Fascinating beauty of Siberian nature
There is an absolutely striking place in Russia, more reminiscent of the border of another, unexplored world from fantasy books. The vertically elongated rocks, fancifully piling up for 80 kilometers along the right bank of the Lena River, are called Lena Pillars and form the natural park of the same name.
In the park itself, you can see sinkholes, karst lakes, dry river beds and hollows.
The natural park "Lena Pillars" was organized in the mid-90s, has an area of 485 thousand hectares and consists of two branches - "Stolby" and "Sinsky". The main task of the park is the development of ecological tourism.
However, one should not forget that the Lena Pillars are located only 140-200 kilometers southwest of Yakutsk, which is considered to be one of the coldest cities in the world. Therefore, it is worthwhile to prepare well before going on a trip.
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The flora of the Lena Pillars natural park numbers 464 species, 276 genera and 81 families of vascular plants (all higher plants except bryophytes), and the fauna - 42 species of mammals and 99 species of birds.
Lena Pillars are a product of extreme temperatures. The local Yakut climate with very cold winters and very hot summers contributed to the creation of these magnificent limestone deposits.
A tectonic shift that took place about 400,000 years ago created a fault in the Lena basin, raising the entire territory by 200 meters, and thus created unique rock formations.
At the very base of the pillars are the simplest rock deposits of the Lower and Middle Cambrian (about 500 million years ago), which contain fossil remains of marine life such as sponges, mollusks, shells and trilobites. There are also remains of fauna - mammoths, bison, reindeer, moose, woolly rhinos and Lena horses - found along the banks of the Lena's tributaries, Buotama and Kurana.
In addition to traces of marine life and ancient mammoths, stone tools from the late Paleolithic and Neolithic times were also found here. The tools indicate that the area has been inhabited since ancient times, and the local inhabitants lived mainly by hunting and fishing.
To see the pillars live, you can come by car, bus or boat to the town of Povrovsk, where the main office of the nature park is located. From here you can go on a tour of the Lena River and see, for example, rock paintings on ancient pillars.
You can go on a walking tour and look at amazing karst formations or huge sandy massifs called Tukulans.