Nine kilometres north of Derinkuyu lies the underground city of Kaymakli. Kaimakli is one of the largest underground cities in the Cappadocia Valley of modern-day Turkey. This city is located 18 kilometres from the provincial capital of of Nevşehir province. In ancient times, Kaymaklı was a refuge for Christians who fleeing religious persecution and Arab invasions.
The city is a rather complex system, consisting of many floors, rooms and tunnels, with water wells and ventilation. Some of the rooms were used as wine cellars, warehouses to store large quantities of food, stables, potteries, and other outbuildings. There was even even a chapel. The whole underground city is hollowed out in soft volcanic rock - tuff, and it's about 20 metres deep.
Kaymakli consists of eight floors. The ground floor was built by the Hittites. Later, during the Byzantine and Roman periods, these artificial caves kept getting bigger and bigger, resulting in a whole underground city, with all the conditions for long-term habitation. If necessary the city could accommodate about fifteen thousand people at a time.
At present, only five levels of the city have been excavated here, and on the lower floors are still being excavated. According to scientists, this is far from the limit, and besides, here is the longest tunnel leading from Derinkuyu to Kaymakli. The location of the objects here, as in "neighbour", almost exactly repeats the above-ground city - there are subterranean squares, a network of streets with small cave dwellings, wine presses and warehouses, smoke-blackened kitchens and kilometres of ventilation shafts. The entrances to the portals were blocked by huge stone discs. В in case of danger, the men shut these so-called plugged doors with loopholes for the shooters, with a hole in the centre of the door where a support rod a support rod was inserted to roll the disc over and then it was secured with bars, and the doors were blocked with stones from the inside.
The entrance to Kaymakli is located in the central square. It is signposted along the entire signposts are placed along the route to help tourists find their way in this labyrinth of rooms and corridors. It had everything you needed: meeting halls, cells, churches and cemeteries. Supplies of water, wine and oil were stored in large clay jars.
The floors were connected to each other by steep ventilating wells, at the bottom of which were ponds. The underground shelters were mostly two-room "apartments". They were kept at a constant temperature through the ventilation system, which was +27 degrees Celsius.
Kaymakli has been open to tourists since 1964. It's worth noting that people who suffer from claustrophobia should refrain from visiting Kaimakli, because the passageways are really narrow and the ceilings are not very high.
Even if you like to sightsee on your own, it's best to use a sightseeing service in Kaimakli. Kaymakli it is best to use the services of a local guide for several reasons. Firstly, although there are arrows inside the dungeon to indicate the direction, this is still a city built to make its inhabitants to be as difficult to find as possible. You're unlikely to get lost, of course, but it's quite possible you might not be able to find your way straight away. In addition, as in normal houses there are no stairs between the floors, and one room goes from one to the next, descending down and down. Tourists who walk through these passages aren't always sure what level they're standing on at any given moment. Secondly, all the signposts are quite simple and there's no explanation of what's in front of you. If you have someone with you who is familiar with the history of Kaymaklı, you will get a much more enjoyable visit to the town. The guide will always be able to tell you exactly how the antiquities and rooms you're exploring at the moment. In addition, although a visit to this subterranean can't be uninteresting, visitors do say it's a bit uncomfortable to be alone here.
