Why go
Some 15 million years ago, a volcanic eruption buried this subtropical forest in ash and silica-rich water, turning living trees to stone through a process of permineralization. What remains is a rare Miocene fossil forest where you can touch the bark texture, growth rings, and even root systems of ancient sequoias, palms, and laurels now rendered in agate and jasper. Located at 2,000 meters in the Lesser Caucasus, it sits unmarked beside a mountain pass road, discovered only in the 1980s and still barely visited. The silence and scale—trunks up to 14 meters long—feel almost sacred.