The Hephaestus mud volcano on Rotten Mountain is one of the most famous and largest mud volcanoes in the vicinity of Anapa. There are several dozen mud volcanoes on the Taman Peninsula, but only a few of them are equipped with the necessary infrastructure for "mud procedures". Most tourists from the resorts around Anapa come here.
Hephaestus is located on Rotten Mountain, which towers over the city of Temryuk from the south-eastern side. The height of the mountain is only 60 meters and it is more correct to call it a hill. It consists of mud and has a flat dome on which you can see several dozen craters. Mud is spewing out of them with varying intensity.
The word "eruption" is not very suitable for this process, as the mud just gurgles in these craters, more like mud puddles. These bubbles are called "volcano breath". They prove that the mud volcano is "alive" and mud flows into it from underground. This is important to remember, as in some other volcanoes mud brought from other places.
Sometimes there are really large-scale eruptions of mud on the Hephaestus volcano. The last eruption of the Hephaestus mud volcano occurred in 2010, when mud from the craters was ejected to a height of 30 meters. Such eruptions occur when too much methane gas accumulates at the bottom of a volcano, and it begins to come out of the ground in this way.
Such eruptions have occurred before, and in the 19th century, doctors began studying the mud of the Hephaestus volcano and confirmed its medicinal properties. The mud is rich in various minerals, including bromine, boron, selenium and others. In the middle of the 19th century, a military hospital was built near the Hephaestus volcano. In 1902, another strong eruption destroyed all the buildings of this hospital and after it was no longer restored.
Regular procedures in mud baths help in the treatment of rheumatism, disorders of the nervous system. If tourists come here for one day, then mud helps to remove redness from the skin after sunburn. If you came to the sea and were too sunburned in the first few days, then a trip to the Hephaestus mud volcano will be very useful to you.
The temperature of the mud in the main craters of the Hephaestus volcano is about 15 degrees. Wooden ladders have been built in the three largest mud pools, where people can descend to the therapeutic mud. When you dive into it, the consistency of the mud is so dense that you feel like you`re in zero gravity. It seems that the feet touch the bottom, but in fact the depth of these craters reaches hundreds of meters, and a person "hangs" in the mud and it pushes him to the surface. Approximately the same way a person is pushed out by salt water in the Dead Sea.
In the three mud baths of the Hephaestus volcano, the mud has a different consistency. Not far from the locker rooms there are two mud baths with fairly liquid mud. You can comfortably "hang" in them. The mud has gray-blue shades of color in these baths. At the very top, about 300 meters from the locker rooms, there are several more craters and the mud is very viscous there. In them, the mud has gray-green shades of color. Some people immerse themselves in the mud bath here, but it is quite difficult to move in it.
Entrance to the territory of the Hephaestus mud volcano is paid, there is a small cafe here. After taking mud treatments, tourists take a shower to wash off the mud. The volcano is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. It is necessary to take rubber slippers with you.
