Description of the attraction
The underground city of Kaymakli lies 9 kilometers north of Derinkuyu. Kaymakli is one of the largest underground cities in the Cappadocia Valley in what is now Turkey. This city is located 18 kilometers from the provincial capital, Nevsehir. In ancient times, Kaymakli was a refuge for Christians who fled there from religious persecution and the invasion of Arabs.
The city is a rather complex system, consisting of many floors, rooms and tunnels, equipped with wells with water and ventilation. Some of the rooms were used as wine cellars, warehouses where large food supplies were stored, stables, pottery, and other utility rooms. There was even a chapel here. The entire underground city is carved into soft volcanic rock - tuff, and its depth is about twenty meters.
Kaymakli consists of eight floors. The first floor was built by the Hittites. Later, during the periods of Byzantine and Roman rule, these artificial caves were constantly increasing, and as a result, a whole underground city was formed, which has all the conditions for long-term living. If necessary, the city could simultaneously accommodate about fifteen thousand people.
Currently, only five levels of the city have been excavated here, while archaeological work is still being carried out on the lower floors. According to scientists, this is far from the limit, in addition, there is the longest tunnel leading from Derinkuyu to Kaymakli. Archaeologists do not exclude that the existence of a common underground space of these cities is possible. The location of objects here, like that of the "neighbor", almost exactly repeats the above-ground city - there are underground squares, a network of streets with small residential cave houses, wine presses and warehouses, smoke-black kitchens and many kilometers of ventilation shafts. Portal entrances were blocked by huge stone discs. In case of danger, people tightly closed these so-called cork doors with loopholes for shooters, in the center of which a hole was made, where a support rod was inserted to roll the disk, after which it was fixed with crossbars, and the doors were filled with stones from the inside.
The entrance to Kaymakli is located in the central square. It contains signs throughout the route to help tourists find their way through this maze of rooms and corridors. Everything was there: meeting rooms, cells, churches and cemeteries. The supplies of water, wine and oil were kept in large earthenware jars.
The floors were connected to each other using steep ventilation wells, at the bottom of which there were reservoirs. The underground shelters were mostly two-room "apartments". They maintained a constant temperature due to the ventilation system, which was +27 degrees Celsius.
Kaymakli has been open to tourists since 1964. It is worth noting that people who are claustrophobic from visiting Kaymakli are better off refraining from it, because the passages there are really very narrow, and the ceilings are not very high.
Even if you love sightseeing on your own, it is best to use the services of a local guide in Kaymakli for several reasons. First, even though direction arrows are located inside the dungeon, it is, nevertheless, a city built with the expectation that its inhabitants would be as difficult as possible to find. You are unlikely, of course, to get lost, but it is likely that you will not be able to find the right path right away. In addition, here, as in ordinary houses, there are no stairs between floors, and one room passes into another, going down lower and lower. Tourists walking along these passages are not even always sure at what level they are at the moment. Secondly, all pointers are quite simple and they do not have any explanations about what is in front of you. If next to you there is a person who is well acquainted with the history of Kaymakli, you will get much more pleasure from visiting the city. The guide will always be able to tell you exactly how the antique objects and rooms that you are currently examining were used. In addition, despite the fact that a visit to this underground city cannot be uninteresting, visitors still say that it is a little uncomfortable to be alone there.
