Макопсе

Makopse is a small green resort village on the Black Sea coast between Lazarevskoye and Tuapse. It belongs to the resort area of Greater Sochi and during the summer vacations is filled with vacationers. The name of the village was given by the river on which it stands. In Adygean language “Makopse” means “hay river” or “river of cut grass”. Nowadays about two thousand people live here – Russians, Adygs, Armenians and Greeks.

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Around Makopse spread forested slopes of the Caucasian foothills, reaching a height of about 500 meters above sea level. For the abundance of greenery, century-old palm trees and a characteristic hilly landscape resort village is often called “Little Abkhazia”. Dense vegetation and pleasant sea breezes make its air surprisingly fresh, and even on hot days on the coast breathes easily.

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Video: Makopse

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Highlights

Vacationers love Makopse for the warm sea, good pebble beaches, excellent ecology and quite developed infrastructure. In the resort village built several small hotels, guest houses, there is a boarding house and children’s health center “Druzhba”. Most tourists prefer to settle in the private sector, and the cost of accommodation in Makopse is much lower than in Tuapse or Sochi.

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In the resort village are open cafes and canteens, a market works, there are pharmacies, stores and excursion bureaus, but here you will not find nightclubs and discos. Conveniently, most hotels and guest houses are located near the beaches.

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Clean sea water and quiet rest attract parents with children in Makopsa. Of course, entertainment here is an order of magnitude less than in Lazarevsky, Tuapse and even more so in Sochi. But regular bus and railway communication allows resort residents to travel almost all along the Black Sea coast. And if there is a desire to visit the dolphinarium or spend time in the water park – to get there from Makopse is not a problem.

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Fans of hiking tourism come to Makopse. In the vicinity of the village there are beautiful waterfalls. From here you can go to picturesque gorges, to ancient dolmens, the foot of Mount Akhun, as well as to natural cascade lakes, which locals call Korytami. In addition, from Makopse popular bus tours to Tuapse, Lazarevskoye, Sochi and Abkhazia.

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History of the village of Makopse

Archaeologists conducted excavations in the Makopse valley and found that the first people settled on the coast back in the Stone Age. In the ancient period the Zikh tribes lived in the river valley, and later they were replaced by the Adygs and Ubykhs. In 1864, when Russia won the protracted Caucasian War, all the local population was evicted to the territory of the Ottoman Empire. The reason for this was the unwillingness of the inhabitants of the Black Sea coast of the Caucasus to swear an oath to the foreign Russian sovereign.

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In the 1870s, Anastas Apostolov, a Greek citizen, received lands in the lower Makopse valley as a gift from the Emperor of Russia. At the same time, Turkish Greeks who were forced to flee their native Asia Minor began to come here.

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As a village Makopse was registered in 1923. This date is considered to be the year of the founding of the village. In 1965 Makopse was included in the resort Sochi and began to be considered one of the inner-city neighborhoods.

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Historically, the resort village is divided into three parts. Makopse covers the northern part of the development. Upper Makopse forms the center of the village and is located on the mountain. From here, long stairs descend to the beaches. Lower Makopse stretches in the southern, low-lying part of the development.

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Geographical location and climate

The resort village is spread out on the Black Sea coast at the place where the Makopse River flows into it, and the streets lie in a foothill valley at an altitude of about 40 meters above sea level. Besides the Makopse River, they are crossed by the valleys of the Vodopadnaya River and several small streams flowing from the mountains to the sea. Thanks to the abundance of running water and springs, the village is drowned in greenery. Private residential development is surrounded by plantings of cypresses, Crimean pine, beech, fir and thuja.

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Makopse is located in a humid subtropical climate zone. The average temperature in the hottest month – July – reaches +24 ° C, and in January falls to +6 ° C. Very rarely the thermometer column falls below zero. For a year on the territory of the resort village falls 1400 mm of precipitation, and most of them fall on winter time.

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Beaches of Makopse

The Makopse beach strip stretches for 6 kilometers. Along its entire length it is covered with rolled pebbles, and only at the mouths of rivers and streams there are deposits of sand on the shore. In some areas, the shore is narrow and composed of rock slabs. Near the places where rivers flow into the sea, bathing is not recommended for sanitary reasons, and warning signs can be seen on the shore.

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The beaches of Makopse have places convenient for both leisurely rest and diving. The beaches are equipped with showers and toilets, and there are special areas for smokers. On the beaches you can rent jet skis and catamarans, as well as ride the waves on a “tablet” and “banana”. If you wish, you can make a trip on a boat, go sea fishing or ride along the coastline under sail.

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Bathing season in this part of the coast begins in the second half of May and lasts until the end of October. In the summer months, the Black Sea warms up to +24 ° C. In Makopsa there is no such a lot of people as in the center of Sochi, so the sea near the village is always clean and transparent.

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Waterfall “Laura’s Tears”

The main natural attraction of Makopse is a beautiful waterfall more than 15 meters high, which is located 10 km from the settlement. The road to it takes about two hours.

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There is a beautiful legend associated with this waterfall, which is told to all tourists coming to Makopse. Once a foreign ship crashed not far from the seashore. Of all those who traveled on it, only one girl named Laura was saved. The Adygs living in the valley took her in and raised her as their own daughter.

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Laura grew up and became a very beautiful girl. One day she saw a young Adygian man named Kaimet and fell in love with him. According to local traditions, those wishing to marry had to get the prince’s blessing. But as soon as the ruler saw the girl, he was blinded by her beauty and decided to kill Laura’s chosen one.

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The young man and the girl decided to flee, but Laura was unable to evade the chase. In order not to be in the hands of the prince, she jumped off the cliff into the abyss, and Kaimet, realizing what had happened, rushed after her. When the lovers died, the mountains wept with grief, and a new waterfall appeared, which the locals began to call “Laura’s Tears.”

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The jets of cool water carved a deep thicket in the rock below the waterfall. And tourists who come to admire the beautiful waterfall on a hot summer day like to take a dip here.

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“Laura’s Tears” is not the only waterfall in the vicinity of Makopse. In the valleys of small tributaries of the Najigo River, near the village of the same name, there are several more picturesque cascades, known as “Serenade of Love.”

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How to get there

Makopse is remote from the district center – the village of Lazarevsky – by 14 km, from Tuapse – by 16 km, and from the central quarters of Sochi – by 65 km. The nearest airport is located in Adler (84 km). From it to Makopse can be reached by cab, shuttle bus or route number 149, as well as by the train “Sochi – Tuapse.”

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Through Makopse laid federal highway A-147, leading from Dzhubga to Adler, so it is easy to get here by private car. In addition, all intercity buses going to Sochi pass through the village.

Within the village development there is a railway station “Makopse”, but not all trains going to Sochi stop there. To solve this problem, tourists take tickets to Lazarevskaya station, and from there they get to Makopse by cab, shuttle buses or electric trains.

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