Simon Tomkinson (Member no: 79)

Russian Lazarevskoe Dolmens Sochi

There were only a few days to go and have a look around before my flight home. The time was right to hire a Lada and take ourselves on an antiquarian adventure to see the ancient dolmans!

I had been working at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics. On the edge of the Caucasus mountains on the Russian border with Georgia. I saw a tiny note in a tourist pamphlet in a local shop that brought my attention to Dolmans. A little investigation and I found there were lots of these ancient buildings located by the river Ashe. Up through the City of Sochi near Lazarevskoe and out into the river valley. They were a feature of the local landscape and a few had been incorporated into local houses' gardens! 

This website was handy to understand the ideas behind what they were and how long they had been thereThere were only a few days to go and have a look around before my flight home. The time was right to hire a Lada and take ourselves on an antiquarian adventure to see the ancient dolmans! 

It took a lot of effort to find. Navigating around Russian roads and villages with little or no navigation equipment drew upon all my old scouting resources, and newly found linguistic skill. We found the garden Dolman fairly easily as it was off the river road and was signposted. It was literally in somebody’s garden and the occupier was happy to chat and talk me through what history she knew about her garden Dolmen. She also helped with the search for the woodland we were looking for a few miles up the road. 

We get there and I am equal parts excited and disappointed. The whole of the area is so rich with megalithic structures and history, and I was running out of time. As I walked up through what looked to be a fairly dilapidated shop/cafe of some kind (more a wooden shack) a canine tour guide ran directly up to me. He must have known what I wanted to see and led me 3-400m up into the woods and straight to the first of the Dolmans.

He led me around the trails and the locations of four or five structures. Some looked to have been hand cut and others made use of the natural alignment of stones. Each one has a small entrance/hole and inside it is a raised stone chamber. When I say entrance, there was certainly no way I was getting inside, and even a child would have trouble squeezing into one. 

On my return, my fellow adventurers had met up with three drunk Russian bears (locals) who were very friendly... We shared some of their homemade vodka and then tried to communicate and listen to the stories of people living in the woods up to the late 1800’s. The structures are really well preserved, most likely from their distance from any substantial towns or built up area. 

If you get a chance to go there you have to make sure you see at least one of these sites. We were told by the locals we met that this particular site is due to be built on. True or not (lost in translation), I am happy I got to see it.