Eco-Tour to Nature Park Olenyi Ruchyi (Deer Creeks)
As summer is coming soon to the Urals, eco-tours and mountain trekking are in great demand. If you stay in Yekaterinburg for a few days, do find some time to go to Nature Park Olenyi Ruchyi (Deer Creeks). The park is very popular with local and foreign tourists due to its location – 130 km. from Yekaterinburg which is very close in terms of Russian distances.
The park is only 30 km long and 6 km wide, but the landscape is very diverse. You will see the beauty of the Ural Mountains, so very much desired by tourists because there are no mountains within the city. The landscape of Olenyi Ruchyi is mainly Ural forest and taiga along the Serga River.
There are no deer nowadays, but plenty of beavers, elks, roebucks, hogs, weasels and martens; the latter like to destroy the hives of wild bees.
There are 48 ancient caves in the park. Finno-Ugric hunters lived in the caves in 4.000b.c. Their traces can be found on the rocks – those are inscriptions and drawings of red deer, hence the name of the Park Olenyi Ruchyi
Take a closer look and you will see a drawing of a deer in the middle
Cave Druzhba (Friendship) is 500 meters long and it’s full of water in spring time. In summer, however, you can find prints of sea shells there which prove that the sea used to divide European and Asian continents 400 million years ago.
Entrance to Cave Druzhba
make sure you have a torch or at least a cell to walk in complete darkness
Bolshoy Proval (great gap) is a vertical cave. It’s a 33m deep well with temperature +5C., so make sure to take a warm sweater before getting down even on a hot day.
Bolshoy Proval is 33 m. deep and chilly. Requires good footwear
One of the symbols of the nature park is the Angel of Hope. Similar angels can be found in Canada, Australia, Peru, Hawaii and many other countries.
The project was created by Swedish artist Lena Edval in 2004. Her angels are hugging the planet protecting it from catastrophes and terrorism.
Your wish will come true if you touch the angel's wings, but not a materialistic wish!
There are two trails in the park. The short trail is 6 km (it takes about 4 hours) and the great trail is 15 km (7 hours). In both cases take snacks and drinks with you. There are a few spots where you can make a fire and pitch a tent, should you decide to stay overnight. Alternatively there are cottages to rent at the park entrance and a beer garden run by a German expat who chose to be a permanent resident in the Ural woods.
Entrance fee: 120 roubles plus 70 roubles for a parking place.
You can ask for a guided tour (in Russian only!) 2.500 – 3.500 roubles for a group up to 20 persons.
Tel. +79041725565 www.olen.ur.ru
Getting there from Yekaterinburg: by car getting there can be complicated without a navigator. Drive 120 km down Moskovsky Trakt highway. Pass the police checkpoint near Druzhinino and petrol station, then take a right turn towards Nizhniye Sergi. Follow the sign to Mikhailovsk. When you pass Polovinka village drive 2.4 km to the crossroad then turn to the left and drive 2 km to the car parking.
by bus from bus station Yuzhny Avtovokzal (8 Marta St. 145) take a bus to Mikhailovsk or Arty. Get off before Bazhukovo (tell the driver beforehand where you are going as there is no bus stop) then walk 2 km.
Beware of ticks! Ural forests are risk areas of encephalitis ticks from May to July, so cover up and be vigilant if you are not vaccinated.
Mount Narodnaya, up to the highest peak of the Urals
Thanks to my Facebook friend Maciej Besta from Poland, we are able to do virtual tours to the highest peak of the Urals. Even though the peak is not too high - 1,894 metres (6,214 ft), I doubt, I will ever dare to get there because…well, take a look…
Today is probably below -40C. with the wind chill factor
The expedition was launched in winter 2011 by 4 Polish explorers. It was the first Polish winter ascent of Mount Narodnaya and probably the first winter traverse of all the way from Inta railway station (a town in the Komi Republic) to Narodnaya (on foot)
Mount Narodnaya is located in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and is the highest point in European Russia outside the Caucasus.
Maciej Besta: “The exact distance from Inta (a town in the Komi Republic) to Narodnaya along the truck route is 150 km. When we were going to the mountains we covered part of the distance on a truck. But, when we were coming back, we were going only on foot. I did the distance in 6 days (the last day was 50 km of non-stop march), the rest of the group did it in 7 days. However, it is essential to know that the conditions on a route were pretty OK - the snow on route was hard thanks to good weather and trucks.”
Let's the virtual tour to Narodnaya (photos and interesting comments by Maciej Besta):
Ural rivers and remote villages
My good friend Vitaliy decided to buy a datcha in some remote Ural village. The idea was to find a decent house on the river far from civilization. Fortunately, there are plenty of old partly neglected villages in the Urals and most of them are on the rivers. Rivers were the main transport arteries in 19th century, that's why Ural villages would spring up along the rivers with the windows of the houses facing the water roads.
The good news for Vitaly was that a shabby house could cost about 1 000 US dollars (of course with some refurbishing needed) What Vitaly didn't expect was the fact that roads in the the 21st century are not any better than centuries ago, i.e. there were simply no roads only forest paths. Upshot, Vitaliy didn't find a nice and cheap datcha but the photos he and his partner Sergey took in summer 2010 are priceless and I'm happy to share them with you!
p.s. Vitaliy finally bought a country house close to his native town of Nizhni Tagil. It's not a remote place but at least it has a cobblestone road built by the German prisoners after the War...
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About the Project
AskUral.com is the blog dedicated to my lovely region known as the Urals or the Ural Mountains in Russia.
My name is Luba Suslyakova. I am based in Yekaterinburg (Russia), and I would love to share useful information about my area as much as possible and be your travel adviser.
Just keep asking me via the contact form and I will come back to you with answers!