The ancient Ural Mountains on the border between Europe and Asia can be explored endlessly. Bazhov wrote his tales about them, gold and precious stones were mined here, merchants got rich, saints prayed, and scientists studied nature.
You can visit monasteries, museums and fortresses, you can swim in thermal springs or climb into the depths of caves, you can learn the mystical secrets of those forgotten by civilization - and all this is the Urals.
Top 15 sights of the Urals
Tobolsk Kremlin
In the 18th century, a stone fortress was built in Tobolsk - the only one in all of Siberia. It stands on a high hill above the city, and leads to it a wooden staircase and Pryamski vvoz, which most of all resembles a real gorge between stone walls.
Apart from the walls and towers, the Kremlin complex includes the 16th century Sophia-Assumption Cathedral, the bell tower and the warm Intercession Cathedral. At the beginning of the 18th century, a huge Gostiny Dvor was built here for trade with Asian countries - now there is a museum of Siberian entrepreneurship. Uniquely built in the gorge between the hills, the building of the rent-a treasury, which is now a historical museum. The court building houses an art gallery, and another part of the museum's exposition is located in the Palace of the Governor of the 18th century.
Ural Geological Museum
The Urals are mountains and mining. In Yekaterinburg, there is the largest Ural geological museum, with unique exhibits: the world's largest rhodonite core, one of the largest quartz crystals, a human-sized rock crystal nicknamed "Baby", etc.
The collection of the museum occupies four floors. Curious is the "Golden Room" - an exposition dedicated to the Ural treasures. These are gold nuggets, famous emeralds and alexandrites from the Malyshevsky deposit, Ural diamonds, etc. An entire room is dedicated to precious jaspers.
Arkaim
Five thousand years ago in the South Urals there was a "Country of Cities", from which many settlements remained, the largest and most mysterious of which is Arkaim. It was opened in 1987 and became a real sensation.
It was a round walled city, in which houses and workshops were found. Excavations continue here, and besides scientists, lovers of esotericism come here. Many of them consider Arkaim to be the mystical ancestral home of either the Slavs or the Aryans, rituals are held here and are looking for a special energy.
One way or another, the place is very ancient and truly mysterious - even scientists do not know much about the people who built such round cities in the Urals, and then suddenly disappeared.
Shulgan-Tash reserve and Kapova cave
A nature reserve in Bashkiria is the habitat and protection of wild bees that make the best honey in the world - Bashkir honey. Where there are bees, there are bears, there are the most brown bears in the entire Urals.
But the most important attraction of the reserve is the karst Kapova cave, in which in 1959 rock carvings were found, made 35-18 thousand years ago. Mammoths, horses are drawn here, and in 2017 they found an image of a camel. The cave system stretches for three kilometers. There is a unique underground lake - its depth is ten times greater than the width, and the entrance to the cave itself is a thirty-meter arch in the mountain.
Taganay National Park
The most picturesque national park of the Urals is located in the Chelyabinsk region. There are many interesting natural sites here. For example, Black Rock, which consists of black slate and was once the center of the black market for stolen horses.
The most colorful sights are groups of remnant stones, which have been shaped into bizarre forms by time and winds. Some of them look like fairy tale characters - this is the Valley of Fairy Tales. The three stones next to each other are called Three Brothers. Its own Stone River flows.
The park has several hiking trails from 1 km to 65 km long. The Museum of Nature works in the central estate.
Verkhoturye - the spiritual center of the Urals
Verkhoturye is one of the oldest Ural cities, which has recently been positioned as the spiritual center of the entire Urals. There are indeed many Orthodox shrines here.
- Verkhotursky Nikolaevsky Monastery, founded in 1604. It contains the relics of the main saint of the Urals - Simeon of Verkhoturye. The dimensions here are Ural: the monastery is larger than the Moscow Kremlin, and its main Cathedral of the Exaltation of the Cross is the third largest temple in Russia.
- Churches of the 18th century have been preserved in the Intercession Convent, and another saint, Kosma Verkhotursky, is buried.
- And, finally, Verkhoturye has its own Kremlin, in which the Trinity Cathedral of the early 18th century has been preserved, and there are expositions of the Verkhoturye Museum.
Museum of Wooden Architecture in Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha
In the village of Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha, there is the Transfiguration Church - a masterpiece of the Siberian baroque of the 19th century. But the most important thing is that the museum of wooden architecture is located here.
There are manor houses of the 17th-19th centuries, richly decorated not only with carvings, but also with paintings, five wooden chapels, and besides that, civil buildings. This is a wooden tower of the Aramashevsky prison, a fire station, a fire watch tower, a smithy. The building of the customs house is characteristic - it is a huge two-storey complex that combined the customs house and the post station.
Tyumen hot springs
Not far from Tyumen there is a unique natural landmark - several hot springs with healing water with a temperature of 38 to 48 degrees. They are especially popular in winter.
The five springs have a different composition of water, and they are recommended for the treatment of various diseases, but just swimming in hot mineral water is good for everyone. The closest source to the city is Sosnovy Bor: outdoor pools are located right in the coniferous forest. The hottest is Soviet or Wild.
Near each spring there are recreation centers, with hotels, cafes and the opportunity to have fun or relax with a barbecue in nature.
Museum of Nature and Man and Archeopark in Khanty-Mansiysk
In essence, it is a local history museum dedicated to the history and life of the peoples of the Khanty-Mansiysk dried apricots. There is everything that is supposed to be here: mammoth tusks, dioramas about nature, national costumes - but all this is decorated by modern designers and connected by a single philosophical concept, so this museum is one of the most interesting in the Urals.
Its branch is "Archeopark" - a park of sculptures of ancient animals and people. The most famous sculptural composition depicts a group of mammoths in full growth, and there are also bison, woolly rhinos, deer and primitive people themselves. In the evening, all this is colorfully highlighted.
Literary quarter of Yekaterinburg
In Yekaterinburg, in the Proletarskaya Street area, there is a literary quarter - a single complex of museums and monuments where you can spend the whole day. There are two museums dedicated to the literary life of the Urals - XIX and XX centuries, the museum of the writer F. Reshetnikov in a wooden house of the XIX century, the children's book museum and the Chamber Theater. There is a public garden in the quarter, in which there is a monument to A. Pushkin and a memorial plaque dedicated to the stay of the Decembrists in Siberia.
In addition, in Yekaterinburg on the street. Chapaev there is a museum of Bazhov, and a museum of D. Mamin-Sibiryak on the street. Pushkin - all this is nearby.
Unusual excursions in the Urals from private guides
Ethnographic Museum "Torum-Maa"
The open-air museum, which tells about the life of the Ob Uighurs, has four large locations: a summer pasture, a winter camp, a sanctuary and a hunting trail with cunning traps for the animal. More than three thousand genuine objects of culture and everyday life are collected here.
The museum hosts thematic exhibitions, master classes in traditional crafts, equestrian activities and much more. It makes sense to take a tour - they are led by the representatives of the indigenous peoples themselves and tell a lot of interesting things.
Chelyabinsk Museum of Fine Arts
This is one of the richest museums in the Urals. There is an excellent collection of Russian classical painting (there are O. Kiprensky, V. Vasnetsov, K. Bryullov, I. Shishkin, V. Makovsky, etc.). A large collection of ancient Russian art and icon painting. This is the famous Nevyansk icon and Perm wood carving, but there are also classic examples of Russian icon painting of the 16th century. There is a whole collection of Ural art casting and Western European porcelain of the 18th century.
Visimsky Reserve and Deer Farm
In the Middle Urals, not far from Lake Itkul in the village of Visim, there is the most famous reindeer husbandry of the Sverdlovsk region. It is part of the Visimsky Biosphere Reserve and most often its visit is included in the program of rafting down the Chusovaya River.
The farm is focused on the preparation of antlers. Noble marals brought from Altai live here, but besides them there are also spotted deer, furry Yakut horses, and most importantly - ostriches, which feel great in the Urals.
Kungur Cave and Ice Mountain
Kungurskaya cave is the most famous cave in the Urals with 100 km. from Perm, it was first described in the 18th century. This is a huge karst cave, in which a section of one and a half kilometers is perfectly equipped for tourists. It is called ice because of the beautiful ice formations that cover its surface. One of the grottoes, for example, is called Diamond - this is how ice crystals sparkle here. Laser shows, excursions with stories about the local "horror" and much more are held here. On the Ice Mountain itself there is an ancient settlement, surrounded by a rampart, legends associate it with the name of Ermak.
Dyatlov Pass
Another mysterious place in the Urals - not far from Mount Kholatchakhl in 1959, under strange circumstances, a group of tourists died. Until now, no one knows what happened, and the most fantastic versions are put forward - from the actions of aliens to the work of foreign intelligence. However, this only adds to the popularity of tourist routes in these mountains - you can go hiking, or you can even take a helicopter excursion to the mysterious pass.
