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A legendary place on the Black Sea coast with a beautiful relict juniper forest.

According to ancient Greek myths, it was here that Jason arrived on the ship of the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece. And Prometheus was chained to one of the local rocks. However, we have already seen and, to which, according to legend, the hero of ancient Greek myths, who brought fire to people, was also chained.

Legends about these lands are still being formed. This is due to the beauty of the sea coast with numerous picturesque bays.

In the distance – Utrish Spit

View of the beaches of Utrish

The Bolshoi Utrish Nature Reserve was created in the mid-90s with the aim of preserving unique relict plants, mountain and sea landscapes. At the end of 2010, part of the reserve’s lands became part of the Utrish State Nature Reserve.

Juniper forest of the Utrish nature reserve

On the territory of the reserve there is the village of Bolshoi Utrish, we will look there later. Now let's take a walk through the delightful relict juniper grove.

Many red-listed plants and animals live here. Three types of juniper grow in the protected natural area: tall, reddish and foul-smelling (the latter was so named because of its pungent odor). Some of them are more than a thousand years old.

The value of this plant is not only in its beauty and antiquity, but also in its medicinal properties. Representatives of the juniper family emit volatile substances into the atmosphere that destroy microbes and pathogenic viruses. The air infused with juniper phytoncides and iodine ions evaporating from the surface of the sea makes a walk through the reserve truly healing.

How cool the trees are here!

The juniper forest grows in a limited area, an area of ​​only tens of kilometers, which raises questions among researchers: why does the forest not spread further? Most likely, the answer lies in the most comfortable climate of the area.

Outlandish trunks of old trees

In addition to juniper, Pitsunda pine, boxwood (iron tree), yew, mackerel and even pistachio grow in the reserve. Raccoons, squirrels, rare Mediterranean peacock butterflies and others also live here.

The vegetation here is simply fantastic. Given my love for unusual trees, I received great pleasure from contemplating them.

If you have some imagination, you can see anything in these trunks

And what kind of stones are there! You can also admire them for a long time. Nature is a great landscape designer.

Our youngest is on a pebble

The children were delighted with the juniper thickets, hid in them and climbed the trees.

If I were a child, I would climb too...

Walking along the path, we came to a cliff above the sea.

In the distance – Utrish Spit

View of Utrishonok Island

A cliff... Such a height that it’s scary to approach...

And an extremely picturesque stump

Ships are visible in the distance, there is a very strong smell of algae and iodine.

Just a fantastic stump, right? With the head of an Indian or wind god

Having overcome my fear of heights, I went to the edge...

Took a photo with a picturesque tree stump

And also from this perspective

From here there is a beautiful view of the Bolshoy Utrish Peninsula and Utrishonok Island. This text was stolen from the Roads of the World website (site)!

In the distance are the Bolshoy Utrish Peninsula and Utrishonok Island

Utrishonok Island

And if you look in the opposite direction, you can see Mount Sukko with an inscription.

Mount Sukko, covered with geographical inscriptions

Alas, there was not enough time to go there.

Amazing tree - pistachio obtufolia

We have seen boxwood, juniper, and Pitsunda pine before on the Black Sea coast. But this was the first time we saw pistachio in these parts.

It is also called keva wood (“keva” means “resin” in Georgian). Residents of Georgia, by cutting the bark of a pistachio tree, collect resin, which they chew to strengthen their gums. However, the famous physician Avicenna used pistachio resin to heal patients. Even today it is used as part of ointments that heal scratches, wounds and burns.

The pistachio lives up to a thousand years or more. A living witness of the past centuries.

Amazing tree! The leaf of the pistachio obtufolia resembles that of ash, the aroma is similar to pine, and the fruits resemble bunches of wild grapes. And instead of a berry inside there is a nut. You just can’t eat these nuts! These are not the pistachios that we enjoy salted with beer.

You can only admire these pistachios. In addition, this plant is in the Red Book. And on the territory of the reserve it is generally prohibited to collect any parts of plants.

Pistachio obtufolia looks most beautiful at the end of summer, when some of the fruits are red and some are blue. Well, we saw it when some of the fruits had already turned yellow.

How to get to the Utrish nature reserve. The protected area is located on the Abrau Peninsula, between the villages of Sukko and Maly Utrish. You can come here from Gelendzhik, Novorossiysk or Anapa. From the latter to Bolshoi Utrish it is only 15 kilometers. In the summer, regular buses and minibuses run here at short intervals (No. 109, but better check with the locals).

You can come by your own car. As you drive, the main road turns left there, and go straight to Bolshaya Utrish. But keep in mind: traveling through the natural area of ​​the reserve by car is prohibited.

In summer, you can get there by boat from the seaport of Anapa.

The area of ​​the natural protected zone is more than 5 thousand hectares. We saw only a small part of the Bolshoi Utrish reserve, but at such a beautiful time, when greenery is combined with gold and crimson. However, the quaint trees of the juniper grove will not leave anyone indifferent at any time of the year.

Did you like the Utrish nature reserve?

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The Utrish Nature Reserve is located on the Black Sea coast, on the Abrau Peninsula between the villages of Sukko and Maly Utrish. Bolshoi Utrish is a state landscape, floristic and marine reserve, which is part of the Utrish Nature Reserve.

From the north, its territory is closed by the Navagirsky ridge, reaching a height of 535 meters.

The Utrish Nature Reserve is an incredibly beautiful corner of nature, created as a result of seismic vibrations, as well as thanks to the sun, wind and sea.

Bolshoi Utrish Nature Reserve - how to get there

• By bus or minibus
• On a ship departing from the Anapa Marine Station.

Description

Unlike other protected areas, Bolshoy Utrish includes not only land territory, but also sea waters. So, out of 5112 hectares of total area, the land area is 2582 hectares, and the sea - 2530 hectares.

On the territory of the village of the same name there is an equipped pebble beach, two kilometers to the south, in the area of ​​the first lagoon, there is a nudist beach, closed by rocks from prying eyes. Nearby is the Zhemchuzhny waterfall, flowing from a mountain river and having a height of about five meters. The waterfall is small and full of water in early spring.

Aquarium

The aquarium is located on the territory of the dolphinarium, here you can see such fish as sturgeon and mullet, flounder and stellate sturgeon, red mullet and stingray, as well as rapana and oysters, shrimp and mussels. All these exhibits are caught at sea and released into the wild at the end of the season.

The aquarium is open daily from May to October from 10-00 to 19-00, break - from 13-00 to 14-00, day off - Monday, excursions are held.

Snake Bay

800 meters north of the village is Zmeinaya Bay, on the site of which there used to be a lake called Zmeiny, because there were many snakes in it. When the narrow isthmus separating the lake from the sea was blown up, a bay was formed.

Juniper forests grow along its banks, the depth of Snake Lake reaches eight meters, and the area is 22 hectares.

In Zmeinaya Bay there is a parking lot for sailing and motor yachts, and everyone can rent a boat and go on a trip to the open sea.

Monument-lighthouse

Along the artificial lintel you can go to the lighthouse monument, erected in 1975 in honor of all the sailors who fought on the Black Sea in 1942-1943.

In this place, in March 1942, a warship named after the Civil War hero Jan Fabricius was blown up by an underwater mine and washed ashore. For three months, the ship's crew remained at the combat post in the half-submerged ship, continuing to fire at fascist planes, and only by order of the command did the soldiers join the defenders of Novorossiysk.

The old lighthouse was installed at the end of the 19th century, and in the late 1990s a small chapel was built inside it.

From the history of the reserve

The Bolshoi Utrish Nature Reserve was created in 1994 in accordance with the decree of the Head of Administration of the Krasnodar Territory on a coastal strip 12.5 kilometers long.

On September 2, 2010, a state nature reserve was formed on its basis, the boundaries of which were determined in 2011. In accordance with the latest edition of the Regulations on the reserve, it was divided into four parts and the following territories fell out of its composition:

• Unique juniper-pistachio forest in the area of ​​the second and third lagoons
• Several corridors to the coast, including a fire-fighting forestry road to the second lagoon
• Coastal strip east of the village of Maly Utrish.

Currently, the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace Russia, as well as many other environmental organizations, have come to the defense of Utrish, aiming to preserve this unique and only corner of relict Mediterranean forests in Russia.

The Utrish Nature Reserve impresses with its beauty - emerald forests and rocky mountains, curved coastlines and endless sea distances.

In this article I don’t want to talk about hackneyed and banal things, like descriptions of gorgeous natural resources, etc. I would like to focus my attention on the special colorful atmosphere of this place, saturated with the smells of the sea and cultural past. Although there is not much left of culture in the generally accepted sense here - a couple of dilapidated buildings and a dozen houses where local residents live (there was once a millionaire fishing state farm on the territory of Maly Utrish), however, this piece of the puzzle is precisely one of those missing , which allow us to create a general picture about a certain phantasmagorical, slightly mocking civilization, small village.
A village with a handful of local residents, some of whom live there all year round and provide their livelihood mainly by maintaining household and household farming, and the other part - only during the holiday season, being satisfied with the gifts of summer. However, both of them do not let go of a past life in their souls, a certain spirit of a given place.
Yeah... For some, this is just a geographical point on the map. And for some it’s a whole life...
Delving into the history of these places, you can see a very bright, extraordinary past of the Utrish coast, shrouded in secrets and immersed in the darkness of centuries. One has only to go under the canopy of low-growing and dense forests near the coast, where oak trees grow side by side with relict junipers. This is where you can truly feel the spirit of antiquity! For the first time I encountered this feeling completely unexpectedly - I was taken to the obviously ancient stone remains of walls near the sea coast, which were at least about a thousand years old. The skeleton of an ancient settlement - they told me. Truly, to a person who has ever felt close to the mysteries of nature and time, this will seem an impressive sight! The walls are decorated with intricate patterns of mosses and lichens, under which, except for the “black” diggers and a handful of scientists, no one looked for ancient artifacts. The clearly visible outlines of the towers that once towered over the city. All these are the remains of an ancient medieval settlement founded by the Trebizond Empire, the successor of Byzantium, which at one time tried to gain a foothold in this region. The fortress did not last long, and for some reason was hastily abandoned. Its excavations were carried out by A.V. Dmitriev in 1984 and an expedition of the Kuban University led by I.I. Marchenko in 1989, but they never brought the matter to its logical conclusion. Echoes of the past... Snippets of conversations...
On the territory of Utrish there is a burial ground, which is a medieval burial mound of the 13th-15th centuries. According to archaeologists, the burial ground belongs to the tribes of the Polovtsians, Circassians, and Kabardians, who were forced out of the foothills by the Tatar-Mongols. The burials have the status of a natural monument of local significance.
Of no less historical interest is the neighboring Iron Age burial ground of the aboriginal population, whose burials date back to the 7th century BC.
In general, there are many such monuments on the territory of the reserve: in addition to the remains of the fortress, there are several necropolises of different ethnic origins. During excavations at different times, many objects made of valuable metals were found - sabers, jewelry, household items, and even a bronze bust of the queen of the Bosporan kingdom Dinami.
However, most of the mounds were plundered and destroyed, and the museums received only crumbs of the true values ​​that the lands of the Black Sea coast in the Utrish region kept and, perhaps, keep.

Maly Utrish is part of the already mentioned State Dendrological Marine. People also affectionately call him Utreshonok. More than five kilometers from its big brother. The same unique nature with relict forests and groves, the famous juniper, whose breath kills all viruses and microbes in your body in minutes and is especially useful for diseases of the bronchi, lungs, and asthma. You can get to Maly from Bolshoy Utrish on foot by the sea. There are roads to it from Novorossiysk and.

But this place, although fantastic in beauty, is still deserted and secluded. But that’s why it’s good for those who decided to relax away from the noise of the city and calm their nerves. It is quite possible to stay in tents. There is only one problem - you need to take water and food with you: there are no shops or cafes nearby. Although two and a half kilometers from Bolshoy Utrish, on the way to its younger brother, the Zhemchuzhny waterfall falls from the rocks - the only source of fresh water in the area.

Maly Utrish has had its own cove since ancient times. It has several picturesque lagoons. The beaches there are pebbly and rocky. The water is clean. You can swim in it from May to October. There is also a suitable place for those who are used to sunbathing and swimming, which is what their mother gave birth to. The nudist beach is located in a secluded place, protected by nature itself from prying eyes. No one will drive you away from it, no one will make any comments.

In ancient times, the Trebizond Empire, a fragment of Byzantium, tried to “register” on Maly Utrish. But nothing came of it due to the stubborn resistance of the local tribes. However, the remains of a medieval settlement and fortress have survived to this day; there are also dolmens and ancient churchyards. In a word, although there are few attractions, they are available and tourists examine them with curiosity when visiting. And evenings on Maly Utrish in general (as well as on Bolshoy Utrish) are romantic! Bright stars overhead, a lunar path running across the sea, flames of bonfires here and there and soulful songs with a guitar - Vladimir Vysotsky, Yuri Vizbor, Bulat Okudzhava and other bards beloved by young people and especially the older generation. And early in the morning - again in the sea waves, again on the beach under the gentle sun - before you know it, your vacation is already coming to an end. But how many pleasant impressions he gave you!