ancient Roman legionnaires chose it to cross Crimean mountains, the road from Chersonesus to the fortress of Kharaks (today's Gaspra) ran through it.

Since then, trade routes went through the Devil's Staircase, which is how the name of the pass can be translated from Crimean Tatar. After the earthquake of 1927, it changed significantly, but it is still not difficult to overcome even for an unprepared tourist.

Tourist sites and routes of Ai-Petrinskaya Yayla:

Borders of the Ai-Petri plateau

How can you determine the boundaries of the Ai-Petri plateau? This is quite easy to do. The southern border took the form of a mountain peak.

Defining the northern limit of the plateau is more difficult, but having slightly expanded the boundaries allowed by the definition of the term “yayla” itself, we can assume that it will become a strip along the mountains a kilometer or two deep on the segment Baydarsky Pass - Mount Balchik-Kaya and then an ever-expanding area up to five kilometers in the Besh-Tekne - Bedene-Kyr area, where the Ai-Petrinskaya yayla merges with the Yalta.

Geological features of the Ai-Petri plateau

By the way, understanding that there are yayla will help us clarify the boundaries of the Ai-Petri plateau more thoroughly. Yayla is waterless. Limestones, forming numerous karst formations, allow water to pass through, preventing it from flowing down the surface in the form of rivers. Therefore, the available moisture is barely enough to support native vegetation. The yayls were used as pasture, so this treatment of the landscape gave it lifeless features, where only copses and lonely trees decorate the rocky soil covered with grass. The entire Ai-Petri yayla is strewn with large and small stones, so even on the paths you need not to yawn and look at your feet.

After grazing on the Crimean yailas was banned by the seventies, soil erosion slowed down, and forests are slowly encroaching on open spaces. In other words, yayla is a waterless and treeless area.

The ridge of the Ai-Petrinsky Mountains is a visual cuesta, that is, an alternation of gentle and steep slopes. The steep ones face the sea and are subject to constant erosion; they represent an uplift of rock that often crumbles, causing landslides. The gentle slopes end in small beams, behind which a smaller ridge grows again. If you move along the Ai-Petri plateau from the south and not north in areas, for example, of the Spira or Dome mountains, you will get the impression of sailing on waves, where ascents alternate with descents. It’s not the same feeling, however, when driving along the line of mountains, when finding a flat road is not at all difficult.

The basis of the Ai-Petri plateau is composed of Upper Jurassic limestones, which affects the nature of the yayla to this day. While walking along its routes, pay attention to the shape of the stones protruding from the ground. They are often rounded at the edges and have oval holes. Limestones became the cause of total karst formation, when water over the course of many centuries literally ate its way deep into the rock, depriving the soil of life-giving moisture. Therefore, the interest of scientists in the Besh-Tekne basin, which is located not far from Mount At-Bash, is understandable.

Springs flow here and small lakes fill. The reason is the presence of clay lining the bottom of the basin and retaining water. It is no wonder that there are two trails through the passes leading to this oasis - Evreiskaya and Eski-Bogaz. But as soon as you move a little to the north, you find yourself in the kingdom karst formations, which is almost completely devoid of water lingering on the surface.

Peaks of the Ai-Petri plateau

As befits any yayla, Ai-Petrinskaya does not have clearly defined peaks. The most accurate definition that begs to be spoken is plateau. Therefore, when looking at the map, you should not imagine that Mount Kilse-Burun is a pointed peak. A small hill above the surrounding plane will be its top.

By the way, Kilse-Burun, as well as Mshatka-Kaya and the Forossky edge located to the west, are loved by climbers. But even for a hiker, the views from their peaks will bring a lot of impressions. If you move from west to east along the mountain peak, then the named mountains are the first in a series of the most popular peaks on the Ai-Petri plateau among lovers of the Crimean mountains.

The highest of them is Kilse-Burun, which has a height of 712 meters. From the west the ascent to it is gentle, but from the eastern part it is quite steep. In all respects this is a very beautiful place.

The next significant peak is Merdven Kaya (688 meters), also easily accessible from the west. And this mountain was not abandoned by climbers.

The next peak in our movement to the east is Merdven-Kayasy (856 meters). Between it and the previous mountain lies the Shaitan-Merdven pass. Merdven-Kayasy is a very beautiful mountain. In honor of the legend of Soviet mountaineering, its flat southern surface is called Mikhail Khergiani’s rock. Several climbing routes are laid out along its open chest. The northern slopes of the mountain are covered with dense beech forest; they cannot be called yayla. But having descended from this mountain to the east, we again find ourselves on the plateau.

Ai-Petri plateau in the area Merdven-Kayasy mountains

Even further east, the road will lead us to Mount Balchik-Kaya (945 meters), on which passive signal reflector structures stand and rust.

Next is Mount Kastropolskaya, 955 meters high, under which the village of Parkovoe is located. This mountain is also held in high esteem by rock climbers. If you look down from its top, you can see a pile of large stones that fell at one time.

Morcheka is one of the most famous peaks Crimea. This is an important attraction for both climbers and tourists. A cross is installed on one of the rocks of Morcheki.

From the western edge of the mountain the Kerezla trail descends. A grandiose panorama opens from its top to the southeast, where small lakes sparkle among the rocks in the greenery of the forests. And in the area of ​​this mountain and to the east, the scale of rock falls is amazing. Between the mountains of Morcheka and Spirada, below, closer to the village of Opolznevoe, there is a whole scattering of huge boulders and fragments of rocks, which is usually called the Kuchuk-Koi stone chaos.

Between the same mountains of Morchek and Spirada, but on the plateau, you can see a site that is classic for any yayla. A rocky path, a carpet of sparse but intoxicating vegetation.

Trail to Mount Spirada along the Ai-Petri plateau	Ai-Petri plateau in the area Spira Mountains

The Ai-Petri plateau begins to slowly rise. Mount Spirada is already 1028 meters high. The mountain is a domed white peak, clearly visible from Ponizovka and Katsiveli located below. Such peaks are found everywhere along the Ai-Petrinskaya Yaila.

The next notable peak in our movement in a western direction will be Mount At-Bash (1196 meters). Views from highest point This mountain, whose name translates as “Horse Head”, requires you to spend time on a short climb.

Ai-Petri plateau, Mount At-Bash:

To the north is the previously mentioned Besh-Tekne basin.

Weather on the Ai-Petri plateau

In winter and spring, Ai-Petri can make you feel your bad character. It’s quite cold here, the entire area is constantly covered in fog, strong winds awaken in the spring, so even in mid-May you can bundle up against the cold.

Tourists who prefer winter hiking, they know that between Ai-Petri and Dome there is fog and rain more often than in the Morcheki area. And the entire Ai-Petri plateau, compared to the rest of its Crimean counterparts, is the coldest. Winter can overtake the traveler in early October. While not a single snowflake will fall on the coast all year and the temperature will always remain above zero, on the Ai-Petri plateau frosts and snowdrifts are a common occurrence.

Winter fogs on the Ai-Petri plateau:
Clouds move from the sea onto the mountain peak Ai-Petri plateau	View from the Ai-Petri plateau to the village of Pokrovskoye

Given the terrain, you need to be very careful off the beaten path. In winter, ravines and depressions are covered with snow; sharp stones are not visible from under the snowdrifts. But this primarily applies to places remote from the canopy. In summer, it is not as hot on the yayla as below, but you can hide from the scorching sun only by stopping under a tree; a constantly moving tourist will be constantly exposed to the sun's rays. Rain in summer is rare on the plateau.

Hiking trails along the Ai-Petri plateau

Now it’s worth talking about the trails of this plateau. The simplest route giving greatest number impressions and photographs, is the one that runs along the mountain peak. Moving along the Ai-Petri plateau from the Baydar Gate through the Foros Church, we will ride the eighth tourist route. To be fair, it should be said that it starts from the Laspi tourist camp, but this is already the Baydar Yayla. The eighth route will take us along the edge of the ridge through the previously mentioned mountains Kilse-Burun and Merdven-Kaya.

If the narrow path is not to your liking, just below there is a wide road that can be passed by a car. The road will lead you to the Shaitan-Merdven pass, from which a new one begins - through a beech forest to the top of Merdven-Kayasy.

The road to Mount At-Bash itself has no name, which does not prevent it from being universally loved by tourists. The same can be said about the path leading from At-Bash to Ai-Petri. The mountain peak in these places is an alternation of bulges and depressions, the latter sometimes looking like amphitheaters. The depressions, as a rule, are covered with a small thicket and tenacious bushes, through which a path usually runs, as well as bypassing the thicket.

Another way to get from At-Bash to Ai-Petri is to go deep into the yayla along the Besh-Tekne basin and through the Vorontsovka cordon to Mount Bedene-Kyr, where the radar station is located (read about this route). Probably, it is this route that gives the greatest understanding of what the Ai-Petri plateau is. Here the yayla is the widest, waterless and significantly different from its western part. On both sides of the road there are two tracts - Sary-Kol and Vorontsovsky forest. The Beshan-Kosh tract, which replaces the Besh-Tekne basin, is also very beautiful. This tract is an open plain of amazing beauty with small areas of coniferous thickets, located at the foot of Mount Bedene-Kyr, from which, however, the surrounding views are beautiful in any direction.

From the Vorontsovka cordon on the Ai-Petri plateau, two trails go north in the direction of the tourist camps “Bukovaya” and “Danila”, which are already outside the boundaries of this plateau, and from there even further north. More precisely, these popular routes begin from the Yalta-Bakhchisarai highway, but just northwest of the Vorontsovka cordon they diverge in different directions.

From Mount Spirada, a route starts to the northwest to the Skelskaya Cave, popular among tourists. The road runs along the Tarpanbair ridge stretching in the same direction, the peaks of which are the Tarpan-Bair (1094 meters) and Chuvash-Koy (1051 meters) mountains. The further you go to the northwest, the more clearly forests begin to predominate, and in front of the Skelskaya Cave itself there is a real juniper grove. Along the way you will meet the Chuvash-Gol spring.

It is also worth mentioning the 45th route, starting from the Besh-Tekne tourist camp, cutting through the entire Ai-Petri plateau in the north-west direction. The final destination of the route is the tourist stop “Tea House” outside the yayla. Route 45 has many branches both to the east to the Vorontsovka cordon and to the southwest to Mount Spirady.

From the Shaitan-Merdven pass there are two popular tourist routes- Kalendskaya and Kapurkayskaya trails, however, they almost immediately leave the yayla and go deeper into the dark beech forest.

SIMFEROPOL, March 30 – RIA Novosti (Crimea). In Crimea, several projects for the reconstruction of the Ai-Petri plateau are in development: it is planned to create the world’s longest zip line, a small eco-town and a rock garden, said Anri Kanunov, a freelance adviser to the head of the Yalta administration.

"IN this moment this project is also being approved by the ministries of the Republic of Crimea and will subsequently be presented to the head of the Republic of Crimea Sergei Aksenov,” the press service of the mayor’s office quotes Kanunov as saying. According to him, several ideas are currently being considered to create a small eco-city on Ai-Petri , intended for recreation and entertainment. At the same time, no permanent buildings are planned on the plateau. Among the projects to be implemented, the most interesting, according to Kanunov, is a glass rock garden. observation decks and a stone labyrinth made of gabions (volume products of various shapes made of twisted wire mesh with hexagonal cells).

In addition, in the area of ​​the cable car on the plateau, it is planned to make a special area for relaxation and walking, where a dry fountain will be located. The issue of holding international competitions is being considered balloons, construction of the chapel. The plateau will also have bike paths and tracks for downhill snowmobiles, parking for cars and excursion buses, Helipad. “But there will be no numerous catering establishments and souvenir stalls on the plateau. There will only be one stationary cafe, located on top station cable car and the adjacent souvenir rows,” Kanunov assured.

© Photo courtesy of the press service of the Yalta administration

Ai-Petri plateau reconstruction project

Crimean photoblogger Sergei Anashkevich aka aquatek-filips says: “ Better than the mountains there can only be mountains. And even though the mountains in Crimea are not high, they are still mountains. Demerdzhi, Karadag, Chatyrdag, Karabi, Babugan, Echkidag and, of course, Ai-Petri. I love going there. Each place is interesting in its own way at different times of the year. Somewhere there is incredible autumn, somewhere there is summer grass, and somewhere there is spring awakening.

On Ai-Petri in the spring you are almost guaranteed to encounter frequent fogs. Or rather, these are not exactly fogs. These are clouds that creep onto the plateau from the sea. And then during the day you can be under the clouds, above the clouds, inside the clouds, or watch how the clouds break against the rocky walls of the mountains... Backpack, water, tea, camera... The rest is unnecessary. To remain more space for emotions."

(Total 24 photos)

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1. Early April morning on Ai-Petrinskaya Yayla, as the plateau is correctly called. Pleasant sunny weather. In the distance you can see locator balls on Bedene-Kyr.

2. Southern slopes. The Ai-Petri Yaila itself is a plateau stretching for more than 20 kilometers from west to east, gradually narrowing towards the east.
And in the place where it turns into the Yalta Yayla, the distance between the southern and northern slopes is a little more than a kilometer, which allows you to observe two completely different landscapes in a short time. On one side there is the sea, steep rock walls and coniferous forests, and on the other, which can be quickly reached in 15 minutes - Mountain peaks to the horizon, covered with beech forest, lakes, villages and Sevastopol 40 kilometers away on the very horizon.

4. There are even birch groves. They were planted by hand in the 60s

5. Road on Ai-Petrinskaya Yayla.

6. Taraktash rocks on the southern slope of the plateau. The Taraktash trail winds down along them, along which you can get from Ai-Petri to the Uchan-Su waterfall and further to Yalta

7. The famous “window” in the form of a cross in the rock

8. One of the countless talus gorges descending towards Yalta.

9. The eastern side of the Ai-Petrinskaya yayla stretches, passing into the Yalta, then the Gurzufskaya and into the Babugan-yayla.

10. We go to the northern slopes of the plateau. From here it looks completely different. In the distance is the Boyka massif

11. This is what Sevastopol looks like from the Ai-Petri plateau. Due to the distance of 40 km and the haze, we had to apply rather harsh photo processing.
Otherwise, we would only be able to see the dim outlines of the city in the distance.

13. View of the foothills. Below lies the Belbek Valley.

14. While we were observing the Kachin Valley, dense clouds began to descend on the plateau. Let's return to the southern slopes, because it is there that you can fully observe both the movement of clouds above and below your feet, as well as their formation when air masses break against these steep rocky walls

15. Clouds cover the sun and sink lower and lower

16. The wind literally tears off pieces from them and “drops” them onto the rocky slopes

17. A cloud just rushes along the wall right under your feet

18. I turn my head back, and there everything is completely different. The sky literally fell down

Photos of the renovated section of the plateau near the upper cable car station, where the ugly town of Tatar cafes and shops were demolished in May of this year, were posted on Facebook by Crimean resident Irina Pavlenko.

Over the past couple of months, little has changed there: the same geometric paths with soil for lawns between them, a wrought-iron fence along the cliff, the remains of cafe foundations filled with concrete and rather dull dark gray paving slabs. It still doesn’t look much like a presentation of a plateau reconstruction project with glass barriers and balconies hanging over the cliffs, and whether it will be similar at all is unknown.

Something relatively new: on the plateau, not far from the upper station of the cable car, a helipad with the sign H - Helicopter appeared.

It’s not entirely clear what spoiled helicopter passengers should do here. Perhaps they can make a stop here on the way from Simferopol airport to expensive villages and hotels South Bank to ride along the yayla in jeeps or hunt, saving time on the ascent along the serpentine from Yalta or Bakhchisarai. Because it’s not tempting to just walk here yet, and it’s not just the inclement weather in which these pictures were taken: there’s emptiness all around.

However, next to the cable car station there are frames for renting bicycles. Judging by the logos, this business will be handled by the Freeright organization created under the ex-mayor of Yalta Andrei Rostenko, which has become a business monopolist on the Yalta embankment.

The same organization monopolized, according to local entrepreneurs, and paid access to the teeth of Ai-Petri. To get there on foot through the woods, you need to pay the occupant of this booth. At least in the warm season.

Whether it is an accident or a pattern, there is a characteristic sloppiness observed on the approaches to the object of the traditional “single business” for these places.

The oasis of market chaos that reigned here on several hectares for more than 15 years has also been preserved after reconstruction. It is now concentrated near the building of the upper station of the cable car, which once became the property of Nadezhda Olefir, the former wife of Yalta deputy and businessman Leri Svanidze. The only cafe area with the simple name “Verkhnee” is located here. Andrei Rostenko now publicly allowed only her to feed and supply tourists on the plateau.

Bicycles for rent will appear here only next summer. But if the asphalt road leading to the cable car from the side of the descent to Yalta is not cured of the giant holes, riding on them will be problematic: the dirt roads on Ai-Petri are completely rocky. And no one is in a hurry to invest in high-quality repairs of the road surface - the remains of asphalt have so far been simply leveled with a grader and covered with crushed stone.

However, the sprouts of spontaneous trade are also sprouting through the tiles laid by the developer Evgeniy Kabanov. This man, even on a cold and dank day, in the whistling wind, sells wine by the glass. Most likely, it is fake - some kind of tinted compote with alcohol, God forbid it is ethyl. Just six months ago there was a lot of such goodness here in almost every Tatar cafe.

These roadblocks also remain from “Tatar” times. Dark-skinned guys from companies sponsored by the ex-head of the Bakhchisarai Mejlis, Akhtem Chygoz (convicted of involvement in organizing clashes under the walls of the Supreme Council of Crimea on February 26, 2014), charged those who wanted to park 100 rubles. Now these fences protect the pedestrian zone. It is not yet clear whether they will charge money for travel inside in the summer.

To the right, where the paths paved with paving slabs are visible, there was an array of demolished cafes. On the left - the outline of the cable car station is visible in the fog. Let's hope that the empty earthen beds between the paths will be planted with grass and ornamental shrubs, as envisaged by the project.

View of the same place from the other side. The photo was taken at the beginning of the summer of this year, immediately after the voluntary-forced demolition of the shalmans. Here you can see what the space, now paved with tiles, looked like.

And this photo was taken several years ago. Just for comparison. To judge more objectively, make allowances for sunny weather.

Ai-Petri

What is Ai-Petri? It is difficult to answer this question in one or two sentences; it is even more difficult to describe the diversity of this mountain range, where each tract surprises and delights. Talk to mountaineers and rock climbers, tourists and excursionists, speleologists and skiers, foresters and meteorologists, mushroom pickers and wild berry lovers - everyone will tell their own story, but even these fragments put together will not give you an idea of ​​Ai-Petri until you visit its top.

Ai-Petri is the peak and mountain range with an area of ​​more than 300 km2, one of the table massifs (they are also called yaylas), stretched along the southern coast of Crimea and making up the main mountain range. The Ai-Petrinsky massif extends from east to west for 25 km. The distance between its southern edge and northern foothills is more than 13 km. Conditional eastern border runs along the meridian of Mount Roka, separating the massif from the neighboring Yalta Yayla. In the west, Ai-Petri ends with the deep saddle of the Baydar Gate.

However, most often tourists remember not the massif as a whole, but one of its peaks with a palisade of exotic stone pillars called battlements. This peak of the protrusion of the massif, far extended to the south, is Ai-Petri itself, which gave its name to the entire plateau and became a symbol of the south coast.

The highest point of the entire massif is Mount Roca with an absolute elevation of 1346 meters above sea level, slightly less (1320 meters) Mount Quail (Benede-Kyr). Mount Ai-Petri itself is much lower - its height is 1231 meters above sea level.

Throughout its entire length, the mountain range faces south, towards the sea, with formidable rock walls: sometimes strictly vertical, sometimes stepped, but everywhere inaccessible. Rare passes, through which man laid paths and cart roads in ancient times, still serve as passages from the southern coast to the plateau.

The northern slopes of the massif are not so steep; they are completely covered with broad-leaved forests.

The small massifs Boyka and Sedam-Kaya extend to the north. They are separated by the Kokkozka River. Many other rivers and streams run off Ai-Petri. With her northern slopes the tributaries of the Kokkozka flow: Auzun-Uzen and Sary-Uzen, from the western - the rivers: Baga, UrkustaUzundzha, from which the river Chernaya is born - the most abundant in the Crimea. In the upper reaches of one of the left nameless tributaries of the Uzundzhi there is the Karadag forest tract. The rivers of the southern slope - short and low-water in summer - can be stormy and dangerous during floods. Hundreds of springs feed these rivers, and among them the largest in Crimea is the Skelsky spring.

South of seashore The snow-white houses of the beautiful Yalta rise into the mountains. From the top of the massif on a clear day the villages of Gaspra, OreandaForosKoreizSimeizBlue Bay, the city of Alupka are clearly visible... In the west, in the Baydarskaya valley, lie the villages of Orlinoe, PodgornoyeRodnikovoeRossoshankaNovobobrovskoyePeredovoye... At the foot of the northern slopes in dense gardens bordering the forest, you can hardly see the villages of Polya well, SokolinoeMnogorecheChastlivoe ... And only in the east, where Ai-Petri borders on another mountain range - Yalta, there are no villages.

The southern cliffs of the Ai-Petrinsky massif and its northern gentle slopes are very picturesque, but there is no more charming panorama of the southern coast opening from the top. It is difficult to find a Crimean who has not seen the sunrise on Ai-Petri at least once in his life. Really, for the sake of this one moment, when the fiery ball of the sun seems to emerge from the dark blue abyss of the sea, it is worth climbing to this height.

The mountainous Crimea, as we see it now, was formed in a relatively short period of geological time - approximately 1.5 - 2 million years.

The geological history is more or less reliably known Mountain Crimea, including Ai-Petri, starting from the end of the Triassic period (about 200 million years ago). At that time the territory of the present Crimean peninsula covered the waters of the ancient Tethys Ocean, which existed throughout most of the history of the globe (until the Neogene period). In the latitudinal direction, the ocean stretched across the southern edge of the Eurasian continent, the area of ​​modern Mediterranean Sea and extreme northwest Africa.

Over the past 200 million years, the land area on which Ai-Petri is located was repeatedly brought out from under sea level, and then it was actively destroyed by exogenous forces, and then sank again under sea level. The depth of the dives was different, depending on it, either silts and sands were deposited at the bottom of the reservoir, which later transformed into clays and sandstones, or calcareous silts, which turned into limestones. Sometimes, with a significant rise in the nearby land and shallow waters of the basin itself, the land was actively eroded and huge masses of pebbles were carried into the basin. Cemented by marine sediments, they transformed into conglomerates.

150 - 160 million years ago, volcanoes were active in the vicinity of Ai-Petri, their remains can be seen near the villages of Melas and Foros.

During numerous uplifts and subsidences of the earth's crust, marine sediments, which were transformed into layers of rock under the weight of overlying sediments, were repeatedly crushed, cracked and moved. Naturally, the older the rocks, the more dislocated (disturbed) they are. Plastic rocks - clays with layers of sandstones - were bent into bizarre folds, stronger ones - limestones, conglomerates - were torn into separate blocks. Some blocks were moved over long distances by the powerful forces of the earth's interior. In Crimea, in particular on Ai-Petri, such movements reach a kilometer in the vertical direction and several kilometers in the horizontal direction.

The most ancient rocks that make up Ai-Petri can be seen in the valley of the Kokkozka River in the cliffs above the road that leads from Bakhchisarai through Sokolinoe to Yalta. These folds, cut by a river valley, consist of rhythmically interlayered rocks of the Tauride series - sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, colored in different tones. Above the rocks of the Tauride formation are the rocks of the Middle Jurassic (since they are younger). These are the same overconsolidated clays, interlayered with sandstones, rocks that resemble a “layer cake”; geologists call it flysch. In appearance, the flysch of the Taurian formation differs little from the flysch of the Middle Jurassic, however, they are relatively weaker dislocated and bent into gentler folds.

Rocks of the Tauride series and Middle Jurassic form the base of the Ai-Petri massif. Above them lie limestones. The contact line runs at different absolute levels, but generally does not exceed 500 - 600 meters. Only in one place (in the Besh-Tekne tract) flysch rocks were pushed by underground forces to a height of 1000 - 1100 meters onto the surface of the plateau.

In the mountainous Crimea, for about one and a half million years, active karst processes have been quietly occurring on the surface and deep in the depths of the mountains, leading to the formation of craters, basins and caves of various sizes and shapes. There are three karst areas on the Ai-Petrinsky massif: Western Ai-Petrinsky karst region, located between the Baydar Gate pass and the peak of Merdven-Kayasy; Central, occupying the middle part of the massif between the peaks of Merdven-Kayasy and At-Bash; Eastern, lying between the peaks of At-Bash and Roka. The Central Ai-Petri region is most intensively karstified. 218 underground cavities and more than 1,330 karst sinkholes were discovered here. In total, there are 302 underground karst cavities (caves, wells, mines) on Ai-Petri, of which 12 are declared natural monuments local significance: Skelskaya, Crystal HangingHoneyPearlMiskhorskayaRockfallSyundurlyuDruzhbaGeofizicheskayaCascade and Danilcha-koba.

If karst dominates on the top part of the plateau, then below, at the foot of the slopes, there are landslides, rock-falls and mudflows. Landslides form in any mountains, especially where the geological situation contributes to this. In Crimea, conditions for the formation of landslides are favorable, so 452 landslides were recorded on the southern coastal slopes alone, 112 of which are active. At the foot of Ai-Petri you can see many large and small landslides, nine of them are major: Malassky, Chernobugorsky, Mukhalatsky, Kuchuk-Koysky, Kikeneizsky, Dolomiysky, Alupkinsky, Golden Beach, Chukurlarsky.

Along with the loose material, very large limestone blocks, broken off from the main mass of rocks - outliers - also slide down the slope. Among the softer rocks surrounding them, they look like picturesque rocks. The outcasts include the Mogabi mountains near Yalta, Krestovaya in Alupka, Koshka in Simeiz and many others.

The climate of Ai-Petri is characterized by sharp contrast. Average annual temperature air temperature on Ai-Petri is +5.9°C. In the mountains, in the same month, the average daily temperature can be very different. On Ai-Petri in January it is +11.4°C…–20.4°C, in February +11.5°C…–26.5°C, and in August +27.1°C…–2.3°C. The warmest month on the Yailas is July, less often – August. The average July temperature is 15.6°C, but the maximum is much higher - it reaches 32°C. The coldest month is February, average temperature it is –3.8°C.

40% of precipitation on the Ai-Petri Plateau falls in the form of rain, 60% in the form of snow. On average, 1052 mm of precipitation falls on Ai-Petri per year (in Yalta only 635), with 160 mm in January alone. Stable snow cover lasts from mid-December to March. Due to thaws in the whitish areas of the yayla, the snow disappears completely by 50-70% several times during the cold period of time.

The duration of daylight hours on Ai-Petri is long - 2325 hours.

And the unwanted vagaries of nature here, although they represent inconvenience and danger, are still short-term phenomena.

Crossing Ai-Petri from south to north or in reverse direction, even a non-specialist notices a certain pattern in the distribution of vegetation: the slopes are covered with forests, the plateau is dominated by meadow-steppe vegetation. Yaila amazes with its wide open spaces with sparse clumps of trees and shrubs. Unlike other Crimean yailas, Ai-Petrinskaya has natural forests along the edges of cliffs, in the Central karst plateau and along erosion-karst valleys in the western part, but most of the plateau is covered with meadow-steppe vegetation.

The vegetation in the mountains is truly rich and varied. On the southern slopes there is a beech forest with an admixture of pine. From an altitude of 1000 - 800 meters above sea level, the belt of Crimean pine begins, which grows with oak in the first tier, and with prickly juniper in the second. Below 400 meters, a belt of shrub communities begins: junipers, hornbeam, hornbeam, and many other shrubs with an admixture of oak. Here you can find pistachio obtufolia, arbutus with a peculiar smooth reddish bark, the thin outer layer of which changes annually, and with evergreen leaves, yellow-flowered jasmine, a shrubby type of knit, bladderwort and much more. There are many fruit trees and shrubs in the forests. Almost all common types of mountain ash grow on the slopes of Ai-Petri and on the plateau: ordinary, large-fruited, bereka, Greek and others.

So what is Ai-Petri? It is unlikely that you can hear an exhaustive answer to this question...

CD "Sights of Crimea" -