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WONDERS OF NATURE
Meteora. Nature miracle
In the heart of ancient Hellas, about 80 kilometers west of Mount Olympus, there is an unusual corner of the Balkan Peninsula, which can equally be called both a miracle of nature and a masterpiece of human hands. Usually, when talking about this area, they use the expression "rock formations of Meteora". In fact, they are real mountain ranges with steep walls, so high and vast that the language does not dare to call them rocks or even stone pillars. Judge for yourself: their height exceeds 300 meters, while others rise up to 550 meters! Located in the valley of the Piney River, at the foot of the low Pindus ridge, 24 giant flat-topped rocks (or mountains, after all, were formed as a result of weathering of layers of sandstones and conglomerates that made up the former bottom of the Paleogene sea. Over the 60 million years that have passed since then, erosion processes have crushed , crushed and carried away most of the marine sediments, but some, especially tightly cemented sections of detrital rocks, did not succumb to destruction and were preserved in the form of huge rock masses.
Such stone formations rarely occur in such strong seams. Typically, outlier rocks, as geologists call them, are composed of volcanic tuffs or other less resistant sedimentary rocks. Sometimes bizarre vertical rocks appear in places where water dissolves limestone massifs. But natural obelisks made of the strongest sandstones are known, except for Meteora, perhaps only in the "Monument Valley" in the US state of Arizona. I must say that these two landscapes of similar origin evoke completely different feelings. The harsh appearance of the lifeless Arizona stone pillars, rising in the middle of a bare, homeless desert, evokes thoughts of evil spirits or sorcerers who erected these monstrous bulks. And the whimsical, softly rounded silhouettes of the Meteora rocks, rising above the picturesque river in a green friendly valley, give rise rather to a prayerful feeling, a desire to express one's admiration for the power of the Creator who created this unusual and enchanting landscape. And people have long worshiped unusual rocks and made sacrifices to the gods here. So it was in the Stone Age, and in the era of the greatness of Athens, and during the time of the Roman Empire. And from the XNUMXth century AD, Christian ascetic monks, in search of places for solitary contemplation, began to build modest cells for themselves on the flat tops of the rocks of Meteora. The inaccessibility of the peaks saved the monks from annoying visitors, and the very location of the sketes on the tops of the mountains, as it were, brought their inhabitants closer to God. (After all, even the Greek name Meteora itself is translated as "in heaven".) It must be admitted that it would be difficult to find a more suitable place for the life of a hermit than the tops of the meteor rocks. When in the early morning, with the first rays of the sun, you look from there at the Pinaeus valley, your heart is involuntarily filled with reverent awe at the sight of the grandiose picture that has opened up. Along a wide hollow, sunk in the greenery of gardens and vineyards, gently curving, the ribbon of Pinaeus sparkling under the sun goes to the east. Among the green spaces, the houses of numerous villages turn white, and on the horizon, still shrouded in morning mist, the snow-covered peak of Mount Olympus rises, ascending to a three-kilometer height. For almost five hundred years, Meteora remained only the place of residence of ascetic hermits. But in the XIV century, as Byzantium weakened, raids on the fertile Greek valleys of the Ottoman Turks became more frequent. Along with peaceful cities and villages, the Christian monasteries of Greece were also plundered. And in 1344, the abbot of one of the Athenian monasteries, Koinovitis, moved with his community to Meteora. Here, on the spacious flat top of one of the rocks (it is called - Wide) the monks built the Big Meteorsky Monastery - the first of the monasteries in the Pinea valley. The monastic monastery on the rock reliably protected its inhabitants from any intruders, since it could only be reached by a rope ladder, which was raised in case of imminent danger. At the same time, she isolated the monks from worldly temptations, which was especially appreciated by their spiritual shepherds. The number of monks began to grow, new monasteries appeared on the neighboring rocks, and by the end of the XNUMXth century there were already twenty-four of them in Meteora. The most famous of them were the Varlaam and Trinity monasteries, as well as Nikolsky, where the frescoes of Theophanes the Greek have been preserved. Since climbing stairs, and even more so lifting loads, was not easy, subsequently they began to use nets on blocks and ropes (something like a large net pulled up by a winch to the top) to climb up. This way of visiting the monasteries also required strong nerves, and in the XNUMXth century, stairs carved into the rock replaced the lifts. Meteora lies away from the traditional tourist routes in central Greece. The main route inland leads from Athens through the Thermopylae pass to Mount Parnassus. From there, tourists through the Tempe Gorge, along which Pinaeus breaks to the Aegean Sea, get to the foot of Mount Olympus and complete their journey at the popular resort of Katerini. Meanwhile, having descended from the slopes of Parnassus into the valley of Pinaeus, you can, by making a small detour, in two or three hours get up the river to an amazing corner of Thessaly, where in the green foothills of Pindus, three hundred meter stone idols rise above flowering gardens, on the tops of which tiny monastic cloisters and sketes. And having climbed the steps carved into the rock and the passages to the top to one of the five monasteries that survived the 6-century storms of history, the traveler will be able to appreciate both the diligence and fearlessness of the ancient Christians who built churches and cells here, and the whimsical fantasy of nature, sculpted from solid stone unique rock towers on a green intermountain plain. Author: B.Wagner
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