Explore the Steppe

At the VIllage Rock

This is what you feel like doing when you look around standing on the top of the Village Hill. There are many hills that can be seen from there.

It is nice to see the huge pieces of stratified stone at the brink of the hill located in Peace Street (“ulitsa meera” in Russian) near the old village cemetery.

It's not Hymalayas

It is very easy to climb the hill. The wonderful views of the village are your reward.

Also, you can visit the higher hill that is located about five miles away. They call it the Grand Canyon. You can also find an ancient site located about five miles away – the Bronze Age pyramids. It was fun to explore the steppe around Illyria.

Thank goodness we have a very good local friend Basil who took us around in his car. There are a lot of earth roads, so if the weather is dry enough, you can drive safely. Thanks to Basil, we found the place called Bronze Age Pyramids.

The steppe is really worth visiting. However, the winds can be strong. The air is fresh and fragrant. The views are fantastic. You feel like soaring and singing...

There are a lot of wild plants out in the steppe:

- wild carnation;
- thyme;
- feather grass (Stipa);
- sweetbrier;
- houseleeks, or liveforever that is also called “hens and chickens” (Sempervivum).

As my friends Nada says, Sempervivum has recently been re-classified as Dudleya. The hills are covered with lots of feather grass and other rare plants.

We discovered this ancient place recently after reading numerous articles about it.
The ancient archaeologically site is officially called the Marl Ridge, although the stones there are not exactly marl.
The media gave this archaeological site several names:
1. “The Stonehenge of Luhansk”;
2. “The Second Great Wall of China”
3. “The Ukrainian Pyramids”.

Its dimensions are impressive: about 1.3 square kilometers, which is not the entire area of the site.
The archeological excavations began in 2005. Externally, the "Marl Ridge" is an integral complex of stone and earthworks (mounds, various "roads" and "rays" laid out of stone slabs), that occupies an area of 1.3 square kilometers.
Now this place is considered to be the first ancient sacral place in Eastern Europe where people used to worship the Sun God.
There are plans of turning this site into an archeological park, although it means a lot of studies and investments.

Thanks to my friend Basil in Illyria we found it rather fast. He took us there in his car, but we had to look for its exact location. During my subsequent visits, I discovered an easier way to that ancient site. When you leave your car at the foot of a hill, you might not think the hill is something special. However, after you have climbed it, a huge panorama opens before your eyes. It seems to be the highest point in the area.

Here is an article about this ancient site in “The Guardian”:

Bronze Age pyramid found in Ukraine

Tom Parfitt in Moscow, Friday, September 8, 2006, The Guardian

Archaeologists in Ukraine have unearthed the remains of an ancient pyramidal structure that pre-dates those in Egypt by at least 300 years. The stone foundations of the structure, which probably resembled Aztec and Mayan ziggurats in South America, were discovered near the eastern city of Lugansk.

It is thought they were laid about five millennia ago during the early Bronze Age by animists who worshiped a sun god. The "pyramid" is in fact a complex of temples and sacrificial altars topping a sculpted hillside with steps on its sides.

Viktor Klochko, head of the excavation, said the discovery was of international significance. "This is the first monument of its age and kind found in eastern Europe," he told the Guardian. "It changes our whole conception of the social structure and the level of development of the cattle breeders and farmers who were the direct ancestors of most European peoples."

There are about 100 pyramids in Egypt, and the remains of Mesopotamian pyramids are preserved in Iraq and Iran. Ziggurats are also found in Mexico, and the Nubians built pyramids as burial sites for monarchs in the Nile valley. But pyramid structures are rare in Europe. One of the few is a Roman-era pyramid near Nice, France, that may have been built by legionnaires involved in an Egyptian cult.

Although graves have been found at the Lugansk site, archaeologists think it was used for sacrifice by burning, rather than as a burial ground. "People lived in the surrounding valleys and climbed up it to carry out their ceremonies," said Mr Klochko. "They had a pagan cult that bowed down to the sun, as did the ancestors of the Slavs."

Remains of sacrifice victims, ashes and ceramics have been found at the site, but no jewelry or treasure.

The complex, which covered three-quarters of a square mile and was around 60 meters (192 ft) high, was probably used for 2,000 years.

"What surprised me most is the scale of this enormous complex," Stanislav Mogilny, a student working on the excavation, told the Russian television. It's just incredible - a titanic feat."

Visiting the Marl Ridge