Sumela Monastery · The Bell on the Cliff Face

Sumela Monastery is built into a cliff face at more than a thousand metres. The monks cut rooms and a church out of the rock, and frescoes run from the top of the wall to the bottom.

It survived here for nearly a thousand years and was abandoned in the early twentieth century. Part of the frescoes and the bell were taken away; what remains has been blackened by smoke.

The road up to the monastery was completed only recently. Drivers say that people used to stop below the cliff first — not to look at the view, but to let what was inside them catch up.

Historical Mysteries / Trabzon · Türkiye / 386