Ustinovsky Canyon - twenty-meter steep limestone walls, about 300 million years old, stretching for a couple of kilometers along the bend of the Miass River. The surface of the canyon is dotted with small caves and grottoes.
In one of these caves, more than a hundred years ago, a member of the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers discovered a hiding place for Stone Age hunters, inside which animal bones were found, as well as stone arrowheads, flint knives and several tools made of stone.
This picturesque place is located in the upper reaches of the Miass River, on the border of the Chelyabinsk region with Bashkiria. Now the Ustinovsky Canyon attracts many tourists with its beauty, and if it were not for the scientists who insisted on its inclusion in the list of natural monuments of the Chelyabinsk region, then today there would already be a deep quarry here …
It got its name from the nearest settlement - the village of Ustinovo, founded in the first half of the 18th century by the Ustinovs, who came from the northern provinces of Russia.
Features of the Ustinovsky Canyon
The road to the canyon is flat. From afar it is completely invisible. It would seem that it does not portend anything, but, having driven up, you suddenly have a magnificent view of a high, rocky cliff.
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The Miass River, about 40 kilometers from its source, has carved its way through limestone over millions of years to form an impressive canyon. The right bank drops straight into the river with cliffs. The height of the rocks reaches 15 meters, and in length they stretch for about 1 kilometer. The age of these limestones is about 300 million years.
Here the Miass River is crossed by a railway connecting the Chelyabinsk town of Miass with the Bashkir Uchaly and Mezhozernoye. Thanks to the railway bridge, you can go to the other side and admire the views of the rocks from there.
Small grottoes and caves are found in the rocks. Speleoarchaeologist Vladimir Yurin counted more than 40 karst objects here. However, do not flatter yourself too much: most of them are completely small and inconspicuous.
The largest cave (Yurin called it Malakhov's cave - in the part of the Ural archaeologist) is 22 meters long. There is also a karst well - Ustinovskiy, 7.5 meters deep.
Discovered Yurin and the alleged mound, possibly serving as a burial structure. It is a destroyed stone embankment under a rock. Object dimensions: 4х3х0.5 m.
“Its formation took place in several stages. Initially, on the edge of a rocky outcrop of Visean limestones of the Carboniferous along a deep vertical crack, a karst funnel with a depth of 10 m and a diameter of 5 m formed. time, the rocky outlier seems to stand on three legs. Two holes form an arch through which a person freely passes, the third is perpendicular to them, a narrow gap 5 m long, 1 m wide and up to 2 m high goes to the river valley at an azimuth of 345 °. The minimum thickness of the walls of the arch is 2 m, the maximum is about 10 meters."
These places are also interesting in historical terms. The first archaeological finds here were made by UOLE member, archaeologist Mikhail Malakhov back in the 19th century. He wrote:
“I also did not miss the opportunity to inspect and explore the caves, but only one of them delivered valuable scientific material: for example, in a small cave at the top of the river. I discovered Miass among the mass of animal bones small flint knives, silicon shards and two bone arrows, sharpened on both sides."
In 1989, specialists from the Institute of History and Archeology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences made rich finds in the Ustinovsky Canopy Cave. Scientists have found animal bones of the Holocene (horse, roe deer, hare, marmot and others) and Pleistocene (woolly rhinoceros, bison, reindeer, saiga and others) eras. Objects of human activity were also found: fragments from two ceramic vessels of the Bronze and Early Iron Ages, stone objects of the Paleolithic era. In the future, the Ustinovsky Canyon may present new discoveries.
Researchers speculate that our ancestors may have used the canyon to hunt mammoths.
The Ustinovsky Canyon is located in the Chelyabinsk Region, on the border with the Republic of Bashkortostan. The nearest landmark is Ustinovo station (1.5 kilometers).
GPS coordinates of the Ustinovskiy Canyon: N 54º 52.131´; E 59º 58.290 '.