Bald Mountain is one of the most mysterious and beautiful places near Gorokhovets. It rises almost 100 meters above the Klyazma River. It offers a stunning view of the endless forests and the wide floodplain through which the river meanders, along with floodplain meadows and mirror-like lakes.
Bald Mountain received its name from the almost complete absence of vegetation, unlike the neighboring hills, where forests flourish. This unusual natural phenomenon has yet to be scientifically explained, but it has given rise to legends.
In 1545, the army of the Kazan Khan Amanak, who had been plundering the Nizhny Novgorod lands for several years, was defeated near Gorokhovets. According to legend, the Khan himself died here. He was buried on the banks of the Klyazma River; each soldier brought a handful of earth to his grave, forming a mound. Since then, not a single tree has grown on it.
However, the mountain's artificial origin was not confirmed by archaeological excavations conducted in the late 1920s by the renowned scholar Professor O.N. Bader. Research revealed that Lysaya Gora is a natural hill, inhabited as early as the 6th-5th centuries BC by people who did not know metal and used stone and wooden tools. Pottery and bone artifacts (hairpins, awls, and amulets) found in the settlement indicate that settlement continued in this area as early as the first millennium AD. This settlement was fortified on three sides by the steep banks of the Klyazma River and on the fourth by earthen ramparts, the remains of which survive to this day.
The Lysaya Gora settlement is currently designated an archaeological site of federal significance.
Translated by Google •
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