Dovbush Rocks

Some three kilometres from Bubnyshche, at about 980 metres, a group of sandstone crags rises out of beech forest in the Polianytskyi regional landscape park, and the rock is cut through with chambers, stairs, window openings and passages made by hand, probably as a monastic hermitage and later as a refuge. Local tradition attaches them to Oleksa Dovbush, the eighteenth-century Carpathian outlaw of Ukrainian folklore, though the cuttings are older than he was. Ladders and stairs let visitors climb through the formations and out onto the tops.

The landscape

• The rock-cut chambers - rooms, stairs and windows worked into the sandstone.
• The crags - weathered sandstone towers rising from beech forest.
• The climb through - ladders and cut stairs leading up onto the tops.
• The forest - beech woodland covering the whole ridge.

When to go

May to October is the comfortable season. Autumn colour in the beech forest is the best of the year. The rock and ladders are slippery after rain.

Things to know

The Dovbush connection is folklore, not record; the cuttings predate him. Ladders and edges are unfenced in places and slippery when wet. The site is busy at summer weekends.

Nearby

Manyava Skete is east, and Bolekhiv is north.

Key facts