One of the most ancient Christian monasteries in Ukraine is clearly visible from the windows of trains going to Sevastopol. In numerous caves carved into the rock, the first Christians in these places found refuge. In addition to the cells, there is the Church of St. Clement - also carved into the rock. And along the stone stairs from the monastery you can get to the ruins of the Byzantine fortress of Kalamita.
The Inkerman Cave Monastery is located on the right bank of the Chernaya River at its confluence with the Severnaya Bay in the vicinity of Sevastopol. Founded in the 8th-9th centuries by icon-worshipping monks who fled from Byzantium from the persecution of iconoclasts, it consisted of several churches and a complex of residential and utility caves. All of them are connected with each other by passages carved into the rock and the Kalamita fortress located on the rock, built by the Byzantines in the 6th century to protect the approaches to Chersonese. The entrance to the monastery was arranged near the church under a rock, a long corridor ended in a small hall with stone benches, which led to the church of Clement. Cave rooms outside the rock are marked with arched windows united by triangular tympanums.
Tradition connects the emergence of the monastery with the cult of St. Clement, Bishop of Rome in 92-101, exiled by Emperor Trajan for preaching Christianity in a quarry near Chersonesus and killed here in 101. The relics of Saint Clement, found a year after his death, were first kept in an underwater grotto near Chersonesus (where they were found), access to which was opened, according to legend, once a year, when - on the day of the death of the righteous - the sea receded; then they were transferred to a small island (now Kazachy Island) in the middle of the bay, on which, according to legend, a church was built by the hands of angels.

Cave Monastery of St. Clement arose in the VIII-IX centuries near the Byzantine fortress (it was later rebuilt by the Genoese and began to bear the name Kalamita).
After the capture of the Kalamita fortress by the Turks in 1475, the monastery gradually fell into disrepair. The fortress was renamed Inkerman, which gave the name to the city that arose here. In 1850, the monastery was revived and received a modern double name - after the name of the city and in honor of St. Clement. In 1867, the cave church of St. Martin the Confessor was re-planned and reopened. In 1895, in memory of the salvation of the royal family in a railway accident, the church of St. Great Martyr Panteleimon was built. Since 1924, the temples of the monastery began to be gradually closed. In 1931, worship services ceased in the cave churches, the monastery was finally closed, its property was transferred to the Sevastopol Museum Association. Since 1991, a gradual revival of the monastery began, churches and cell buildings were restored.