The river Olkhovka originates from a spring located 17 kilometers from the city of Kislovodsk.
It was named in the early XIX century by soldiers and the first settlers of the Kislovodsk fortress, due to the moisture-loving alder trees that grew abundantly along its banks (“Olkha” is the Rusisian name of the alder tree).
The waterfall formed where the Olkhovka intersects a limestone layer and is now named after Mikhail Lermontov.
The poet was so enchanted by this waterfall that he described it in his novel A Hero of Our Time—Pechorin waters his horse near this very waterfall.
In the late XIX and early XX centuries, the water in this section of the river Olkhovka was so pure that it was supplied to Kislovodsk as drinking water.