The giant Kok-Koba grotto is located north of the White Rock in the city of Belogorsk. This place is called Red Balka. If you want to climb to the top of the White Rock Plateau, you will pass by the grotto. It had more than a dozen names, but in the end, it is most often called "Kok-Koba Grotto" or "Blue Grotto". It is one of the largest grottoes in Europe.
The Kok-Koba grotto has an unusual shape in the form of a crescent. In the center of the Grotto there is a water source, which created a huge cavity in the soft chalk rock. There is even a small waterfall here. Subsequently, the central part of the cavity collapsed. This is how the grotto was formed, where a giant stone slab hangs. It is based on natural "columns". There are small passages between them.
In spring, many poppies and peonies bloom in this place, in summer the grass dries up under the scorching sun. During the day, cows of local residents sometimes come here to hide from the heat. The spring that flows in the grotto gives a pleasant coolness and humidity, because of which the walls of the Kok-Koba grotto are covered with moss.
1 kilometer north of the Kok-Koba grotto is the ruins of the ancient Scythian fortress Ak-kaya. In this place, since the 4th century BC, their settlement was located on the land trade route that connected the Bosporan Kingdom (Kerch) with the Greek colonies in the area of Chersonesos (Sevastopol). However, people lived in the local caves much earlier. Archaeological excavations show that there were several Paleolithic sites in the vicinity of the Kok-Koba grotto (about 20-15 thousand years ago).
In the White Rock itself, and in other rocky formations, you can see many grottos and caves. The Golden Hole Cave (Altyn-Teshik) is located right in the steep slope of the White Rock. There is a legend that this cave has secret passages several kilometers long and treasures are stored there.
However, the legends about giant karst caves, where fabulous treasures can hide, are not fiction. During the construction of the Tavrida highway in 2018, the Tavrida Cave was opened 35 kilometers from Belogorsk. The length of the cave is more than 1.3 kilometers. Thousands of bones of various prehistoric animals were found there: mastodon, giant ostrich, saber-toothed tiger, southern elephant, rhinoceros, saber-toothed cat and many others. These animals lived in the Crimea more than 2 million years ago.
