WOX Travel Contest - Aladja monastery

Aladzha monastery It is by rocky the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, inhabited from the most famous monastery of medieval hermit monks in the 13th - 14th centuries. The premises of the monastery are carved on two levels in an almost 40 meter high limestone rock.

On the first level are located the monastery church, the monks' cells, the dining room and the kitchen, a small cemetery church, the crypt (ossuary) and the farm premises. The second level is a natural rock niche, at the eastern end of which the monastery chapel is built. After the fall of Bulgaria under Ottoman rule at the end of the 14th century, Aladzha Monastery gradually declined and was probably abandoned by the 16th-17th centuries. "The Catacombs". The findings ceramics, coins, graffiti Etc. 600 - 700 m west of the monastery there is a group of caves, known under the name "Catacombs", which testify that they were inhabited during the early Christian era (IV-VI century). Later, in the 13th and 14th centuries, the "Aladzha Monastery" and the "Catacombs" were parts of a monastic complex.

Aladzha Monastery functions as a museum and tourist site. In 1912 it was declared a national antiquities, and in 1957 - an architectural cultural monument of national importance.

For the first time the name of the monastery "Aladzha" (in Turkish "colorful") was mentioned in 1832. by the Russian archaeologist Viktor Teplekov, who at that time was excavating in Northern Bulgaria.

The most extensive church room (the monastery church) is located on the second floor and is almost completely carved into the rock. Its apse was a flat vaulted niche framed by columns that were once connected by arches to two other columns located on the side of the nave. In this way, a stone canopy was formed above the holy throne, which was also carved into the rock massif.