Mountains, rivers and beauty

It is not only the centre but also the region itself that is worth visiting. Taganay national park is a local attraction. Its total area is 56,1 thousand ha. This is a natural complex of preferential ecological, historical, and cultural and esthetical value. There are more than 10 monuments of nature, 900 kinds of plants, 190 birds’ and 40 mammals’ species in the park.

The Chelyabinsk region is rich in mountains as well. For instance, Dvuglavaya (Two-head) mountain (1034 and 1041 meters) is the first peak in the south of the Great Taganay range. One peak of the mountain is called “Perya” (“Feathers”) for its resembling a flying bird’s wing; the other peak is “Baranjy lby” (“Rams’ foreheads”) because the slopes are smooth and gentle. Framed with thick fir wood, the peak is rich in brows of considerable sizes, shallow nicks with birch crooked forest and deposits with huge rocks of snow-white quartz, spalls of which form a bed of a rocky brook at the eastern foothill of a bald mountain. That’s why the brook is called White Spring. The water is transparent and as soft as snow melt water.

The Otklikny crest range of mountains (1155) and the second peak of the Great Taganay to the north of Dvuglavaya attract tourists as well. It was called that way for its 7-8 times re-echoing, The crest is distinguished in the range of mountains by its resemblance to a back of a gigantic stony dragon of 150 meter high. Crevasses divided the stony giant is pieces of Taganay aticlinal fold’s western part with quartz layers standing on end.

A valley of tales is a rocky saddle between Otlkikny crest and Kruglitsa moutons. The valley is an unusual area of low-rise dark coniferous forest where peaks of stony blocks can be seen. “Sandy paths” of rock rots, meadows covered in a motley cover of crowberry, blue berry, red berry, steep slopes overgrown in forests make the region peculiar and beautiful.

Kruglitsa (1178) is the peak and the central point in the Great Taganay; its blunt-conical top is formed out of massive rocks that can weigh up to dozens of tones. The northern slope of the mountains looks like a plain area at the height of 1100 meters covered in mountain tundra with relict types of blue berry growing there.

A big stony river is a tumble of goldstone blocks. “The river” is stretched for more than 6 km and wide for 100-800 meters; it flows in a disruption between Dvuglavaya and Sredny Taganay. Aventurine of light, pink, honey colours and dark-cherry, fallow tinctures with parts of glist, ferric oxide and titanic iron ore form incredibly beautiful play of aventurine colour. This exceptional deposit is a national endow. Moreover, there is just one in India similar to it.

Dalny Taganay mountain (1112) is the northern slope of great Taganay crest. A vast tundra area, where a very old weather station “Taganay gora” (“Taganay mountain”) is located, occupies the central plain part of its top. Tundra landscape is surrounded with peculiar rocky buttes that from a massive crest stretched for 1 km ahead to a valley of the Maly Kialim River.

Itsyl mountain (1049) is an “eternal wind”, it is the southern peak of Itsyl crest. Centuries-long deforestation caused primeval forests’ destruction so the relict fir woods of the eastern slope of the mountain are a kind of national endow.

“Porogi” (“Rifts”) historical and nature complex of the Chelyabinsk region will attract extreme rest lovers. There has remained a plant complex of the early 20^th century with a hydro power electro station erected about hundred years ago in the Bolshoya Satka River, “Porogi” electro-metallurgical plant that was the first in Russi to produce chrome and silicious iron, and a research laboratory. All managers of ferroalloy industry were in training in the plant. Nowadays, you can have an excursion around the plant. By the way, the village is in single-energy line. A private three-star hotel was constructed there last year. The village is situated fifty kilometers away from M-5 federal road, that’s why tourists are often visitors of the place.

If mountains and extreme rest don’t attract you, if you would like to enjoy nature while walking peacefully,  you will love “Zaratkyul” national park. View over the park is very original: there is a village Zyuratkal in the left of the head of the Bolshaya Catka River, the root of Zyuratkal crest is in the right; Zaryutkal Lake, which semicircles Lukash mountain,  is in front of you; and there are mountains covered in dark coniferous wood in the long view. It is the place that provides you with view over exceptional landscape of the park: stretched mirror-like surface of the lake; narrow ribbon of the river, chains of mountains crests and lots of vegetation. Urenga, Yagodny, Nurgush, Moskal, Bolshaya Suka crests divided by valleys where numerous brooks and rivers head, are park’s main objects of nature crossinf it north to east and south to west. The park is in watershed: Yuryuzan River is in the south-west, the Malaya Satka and Zyuratkyul Lake is in the north-east. The park is unique because of monuments of nature, history, archeology and hydrotechny.

The region is rich not only in objects of nature but also in archeological findings in Arkaim. Archeologists assume that it is the place where horse was tamed for the first time, the first battle two-wheel wagon was invented, the first metallurgic furnace was found, one of the most ancient civilizations appeared. Arkaim is also a motherland of legendary Arian people, some archeologists reckon. They were the founders of well-known fire-worshippers’ religion. Almost all further religions were based on its main doctrines.

If you want to enjoy extreme sport and good outdoor recreation, if you are charmed with call of mountains, then the Chelyabinsk region welcomes you.