Shed tears, Cleopatra!
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Shed tears, Cleopatra!

It goes without saying, she came here - the Egyptian queen who was successful in casting a spell upon the two rulers of the Roman Empire, Julius Caesar and Mark Anthony. She must have had a secret to look young and fresh! Therefore, do not argue, she really came here. Because water from local mineral springs, warmed by the earth's heat, contains calcium carbonate, trace elements of copper and magnesium, sodium carbonate and much more elements useful for the body, especially for joints and skin. But in those days, it was believed that this local water was good for all diseases. Therefore, we can say that people came here to cross the Styx. A huge necropolis stretching for more than 2 kilometers is a testament to this. The terminally ill people came here to the sacred town of Hierapolis fully convinced that the magical spring would surely bring them back to health. Probably, some made a complete recovery from their diseases and left the town, but many remained - some in luxe tombs, and some in simple graves.

This water is considered healing even in our time of educated people. And since it contains many salts, it flows down the hillside and creates dazzling white terraces with flat basins as if full with the blue sky reflecting in them. It’s the enchanting beauty you cannot see anywhere else. The cascades of terrace baths form a frozen waterfall looking like the cotton hardened into stone. Therefore, the Turks who came here in the 11th century renamed Hierapolis as Pamukkale – the ‘Cotton Castle’.
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The ancient patients could enjoy huge baths turned into a wonderful and interesting museum today. But now you can be soused over head and ears in the healing water only in a small lake called, of course, the ‘Cleopatra's Spring’, or the ‘Cleopatra's Pool’. Bathing in the spring bearing such a name flattens everyone, and tourists don’t spare money, therefore sometimes more people eager to rejuvenate in the water flock there than we would like to welcome.

But you can walk along the healing water in a place specially designated for tourists and take a selfie - here I am, wandering around the famous snow-white small baths (by the way, they are called ‘travertines’ here, although in fact ‘travertine’ is calcareous tuff, a substance from which the Nature built the terraces of Pamukkale). The travertines occupy the entire hillside, which means that once there was much more water and all the terrace pools were full. Today, most of the pools here are empty. And if the magic water stops flowing, the white layer gradually turns yellow, gray and finally turns black.

The traditional question is ‘Who is to blame’? Since the early 1960s, the Cotton Castle has gradually turned into a popular tourist destination. For 20 years, many hotels have been built here that began to fill their pools with that healing water. Local residents took a chance to use the groundwater and their houses turned into boardinghouses in the tourist season. In 1988, after the UNESCO declared Pamukkale a World Heritage Site, the authorities came to their senses. Some hotels were demolished. Today, most of 2 million visitors arriving at this wonder of nature every year come with tours. The tour to Pamukkale is the most popular one among leisure travelers in the Turkey’s resorts. Therefore, the load still remains large - up to ... 2 million visitors per year! According to the UNESCO reports, the degradation of the unique area continues as a huge number of visitors inevitably lead to mechanical damage to travertines, an increase in wastewater, and general pollution. These factors cause - in one way or another - changes in the natural environment of the ‘Cotton Castle’. Even crowds of tourists bathing in the Cleopatra’s Pool, experts say, adversely affect the natural mechanisms that created the Pamukkale snow-white terraces.

According to the conclusion of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, the problem of preserving the unique place requires “better planning with regards to tourism management”. But how is it possible to cope with this problem if in all advertisements Pamukkale is called a "must-visit tourist destination?"

The UNESCO notes that measures taken in the early 1990s saved the Cotton Castle from destruction and even helped renovate some of the travertines. However, there is still no single coordinator bearing full responsibility in all the areas. In particular, according to the UNESCO, the staff is poorly oriented towards compliance with the environmental standards. Thus, the directorate of the Pamukkale Museum Complex is mainly concerned with local historical attractions, and there is no representative of the General Directorate of Protection of Natural Assets whose task is to protect what flows from under the ground and down the hillside.

One of the main sources of financing for the historic Pamukkale Complex is the money from the ticket sales. A paradoxical situation occurs - the more tourists come, the more damage is caused to the natural monument, and the more money might be required to preserve it. To avoid this misguided practice, the major travel companies using the image of Pamukkale should invest more heavily. And this is fair, because the lion's share of the income ‘earned’ by Pamukkale goes to them and not to the local communities that since the beginning of 2000s, have been very limited in their business opportunities to use the natural wonders of their homeland.

And yet, in spite of all the challenges, one cannot but admit that if it had not been for the plan to preserve Pamukkale that has been implemented since 1992, the world would already have lost this unique wonder of nature. And what comes next? As usually, estimates are pessimistic or optimistic ones. Of course, it is unlikely that we will ever see the Pamukkale's terraces as they once were. But, optimists say, hope springs eternal in the human breast. It is necessary to close part of the travertines for visiting by tourists, completely eliminate the use of water for domestic needs and irrigation, and improve the water distribution system to the terraces. The optimists even plan to create new dazzling white wonderful terraces with sky-blue water.
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