Ammonite Valley

The White River is the largest river of mountain Adygea and one of the main objects of interest of tourists in the region. Picturesque gorges, beautiful waterfalls, active sports - all this can be found on White. One of the most unusual attractions of the river can be called the Valley of the Ammonites - a terrain teeming with fossilized remains of prehistoric mollusks.

The Ammonites inhabited the ancient Tethys ocean, the waters of which were once noisy over the lands of present-day Adygea. Ammonite shells are easily recognized by their characteristic spiral shape, resembling ram horn. The sizes of these creatures ranged from a few centimeters to two meters.

The Ammonite Valley is thirty-three kilometers from the Maikop-Hajokh motorway, under the bridge over the White River. Here along the banks of the river you can see many huge stone balls. These balls are a kind of stone cocoon that has grown around the shells of ammonites over the past millennia. Some stones are split and you can see the fossilized imprint of the shell, and if you are lucky, the mollusk itself.