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Kaga is one of the most distinctive and colorful villages on the territory of Bashkiria, located in the Beloretsk district, between two rivers - the White and the Kaga. The village was founded in the first half of the 18th century, in the southern part of the Ural Mountains.

Currently, a little less than a thousand people live in Kaga, there is a school, an ambulatory, a post office, and several shops here; tourism and ecotourism are actively developing. Most of the tourists come to the village for its picturesque outskirts to go hiking or relax in nature. You can also spend the night in Kaga: in the old manor of the 19th century, the Tengri hostel is opened, where the travelers stop.

The official date of settlement is considered to be 1740, which is indicated on the memorial stele at the entrance to the village. And in 1769 Demidov began the construction of his Kaginsky hammer factory here. Later, a saw mill, a forge with six furnaces, a metalwork, a carpentry barn, barns and sheds for iron, guard houses, a wooden church in the name of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, a factory office and a master's courtyard were constructed around it. After a multiple change of ownership, the plant was in the power of Ivan Astarievich Tatarinov, who, together with the Swedish engineer V.V. Müntzing, built a blast furnace and a nail factory here, and then a school, hospital, dispensary, and  a club for workers appeared there. However, after the fire of 1911 it was almost impossible to restore the plant. 

How to get there

You can get to the village of Kaga from Beloretsk,  buses run every day except Sunday at 7.00, 14.50, 18.00, on Sunday - only at 7.00, 14.50. Travel time is 2 hours. You can also get there by bus, which goes to Starosubkhangulovo, but it does not stop at Kaga, you can get off at the bus stop near Sazhelka. It goes every day from Beloretsk at 13.50. For more information, please call the Beloretsk Bus Station: 8 (34792) 5-35-80.

Sights

St. Nicholas Church

The main attraction of the village of Kaga is the St. Nicholas Church. Its construction started    on donations in 1898, and finished only 8 years later. The church was three-fold: the main party was in honor of St. Nicholas; the right is in honor of the holy apostles Peter and Paul; the  left - in honor of the holy Apostle John the Divine. The altars were consecrated on December 8 and 9, 1913, but already in 1933 the church was closed, the bells were dropped, and the bell tower and domes were destroyed. In 1955, the building was overhauled and a club operated  there, which was transformed in 1968 into the House of Culture. Former director of the House of Culture, Ivan Antonovich Lisovsky, already in the seventies, cleaned the dome of the church from plaster, found unique frescoes, and on July 1, 2000, the Church of St. Nicholas was officially handed over to believers.

Sazhelka Spring

The second historical landmark of the village is the holy spring  Sazhelka. There is a legend that one summer a terrible drought hit Kaga, and springs, streams and wells dried out. Along with it a terrible, unknown disease came. Residents of the village gathered  together  and prayed fervently, asking God for forgiveness and help. Suddenly, from a mountainside, where  the cemetery was located, a spring with pure, cold   water appeared. People drank from this spring, sprinkled homes and livestock, and the disease went away. Since then, as a token of gratitude, every year on this day (August 21), local people come to the cemetery at the holy spring, serve   a prayer service and commemorate all the dead. This holiday is called Promised (from the vow given to God for salvation). A chapel was erected over the holy spring, it was destroyed during the Stalinist repressions, and then restored in 1997.