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The Aladzha Monastery and The Catacombs. My friends, Ani and Nasko, take me to Aladzha in the Nature Reserve above Golden Sands.
Open from 10am to 5pm - Phone:
++359 052 355460 Aladzha Monastery is one of the 120 medieval rock monasteries close to the seaside that are rapidly becoming tourism hubs in their own right. The monastery was founded during the Second Bulgarian kingdom, around the 13th century, and inhabited by hermit monks. It is located in the beautiful lush woodland of the Franga Plateau in the Golden Sands National Park about 17 km from Varna and 4 km from Golden Sands. Aladzha Monastery was opened in 1906 as a museum and tourist site, and was declared a national monument of culture and antiquity. It also houses a church, a smaller chapel, monastic cells and a small museum that exhibits its colourful history. Aladzha (meaning multi-coloured in Turkish), due most probably to the bright colours of its wall paintings, contains rooms carved into the rocks on two levels in the almost 40-meter high limestone rock connected via an external staircase. The lower floor hosted the monks' private cells, common rooms (i.e. kitchen, dining room) and a small church, while the upper level was dedicated entirely to a chapel.    According
to some historians, primitive monks' cells were built and inhabited
already in the 4th Cent AC. The monastery is considered to date back to
the 12th century AC.
The monastery is decorated with religious frescoes, but unfortunately most of them are damaged today. There are a lot of legends about unknown tunnels and labyrinths within the rocks where great treasures lay hidden. In 1912 the Shkorpil brothers made extensive researches. The monastery was declared a national record, and in 1957 it became a monument of culture. In antiquity the Thracians erected stone monuments, called megaliths, to their gods. There are traces of settlements and large farm estates of Roman times. In the 1st century AD, the first Christians came to that site to carry out their ceremonies undisturbed. In the 4th century inhabitants of the “Zlatni Pyasatsi” and “Sveti Konstantin” region found refuge here from the invasions of the Goths and Huns. The nearby settlement was destroyed but the monastery remained. |
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Aladzha
Monastery
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The Catacombs.
(Katakombite) is located 800
meters southwest of
Aladzha Monastery - and is a group of monks cells (caves) on 3
different levels in the cliff. Katakombite caves share a similar
history to those of Aladzha Monastery, but have suffered even more by
the passage of time, being in an even worse state that the relatively
well preserved monastery. Archaeologists have found pottery and coins
there that prove that the Catacombs were inhabited in the Early
Christianity period between the fourth and sixth century.
