Bakota

Bakota was a village on the Dniester with a documented history back to the thirteenth century, flooded in 1981 when the Dnister reservoir filled, and what remains above the water is the hillside: terraces, orchards gone wild, and a cave monastery cut into the limestone - local legend says Saint Anthony of Kiev founded it in the eleventh century, and a chronicle of 1362 records it at work - with chambers, carved crosses and a spring. The bay below is a long blue arm of the reservoir between steep slopes, and people swim and camp along it.

The landscape

• The cave monastery - medieval chambers cut into the limestone with carved crosses.
• The bay - a long arm of the reservoir between steep hillsides.
• The drowned village - terraces and wild orchards on the slope above the water.
• The spring - the water source beside the cave chambers.

When to go

May to September is the season for swimming and camping. The access roads are difficult after rain. Weekends bring campers in numbers.

Before you go

The roads in are genuinely rough and ordinary cars struggle. There are no facilities of any kind and litter from camping is a real problem. The path up to the caves is steep.

Nearby

Kamianets-Podilskyi is west, and the Dniester canyon runs upstream.