The Anabar plateau does not attract fans of extreme types of tourism, but it is ideal for those who like to calmly contemplate the beauty of nature
The Anabar plateau (or Anabar plateau) is strikingly beautiful, but few people know about it. And very few were lucky enough to be there.
From Khatanga to Kotuikan
The Anabarskoye plateau is located in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, between the 69th and 71st parallels, on the border with Yakutia. To the north is the Taimyr Peninsula, and to the southwest, beyond the Kotui River, lies the Putorana Plateau. Larch forests grow in the valleys of the Anabar rivers, and a little further north, beyond the 72nd parallel, stretches the northernmost forest on the planet - the Ary-Mas tract.
The Putorana Plateau, cut by narrow deep valleys, was explored by travelers for a long time. Porous mountain rivers, multi-meter waterfalls, lakes, peaks (the highest point - 1701 m), deep canyons are picturesque and at the same time attractive both for pedestrians and skiers, and for water tourists. The Anabar mountains, on the contrary, are gentle and low (the highest point is 905 m), and the rivers flowing from them are smooth and calm and therefore are not of interest to athletes, especially those who like extreme sports. However, the beauty and uniqueness of the Anabar landscape amazes, mesmerizes and impresses once and for all.
You can get to the Anabar plateau from the south, along the rivers from Evenkia, or from the north - by helicopter from Khatanga. The village of Khatanga used to be the base for many research parties. There are very few geologists now. Nevertheless, the runway is well maintained and accommodates all types of aircraft, since the airfield is of great strategic importance. In Khatanga, there are the directorate of the Taimyr Biosphere Reserve, the Museum of Nature and Ethnography and the Mammoth Museum, where the remains of fossil giants found in the Krasnoyarsk Territory are kept. From Khatanga we go by helicopter to the Kotuikan River, the right tributary of the Kotuy, from where we are going to float on catamarans back to Khatanga.
These multi-colored stones on the river bank are like fragments of antique ceramics. They liked to paint vessels in Crete with such wavy lines
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Photo by the author
Along the bottom of the ancient sea
The Anabar plateau is very interesting geologically. Ancient crystalline rocks, whose age reaches 3.8 billion years, come to the surface of the Earth. Kotuikan flows from the highest part of the plateau, from east to west. The oldest rocks are in its upper reaches, and the lower along the river, the younger they are. As geologists say, the age of rocks is decreasing rapidly, which means that the age of the stones from which we have just sailed away may differ by millions of years from the age of the stones at which we will stop half an hour later.
The helicopter landed on a wide pebble beach in the middle reaches of the Kotuikan. The stones on the shore were predominantly reddish and pink. Among them were often flat red tiles with a wavy relief pattern like frozen ripples. These stones, in fact, were once at the bottom of the sea, which was here many millions of years ago. This part of the East Siberian platform either rose or fell, and the water then came to the place of the sinking land, then retreated again. But only sandstone tiles have preserved the memory of the waves that once splashed here.
Clouds of an unusual wavy shape also matched the stones. We saw such for the first time and looked at it with interest - after all, none of us had ever climbed so far north. And in the morning it became clear what the appearance of such clouds meant - the sky was covered with clouds, and it began to rain heavily. The water came quickly, and within a few hours the Kotuikan spread widely. We didn't know what to expect from northern nature, but we were prepared for any natural disasters. However, by the evening the rain subsided, the weather began to improve and the whole trip was quite clear, which was favorable for photography.
The word "stromatolite" comes from the Greek stroma - litter and lithos - stone. Stromatolites can be up to two meters long and one meter high
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Downstream, red slopes descended to the river, reddish and pink rocks broke into the water - the “red belt” continued. Then a wall of flat red tiles stretched along the coast. As it turned out later, they could even be pulled out of the wall. Then, high above the river, stretched stone outcrops with outliers, similar to walls with turrets. They approached the coast and became higher and more majestic, until, finally, they turned into wide and high "watchtowers". It was as if the gates of some fantastic country, and gradually it began to seem that we were in a fairy tale.
At the mouths of the streams we began to come across strange, never before seen stones with round and oval ledges. These protrusions most of all looked like fossilized halves of cabbage heads with partially torn leaves. Then many times we came across rectangular layered stones with round grooves, similar to egg boxes, and others - the same rectangular, but already with round protrusions. It seemed that they could be put together, and you get one whole. These were stromatolites - unique ancient limestone formations. They consist of fossilized remains of lower algae (blue-green and others) - after all, there was a shallow sea on the site of the Anabar plateau. Experts estimate the age of stromatolites from 2.5 to 3.5 billion years.
Dreamland
High rocky walls with "towers" along the banks of Kotuikan resembled castles. And soon we began to perceive all the rocky outcrops and stone outliers as the ruins of man-made structures. There were only five of us, maybe that's why we quickly “tuned in to one wave” and gladly settled in a fabulous stone country, which was called the Anabar Empire. A new "architectural ensemble" arose at every turn of the river; approaching it, we recognized the gabled castles of medieval Europe, the eastern mosques with minarets, or the ancient amphitheaters. Different associations arose, everyone saw what he knew and remembered. The high sharp cliffs directed towards the sky evoked the Sagrada Familia Cathedral in Barcelona. A squat low outlier, and next to it a tall and thin one - these are the Long Hermann and Fat Margarita towers from the Old Town in Tallinn. Low, narrow pillars on a steep slope are typical Svan towers. Light columns near the water resembled Chersonesos, and white slabs descending in steps to the river - marble stairs in Italy and Ancient Greece. And the outcrops of sandstone seemed to have been turned by someone's hand and turned into strange giant animals. The stone walls sometimes struck by the precise lines and evenness of the "bricks" and suggested the idea of unknown builders.
In the lower reaches of the Kotuikan, at the mouths of tributaries, rocky walls with protruding “towers” resembled the Pskov Kremlin. On one of these tributaries, we set up a bathhouse - we folded the stove, fired it, and then put up a frame and covered it with polyethylene. However, the resemblance of the rock walls to the Kremlin was so obvious that even some inconvenience was felt - as if you were steaming at a historical monument. Once we climbed such a "Kremlin wall" and was surprised to find that the small "turret" could be easily disassembled with our hands - the stones that made it up so loosely joined together. It turns out that this stone architecture stands now in its original form only because there are no people here at all …
We got so used to the fairy tale we ourselves invented that we sincerely thought about the question - why were all these buildings empty? Why did the inhabitants leave the Anabar Empire? The thought occurred to me that the Anabar inhabitants for some reason turned into stones. Once we were wandering under the walls of the upper tier of one of the most fundamental "castles" on our way. There was silence, the sound of the river did not reach here, and only a light breeze seemed to whisper with the stones. We will go down and go further along the river, and the wind and stones will continue to talk among themselves, as they did many centuries ago …
Isthmus between the Djogjo and Kotuikan rivers. A place of indescribable beauty. And the rock looks like the castle of the Crusaders Krak des Chevaliers in Syria
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Kotuikan cut these rocks, making his way across the plateau, from ancient rocks to younger ones; from the depths of history - to the present day. And the picturesque details of the bizarre relief were created by weathering - the process of destruction of rocks under the influence of the sun, wind and water. It gave the buildings the features of various eras and styles, turning them into "castles" and "palaces". When I got to the wall of the Old City in Jerusalem, the first thing I thought was that its builders imitated the Anabar architects.
Studying the maps, we found that the left tributary of the Kotuykan - the Dzhogjo River (another name - Dyogdo) - comes close to Kotuykan a few kilometers from the mouth, flows around the rock mass and flows into the Kotuikan three kilometers below. The two rivers in the narrowest place are separated by a flat high rock wall, reminiscent of the Great Chinese wall. True, the width of this cofferdam is only 200–300 m. We climbed it along the steep scree of the left bank of the Kotuikan and ended up on the right bank of the Dzhogdzho. The wall itself is sometimes narrow, sometimes wide, and the passages inside it sometimes even form labyrinths. It stretches along Jogjo to the majestic "castle", the walls of which consist of several tiers. From a distance, each tier of this "castle" resembled an organ. His "pipes" were seen as thin and low, but in reality they turned out to be towers several tens of meters high,narrow at the bottom and widening at the top. The "Castle" stands over the Jogjo bend. In our unanimous opinion, this is where the capital of the Anabar Empire should have been. Even against the background of all those "castles" that we have already seen, this place was especially striking in its beauty.
Taimen day
However, besides the geological features and incredible beauty, there is another temptation on Anabar. There is a fish here, which, probably, every fisherman dreams of catching (and of the five of us, two were very gambling fishermen).
Taimen. In the mythology of Siberian peoples, this fish serves as a carrier for shamans between the world of the living and the world of the dead.
Photo by the author
This fish is called taimen - the largest representative of the salmon family, the size of which reaches 2 m and weighs 100 kg. The Anabar Empire probably had its own coat of arms. How could he look? We assumed that it traditionally depicted an eagle "carrying away a taimen in its claws," added our chief fisherman, who did not bite that day.
Small, only 8 kg, taimen was caught by us in the first days, as soon as the water slightly subsided after a bad weather. Our fisherman adhered to the principle of "catch and release": he quickly weighed the taimen, took a picture with him and carefully returned the fish back to the river. Then I got another one, also small, after which they stopped pecking the taimen. Whitefish and grayling were caught a lot, but taimen is a special fish. At the mouth of a small tributary below the Dzhogjo, two taimen pecked one after another, and both fell off, and the third pulled the spoon hard and disappeared. It was a dramatic moment. We immediately realized that these fish are interested in spinners, which means that we cannot leave this place until the main fisherman catches at least one.
Well, let him catch it. The place is very picturesque - white slabs underfoot and a thin, as if jagged, wall behind the back. I began to look for a suitable angle for shooting, and in the meantime I pecked another taimen, which was finally brought ashore! Oddly enough, a trout weighing 10-12 kg is easy to take out alone - it must be taken by the base of the tail and directed to the shore. When releasing the taimen into the river, it should also be held and shaken back and forth to flush the gills.
So we briefly switched from stone architecture to fishing. In the evening, the largest specimen was caught - weighing 15 kg and more than a meter long. This is already a strong fish, and our fisherman had to work hard to pull it ashore. Taimen is tired himself; when he was released, he stood for a while at the shore before disappearing into the depths. We breathed a sigh of relief after our second fisherman also pulled out the king-fish. It was on these days, as it turned out later, that the guys from the parallel group, who were 40 km below us, also had good bite. But the next day they almost stopped pecking the taimen.
On Kotui
And Kotuikan carried his waters to the Kotui River, and us with them. The last time on Kotuikan we spent the night in an absolutely fantastic place. The low sun painted the white steps in a pink-yellow color, jumping along which a tributary flowed into Kotuikan. From its mouth to the turn of the Kotuikan rock slabs stretched obliquely into the water. On them, we saw stromatolites, which looked like petrified, half-blooming roses. And at the turn of the river, a string of giant rocky "sphinxes" lined up, stretching out flat white paws towards the water. The only thing missing were heads on powerful bodies. I immediately remembered the Atlanteans standing by the Hermitage. In the morning we washed at the waterfall, formed by one of the plates in the channel of the tributary, and felt some incredible energy that this water carries from the depths of the years.
The "Alley of the Sphinxes" on Kotuikan immediately brings to mind the ancient Luxor. Only there these guardians of tombs with lion's paws are three and a half thousand years old, and here they are hundreds of millions
Photo by the author
Kotui is a huge river; rocky walls along the banks have become more majestic and grander than on Kotuikan, and we felt smaller and insignificant in comparison with them. The last rocky outcrops on Kotui are accumulations of sharp high outliers. In the sun they became light and transparent, and in the morning fog the rocky "castle" at the bend of the river seemed like a mirage. A steep red wall still stretched along the right bank of the river, but on the left the bank was already sinking, and flat long spurs of the Putorana mountains approached the river. The rocky "castles" are left behind, but they are alive in our photographs and actually exist.
Vera Kochina