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Hello,

I have been in Sochi for the olympics/paralympics. About half way through I discovered that the area is absolutely covered with amazing heritage sites.

http://vsedolmeny.ru/dolmens-of-lazarevskoe-region.html

I had one day, today, to try and find some. even after 3 months here it is still very hard to communicate but I managed to find two dolmens in some ancient mountain woodland about 2 hrs drive from the main Olympic Park. Just wanted to check if anyone has been/seen any of these sites on TMA?

An enthusiastic amateur I have taken a few pictures and a have a hand drawn map as although well documented in local photography, (probably due to language translations) almost impossible to locate without local help.

I wanted to post a few pictures on here later.

I've admired the caucuses dolmens for years, but no-one has produced a definitive guide as far as I know. They look ripe for a long holiday, unfortunately not the safest place in the world right now :(

Please post what you've found... I'm certain the Eds will help sort out getting the sites on here. An excellent riposte to all the sabre-rattling bollocks that's been going on lately.

This might be of interest; it’s a feature we ran in January just prior to the Olympics. See also the website (from an original Russian source), map and picture gallery at the bottom of the feature.

There's a complete dolmen in the State Historical Museum just off Red Square in Moscow (photo here: http://tinypic.com/m/hvwh77/3 poor quality as it's a very dark museum), but I can't remember exactly where it was removed from.

There seem to be quite a significant number of megalithic sites across Russia but they're generally not well documented, and there doesn't seem to be much local interest really.

This looks like a fairly good academic review

https://www.academia.edu/4143343/What_distiguishes_Caucasian_megaliths_from_European_ones

Not Russia but I've just come across this article regarding stone circles in Azerbaijan.

http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/ai103_folder/103_articles/103_cart_ruts.html

Our friend Al visited these win 1999 and wrote it up:

http://budovskiy.livejournal.com/748753.html

They aren't really labyrinths - more spirals. The islands themselves are fascinating as they have been home to monastic communities for centuries and were a gulag during the terror