Bakota Cave Monastery, Podilski Tovtry National Nature Park

Monastery of St. Archangel Michael - Orthodox rock monastery in Bakota, functioning from the end of the 12th to the mid -15th century, preserved in ruins.

The first written mention of the monastery comes from the Lithuanian fourteenth -century chronicle. In this place a monastery was described as existing for a long time. The Soviet researcher Tichomirow concluded that the monastery was founded at the end of the 12th century on the southwestern slope of Biała Góra nad Dniester. In the middle of the next century, he was completely destroyed together with the castle, which rose to its top. In the second half of the fourteenth century, the monastery resumed operations and survived for about a hundred years. It was finally destroyed as a result of the observation of a part of the rock, after which the central part of the entire complex was buried together with the monastery temple.

The appearance of the monastery was reconstructed thanks to the archaeological research of the Professor of the Kiev University, W. Antonowicz, carried out at the end of the 19th century. The monastery was two -storey. The entrance to the monastery was at the top of Biała Góra, from where the cave carved out in the rock could be switched to a lower level, where the Government of the goal for monks was located. In the same part there was a two -level church decorated inside with frescoes. After the study was completed, in 1893, access to the higher level of the church was closed. However, stone stairs were constructed to enter the altar part of the temple. It was a three -nave church, divided by pillars carved in the rock. The eastern peak walls of the two side naves end with holes, which then pass into the corridors leading to the tombs of monks - niches closed with plates. In the southern nave there is an Old Slavic inscription informing about the creation of a monastery.

In 1893, a wooden building with a gable roof was built at the entrance to the monastery. This church, dedicated to the Transfiguration, was dedicated to the Bishop of Podolian and Bracław Dmitri. The building survived until 1963 when it was destroyed.