“The Earth Is Burning Underfoot” is about the places where our journey will take place today. Once the local mountain was called Karakosh-Tau - Berkutova mountain. But for almost 300 years it has been called Yangan-Tau, which means “burning”. In these places, mud is useful, and the mountain heals people, and a whole river of medicine flows … Miracles, in a word!
From Chelyabinsk, along the M5 highway, we head to the mining region. We pass Zlatoust, Ust-Katav, then turn to Kropachevo and after 40 kilometers we are at the foot of Yangan-Tau. We go up the mountain. Then we go down, and three kilometers from the "burning" mountain, the Kurgazak spring awaits us. 30 kilometers from it is the village of Kuselyarovo, where there are healing hydrogen sulfide springs.
The amazing properties of Yangan-Tau Mountain have been known for a long time. According to an old legend, they were discovered by a shepherd who decided to spend the night in a hole under the root of a century-old tree. Steam rose from the pit, and it was warm to sleep in it even on very cold autumn nights. A few days later, a local resident noticed, moreover, that his arms and legs stopped hurting - the long-term illness disappeared without a trace. Local residents learned about this and began to come here for healing.
A statue of a shepherd was even installed on the top of the mountain - in memory of the discoverer of the Ural miracle. Today the modest monument has been sent for restoration, and the hot streams emitted by the mountain are no longer visible behind the modern outlines of the popular sanatorium. Modern buildings and paved paths do not in any way remind that a giant cauldron is boiling at a depth of only 60 meters underfoot.
The second, after the Bashkir shepherd, this miracle was revealed to the world by the famous Russian explorer Peter Simon Pallas. His expedition traveled to these parts, describing the natural resources of the Russian State. In May 1770, a detachment of a naturalist, moving along the Yuryuzan River, approached Yangan-Tau. In the evening, the mountain seemed to be shrouded in a huge cloud of steam "several arshins in height," he wrote in his diary.
Old-timers told the scientist that 11-12 years ago lightning struck a large pine tree, burned it to the root, and the flame passed on to the grief, and since that time it has been burning incessantly inside. “However, so that at the sole the flame has already extinguished, and the top has not yet reached very far,” Pallas writes in his diary
Serious research into the unique heat source began at the end of the 19th century. Since then, more than 100 scientific papers and articles have been published devoted to solving the burning mountain. And she was never found. Yangan-Tau is sometimes compared to a dormant volcano. Something is boiling inside, but what? And does it not threaten after some time with an earthquake?
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At a depth of 60-80 meters in the bowels of the burning mountain there is a thermal core, it is heated up to 400 degrees. Through cracks in the body of the mountain, hot gases rise to the surface, where they are intercepted by wells of steam baths. It is also interesting that, on the one hand, in the upper part of the Yangan-Tau mountain, it emits hot vapors, and on the other, dry gases of almost the same temperature. What is the reason is still a mystery. It is also known that the mountain burns more in winter than in summer. And in cold weather it gives more warmth. Research is complicated by the fact that deep drilling can upset the unique balance, and the mountain will simply die out.
For the first time, civilized treatment, if you can call it that, began here in the 1940s. At first, the patients were simply buried in the ground or placed in steam pits on stools. After 1935, the first wooden barracks were installed. Today, a modern sanatorium is at the top. Even the slope leading to the Yuryuzan bank has been ennobled.
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Mount Yangan-Tau literally exudes healing air and healing water. Not only that, until recently, the buildings were heated by heat from the bowels of the mountain, but also literally from all the taps here mineral water runs! People drink it, cook it, wash and wash dishes here, too, with Kurgazak mineral water. The bounty of the local nature is amazing.
According to a recent analysis, the water of the Kurgazak spring is close to the famous Caucasian mineral waters. The water contains more than 20 components: iron, manganese, phosphorus, zinc, copper, titanium, beryllium, molybdenum, chromium, silicon, as well as a unique natural microflora. For its original chemical composition, it is also called living water.
The influence of Yangan-Tau extends far beyond the limits of a low, but such an interesting mountain. Further along the course of the Yuryuzan River - the village of Kuselyarovo. There is a hydrogen sulfide lake here that does not freeze even in 40-degree frost. The brackish water, which local cows and horses love to drink, is said to cure even trachoma of the eyes. And after another one and a half kilometers from here from under the steep slope of Yuryuzan several hydrogen sulphide springs are beating at once!
The uniqueness of such springs is that within a few minutes after reaching the surface, water reacts with air and loses its healing properties during transportation. This applies primarily to lake mud
Here and there are found deposits of ancient marine sediments - sapropels. And according to the original theory of one of the local historians, the unusual properties of the burning mountain, the healing power of the mineral spring and the Kuselyarovskiy hydrogen sulfide mud are a consequence of one global cataclysm that happened in ancient times in the valley of modern Yuryuzan. And all these abnormal points, which bring health to a person, are linked together.