THE UNDERGROUND NIKOLAEV

The legends say about underground tunnels of many kilometers length that connect the big cities, e.g. Kiev-Smolensk and Novgorod, Nikolaev- Kherson and Ochakov. That is where the opinion came from that in the past the ambassadors didn't gallop on horses on the ground but mostly under the ground, it had provided the security of the deliveries.

The most ancient man-made Caves of Lavra (in Kiev) are well-known in the whole world. The catacombs in Odessa, up to the tourists' opinions, do not give up the Parisian ones. But the catacombs in Nikolaev are not so famous. People attribute them to Greeks, Turks, Jews and even Goths, III century BC.

Only in 20, 60, 90 years of XX century the first attempts to explore the underground Nikolaev were undertaken, the first maps and reports on mysterious underground tunnels were made. The tunnels of 3 up to 30 meters in depth were found. They pierce the city as the holes in Swiss cheese. The underground in Nikolaev have both as natural and man-made origin. In some places the stone rock was washed out by powerful underground streams ( the city is situated on peninsula, surrounded by two rivers), somewhere the people work under the ground, mining the stone for the city's construction works.

The underground ware-houses, called Turkish mines, survived since the times of Turkish ownership of these lands. When needed the ammunition that had been kept there were blasted demolishing the fortresses occupied by the enemy troops.

After the Crimean war in the middle of XIX century Nikolaev was a powerful military fortress and in the underground people kept food, ammunition, weapons. According to the different versions the underground tunnels are situated under the rivers in the different directions. Nowadays they are used as sheds, cellars, refrigerators by the local people.

Those not numerous researchers that had visited the catacombs of Nikolaev tell amazing stories. In the dark galleries the sarcophagus are cut out in the walls. The mysterious inscriptions are made in unknown languages. There are the signs of ancient Jewish language and many other things. Under the dark arches the weapons from the different times, the human's and horses bones are found. So, the underground Nikolaev keeps a lot of mysteries, solution of which is connected with danger and risk.