View of the Red Rock
Вид на Красную Скалу
SIDE VIEW OF THE RED ROCK: A story about the nature of the region.
There are about 2 km to the second Jewish cemetery, which is on the right side of the street, which is first paved and then not, on Pokrovskaya Street. We walk along the road and admire the scenery that opens up.
There is a steep red mountain above the village, which the locals call «Chervonnaya Skala»). It is so called because at sunset it takes completely different shades of red – from soft pink to scarlet. Red Rock is subject to constant landslides and rockslides that occur after heavy rains and earthquakes.The western part of this mountain is a protected area. There are several sinkholes here, from which originates a huge gap – 5 m wide and 50 m deep. The gap stretches 570 meters and ends in a forty-meter drop.
You have a goal – «new» Jewish cemetery, so you hardly follow the path to the drop and see bizarre sculptural groups hollowed out in limestone by winds and water: camel heads, sphinxes, mushrooms, and more. But also from below you can see a lot, such as a natural suspension bridge - Devil's Bridge, and below – single rock, called Devil's Finger. If you still have time, courage, and skill at the end of our tour of Jewish Rashkov, you can go up and climb this rock. From its top you can enjoy impressive views of the village, the Dniester, the surrounding cliffs, and the forest.
And so we walk along the path and admire the views to the left. In some places the village is approached by the forests. The vegetation of these places is very rich. The forest, which almost entirely covers the slopes and valley floor, is represented by oak, ash, linden, hornbeam and maple forests.
On the right side of the path, on the hill will be the Church of the Protection, at which we recommend stopping not now, but on the way back. It stands above the Dniester River, in a place with the most picturesque perspective. During that - perhaps the last - stop we will talk about both the Orthodox church and the village on the opposite bank of the Nistru – Vadul-Rashkov.
The beginning of the cemetery can be seen by a small structure – apparently, a crypt - with a plaque in Hebrew. The cemetery is heavily overgrown in the summer, and it is advisable to try to enter it from the other end, where there is a path perpendicular to the long Pokrovskaya Street that we came from. The entrance to the cemetery is through an open iron gate.