Bilokuzmynivka. Conquering the Cliffs in the "Kramatorskyi" and "Kleban-Byk" Landscape Parks

I never compare our stunning landscapes and astonishing, spectacular panoramas with foreign natural monuments. The fawning turns of phrase heard in every region of Ukraine towards foreign curiosities, with invented names like "Rivne Iceland", "Donetsk Maldives", "Ukrainian Venice", "Zhytomyr Switzerland", and the like, are surprising. Perhaps our picturesque mountains and cliffs, lakes and rivers have not won worldwide fame, but they arouse no less admiration and are quite well known to the Ukrainian traveller. So let us cherish and popularise the tourist gems of our own country — the unrepeatable landscapes with their own peculiarities, history, and national colour. Ukraine will always remain Ukraine, without obsequiousness or servility, and in every region there are exotic places, wondrous locations that one wants to tell about and to show to guests and travellers.

In Donetsk region, one of the most inspiring landscapes, where you can draw a reserve of energy, opens out across the steppe expanses 10 kilometres south-east of Kramatorsk and 13 kilometres east of Druzhkivka.

 

The "Kramatorskyi" Regional Landscape Park. The Bilokuzmynivka section

Everyone has heard and everyone knows about the chalk cliffs of bizarre shapes near the village of Bilokuzmynivka.

This uncharacteristic mountainous relief formed 90 million years ago and draws you in with the enchanting beauty and magical power of nature's creation. The fescue-and-mixed-grass steppe gives way to undulating hills with hollows and ravines.

 

The hilly ridge, with chalk deposits emerging to the surface, is covered with dry-standing vegetation, while its foot is carpeted with thickets of wild rose, silver oleaster, and other representatives of the ravine woodland.

And suddenly the ridge rears up sharply in massive boulders, recalling a stormy ninth wave. Here is where the wilful elements of wind and water had their fling and created a fantastic colossus. Some see in the crag the fingers of a monster; others — killer daggers or the sails of a ship.

 

From any angle the cliffs, with their astonishing weathering forms, look striking — and, of course, one wants to conquer the giant and take in the surroundings from the summit of the chalk massif. This wonder of nature, 40 metres high with a 20-metre chalk deposit, has conservation, aesthetic, educational, and scientific value. It is not hard to climb the hill; trodden paths lead to the top, but some effort will have to be made, imagining a climb to the height of a multi-storey block without stairs or railings. On the way down it is advisable not to pick up speed, especially after downpours, which wash away everything in their path.

 

The chalk cliff was formed from the remains of the dwellers of the sea depths, which in ancient times populated a warm sea. Turning into chalk, the skeletons of microscopic and large animals accumulated on the sea floor over millennia.

 

The chalk outlier is shot through with inclusions of flint, and near the hill there once stood an ancient workshop for working this hard material. Since 1972 the cliff has held the status of a natural monument, and since 2004 it has been part of the "Kramatorskyi" regional landscape park.

 

Like every popular tourist site, this wondrous wonder keeps its own legends and tales. During military operations the height was used as an observation post. Locals recount that in the years of the Hitlerite occupation an Orthodox hermit, Stepan Bosyi, lived in the grotto. The recluse carved out of the chalk monolith a sleeping ledge, a little window, and a niche for an iconostasis. Sadly, Bosyi perished at the hands of the fascists, who took the monk for a partisan.

Coordinates: 48.6602279, 37.6861954 

Three kilometres east of the celebrity cliff lies its less well-known and less imposing kinsman.

 

Up the cascade of chalk hills there has clambered an unruly hummock, like an iceberg made of white blocks.

 

The layered hill — that is what they call it here — looks as if someone had cut it horizontally. The thick chalk slabs are laid one upon another in parallel, like the layers of a puff pastry smeared with whipped cream.

 

The chalk knoll lies on the territory of the "Kleban-Byk" regional nature park, and a dirt road leads to it.

 

This unique locality enchants at any time of year, but in summer it is especially wonderful, when everything is filled with the scent of mixed herbs, and the virgin steppe is covered with the many colours of the field. At dawn the sounds made by flocks of larks, starlings, thrushes, linnets, and partridges merge into a single chorus that one longs to join. The unrepeatable pristine ecosystem and geological structures, romance and extreme sport, lure tourists and sportsmen.

 

Climbers and paragliders hold rallies and competitions at Bilokuzmynivka. It is important not to harm nature and to remember that much in the protection of its gifts, in preserving picturesque places in their pristine state, depends on us alone.

Coordinates: 48.6659748, 37.7202702 

How to get there? From the bus station at the railway station of Kramatorsk bus No. 29 runs to Semenivka (a village neighbouring Bilokuzmynivka). To reach the cliff you will need to walk about another 3 kilometres. It will be in view throughout the whole walk on foot.