Trough-Shaped Dolmen (Svir Gorge)

The Trough-Shaped Dolmen is a solitary megalith carved from a spherical block of sandstone, on the left bank of the Svir River, on a ridge slope not far from the gorge's second waterfall. The monument lies within Sochi National Park, managed by the Lazarevskoye forestry.

Getting There

It is hard to get lost in the Svir Gorge: all the paths, forks and river fords are clearly marked, and signposts point the way to each stop on the route — the waterfalls, the Moonstone, and the dolmen. At the last fork before the dolmen there is a sign reading "Dolmen SLAVA"; it is unclear whether this is the monument's name or commemorates someone's achievements.

Features

A small icon stands in the dolmen's portal, with fresh flowers always laid in front of it. The portal's unusual shape comes from the age of the stone itself: the sandstone's structure resembles that of the Volkonsky Dolmen, dated to the fourth millennium BC.

Dimensions

The dolmen measures roughly 1.5 × 1.5 metres — an exact figure is hard to give because of the many slabs that have broken off. The burial chamber widens slightly toward the bottom: about 1.5 metres across at the top and up to 2.2 metres at the bottom; it is packed tightly with earth right up to the entrance opening. The lid, cracked in half, has one piece collapsed inside the chamber, and a young Oriental beech has grown up through the center of the broken slab. The entrance opening measures 30×36 cm at its narrowest, with the distance from its lower edge to the portal platform being 42 cm. The dolmen faces southwest (azimuth A245), and the distance from the projection of the square's center to the bottom of the portal is about 80 cm.