The monasteries and pines of Holy Mountains

High on the list of the negative consequences of man’s modern influence on nature is the reduced informational value of landscapes. This has an adverse effect on an individual’s psychological state, daily attitudes, and social position. It cannot be ruled out that a disturbed and “deaf-mute” environment also alters the national mentality. One of the ways of bridging the gap between wildlife and modern man is ecotourism on the recreational territories of natural national parks, biosphere preserves, regional landscape parks, landscape sanctuaries, etc. The central idea of ecotourism is the desire to remain in undisturbed privacy, one on one with nature.

There are 17 national parks in Ukraine. One of them, Holy Mountains, with a total area of 40,448 ha, is located in the Krasnolymansk and Slovyansk districts of Donetsk oblast. It features hill-slope landscapes in the northern Donetsk steppe area with such rare ecotopes as cretaceous layers on the bedrock banks of the Siversky Dinets River, which are covered with ancient Scotch Pine trees.

The rich history of this area dates back to the times of The Tale of Ihor’s Campaign. According to various accounts, Prince Ihor of Novhorod-Siversk hid in these places (to be more exact, in the Holy Mountains Monastery) after saving it from the Polovtsians. The park’s natural surroundings are picturesque and inimitable. More than one-third of the phytocenotic variety of southeastern Ukraine’s vegetation is concentrated in this park. The park consists of 91 percent forest, 1.5 percent meadows, and 2.5 percent swamps. The forests mostly feature mixed oak-pine vegetation or consist entirely of ordinary pine trees (45 percent of the park’s total forest area).

The park also has a 300-ha oak grove, the only one of its kind in Left-Bank Ukraine. No less rich is the national park’s fauna. In the springtime at night and sometimes during the day, if you approach any swamp, lake, or even water-flooded gutter, you will hear the lullabies or trumpet-like cries (judge for yourselves) of European fire-bellied toads, also found in water springs and wells. The park is also home to the European pond turtle.

Summer weather conditions in the Holy Mountains favor recreation in general and ecotourism in particular. The swimming season lasts for 93 days. The average swimming depth is 1.5 to 2.5 m, and there are a lot of sand and grassy beaches. The park has a natural spring of highly salubrious chalybeate mineral water that can be used to treat iron-deficiency anemia.

The Holy Mountains can and must become a veritable “recreational Mecca” for the overpopulated Donbas region, where local residents are in dire need of spas and holiday centers. The park’s stationary recreation area has 137 health facilities, including the famous Sviati Hory (Holy Mountains) and Shakhtar (Coal Miner), but only 81 of them, including 50 holiday centers and 26 health camps, are functioning normally. The majority (64.2 percent) of medical and recreational facilities are situated on the territory of the Slovyanohorsk resort.

Next to the park is another resort called Slovyansk that boasts two salt lakes, the Ripne and Slipne, both of which contain salutary sulfide silt mud and sodium chloride water. The salts of Slovyansk are of Devonian origin. They were formed in the Devonian period of the Palaeozoic era approximately 410-350 million years ago, when the earth was covered by deserts. The Vaisove and Lyman lakes also have recreational and medicinal value.

Holy Mountains National Park is not the only gem in the “natural crown” of Ukraine. This is also a place of religious pilgrimage for many believers and parishioners of the Holy Mountains Dormition Lavra that stands in the park on the picturesque right bank of the Siversky Dinets River.

A wonderful tourist attraction of the preserve and national park is a series of cave temples. In the early 17th century these caves made of cretaceous rock were the home of the Orthodox Dormition Monastery. At the very top of the rock sits St. Nicholas’ Church, like a swallow in its nest, built in the 17th century by unknown masters. This unique brick structure with a chalk altar reproduces in stone the traditions of folk wood architecture and demonstrates the unsurpassable beauty of the Ukrainian Baroque at its peak.

Dating to the second half of the 19th century are such unconventional structures of the Holy Mountains ensemble as St. Andrew’s Chapel, built on a cretaceous rock; Dormition Cathedral, the monastery’s chief temple; the Church of the Holy Virgin’s Protection with a belfry; a series of caves; ruins of the Cyril and Methodius stairs; and the crypts of such famous 19th - century families as the Golitsyns, Kurakins, and Ilovayskys. Also of informational and recreational value are the catacombs under the Holy Place, once the cell of the hermit Arseniy, as well as Mount Favor, where the Church of the Transfiguration once stood. Most of these unique architectural monuments have now been restored and form part of the national cultural heritage.

The national park has already reaped certain benefits from its recreational endeavors. In 2005, 7,150 tourists walked its ecological trails and visited major attractions. This netted the park UAH 11,891, while overall recreational measures brought in UAH 25,109 — not a lot of money by international standards. Still, the “recreational ice” on the Siversky Dinets has been broken.