First trip

In April 2007, we went to another very interesting place, which can be easily reached by bus.
This place is called Shartash Stone Tents.
Next to them is Shartashsky Park, a favorite vacation spot for the townspeople.
This was very noticeable, since the scale of vandalism struck me with its scope and plunged me into despondency...

According to modern archaeological data on the shores of Lake Shartash
there were up to 10 settlements and sites ancient man, the earliest of which date back to the 3rd millennium BC and even to earlier periods. Moreover, these settlements had elements of ancient religious cult and commodity production.

The conditional center, sacrificial place and “metallurgical base” of these ancient settlements was a ridge of huge granite boulders, which today is called the Shartash stone tents.

Animal bones, iron slags, pieces of sheet copper, fragments of clay lining of ovens, bronze figurines, shards of dishes were found here in large quantities... And it is no coincidence that a special commission at the UN listed this place, along with Lake Baikal, Niagara Falls, to the list of the most remarkable objects on the planet.
Back in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Ural local historians believed that the remains, called “Stone Tents,” were the creation of human hands. Alexander Filimonov, author of the collection of articles “Russian Gates”, dedicated to iconic places Yekaterinburg, tells the legend that the pile of stones on the shores of Lake Shartash is nothing more than “a sanctuary built hundreds of years ago by the Atlantean giants.” The basis of this legend, according to him, is the spatial arrangement of rocky outcrops. They are “stretched” exactly along the west-east axis. This is exactly how all Christian churches are oriented these days; a clear orientation to the cardinal points also characterizes the sanctuaries of our people. Rocks Stone tents, by analogy with the temple complex, are a composition of three clusters of stone slabs: the vestibule (the place where the entrant prepares to meet the deity), the place where believers indulge in prayer and meditation, and the place where the deity itself resides.
You can climb the westernmost mountain of the Stone Tents only through a deep crevice.

This structure of the westernmost tip of the Stone Tents, as if on purpose, is intended to designate the entrance to the sanctuary as a kind of special space - emerging from the crevice upward, it is as if you are crossing an invisible line.
Finally, from the east the complex is closed by a small hill, which is crowned by a flat stone three meters long.

The space between him and central part Ekaterinburg esotericists consider the complex a platform on which the ancients performed ritual actions. According to them, the stone crowning the eastern pile of slabs is one of the most powerful energy places in the area. Streams of invisible energy attracted by the stone can be felt even by a person with the most ordinary extrasensory abilities...

Despite all the historical value, the place looks simply creepy. I won’t even talk about modern rock art; it can be found even in very remote places, let alone a city park.
There is garbage everywhere, when you look at all this, you begin to hate people...

I was, of course, amazed by the presence of such a monument right in the city. Amazing structure. As for its origin, I personally consider it an artificially constructed structure, most likely ritual. In appearance it is somewhat similar to the same Devil's Settlement, only smaller.

As for energy, I can say for sure that there is something. But apparently it affects people differently. I had an irresistible desire to get away from this place; it filled me with fear and anxiety. For Yulka and Max, everything was exactly the opposite. This stone was like honey smeared on them. They all wanted to climb on it, as if something was attracting them to this sacrificial stone.
Mysticism, and that’s all.

It's a pity that this stone cannot protect itself from vandals who paint on it...

After examining the stone tents, we went into the park, towards the lake.
The park did not impress me, it was dirty and unkempt.
But despite this we managed to take some interesting photographs.

We reached Lake Shartash, it was very windy there, but beautiful.
Having frozen a little, we turned back.

Trip two

Since I was not very satisfied with the quality of the photos I took last time, we decided to go to Stone Tents again today and did not regret it.

This is a view of Palatki from the street
The weather was sunny, although very cold.
The mood this time was much better, probably because we knew where we were going :)

And this is the very entrance to the sanctuary

And this is the view from the park
In addition to taking photographs, we really wanted to find a place for sacrifices (altar), which, according to Yulia, she had seen there before.
At first we thought that the altar was on a flat stone located on the easternmost side of the complex

Then Yulka and Max climbed to the top of one of the rocks to check. There was nothing there either.

And finally, just before we left, we accidentally discovered a sacrificial stone with a bowl for sacrifices.

They say this is a place of power. Anything is possible, since after that Max ran like crazy for about 30 minutes :)

There we also saw rock inscriptions that did not belong to our generation.

“...They are located 3 miles from the city of Yekaterinburg along the small road to Lake Shartash. Round trip cab fare 2 rubles. Easy to do and walking tour. There are two keys on the way: at the Sukhaya River and on the right - in the eastern part of the Birch Bridge, 10 fathoms from the last.

The tents are a heap granite rocks, having the appearance of towers or huge slabs superimposed on each other in chaotic disorder. On the upper side of one of the tents there is a huge hollowed-out bowl. There are suggestions that this bowl was formed by weathering in a weaker place of granite, while others, more inclined to attach religious significance to it, point to Palatki as a place of sacrifice of prehistoric man.”

V. Vesnovsky. Guide to Yekaterinburg and its environs, 1914

There are many rocks with the name “Stone Tents” in the Urals. But the most famous of them are Shartashsky, which are located directly within the city of Yekaterinburg.

These stone tents got their name from Lake Shartash, 800 meters southwest of which they are located.

The Shartash stone tents consist of several rocky outcrops, stretching from west to east for about 80 meters. The height of the rock outcrops is from 5 to 18 meters. The height above sea level is 299 meters, and above the level of Lake Shartash - 24 meters. They belong to the Shartash granite massif, which is 300 million years old.

It is assumed that in the distant past our ancestors had an altar in this place. At the top of the rock (on the western side) there is a depression, which is considered to be a round stone bowl used for sacrifices.

The first archaeological research there was carried out in 1889 by N.A. Ryzhnikov. The following year, the study was continued by S.I. Sergeev, A.F. Comes.

Numerous fragments of ceramics, stone tools, arrowheads made of stone, bones and metal, crystal beads with traces of drilling, bronze figurines, an iron knife, small burnt bones, metallurgical slag, pieces of sheet copper and so on were discovered.

They also came across finds between rock slabs, which prompted researchers of the late 19th century to assume that the Stone Tents were of artificial origin. And knowledgeable people say that these rocks were collected by giants, or rather, their children were playing, building pyramids...

At the beginning of the 20th century, getting to the Stone Tents was not so easy. They were located in a remote place, surrounded by forests and swamps. In those days they were called “Talatki Tract”.

The first detailed publication about the Shartash stone tents was written by Onesimus Kler in 1896. But eminent scientific travelers who had previously visited the Urals and Yekaterinburg deprived them of their attention.

At the same time, a threat loomed over the stone tents. Another quarry was supposed to appear here. Granite sheets were very suitable for use as slabs for sidewalks and foundations. These rocks were saved from destruction only by the efforts of the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers (UOLE). Currently, Stone Tents have the status of a natural monument of the Sverdlovsk region and an object cultural heritage.

In July 1914, during a trip to the holy places of the Urals, Princess Elizaveta Fedorovna visited Yekaterinburg. Among other things, she was shown the Shartash granite tents.

They are also known for the fact that in 1905 - 1917 the tents were a gathering place for workers for May Days. Yakov Sverdlov spoke to them several times. A memorial plaque on the rocks of the Shartash tents previously reminded of this.

Until the mid-1970s, there was a prison nearby (on the site of KOSK), and even earlier, a camp for German prisoners of war.

In 1970 - 1980, on the site of the Clean Swamp, adjacent to the Stone Tents, the Komsomolsky microdistrict was built. After the construction of this area, the Shartash stone tents entered the city limits. Interestingly, the street they adjoin has already changed its name several times in its short history. At first it belonged to Malysheva Street, being its direct continuation. Then the street began to bear the name of Rimma Yurovskaya, one of the organizers of the youth communist movement in the country. During perestroika, the street was renamed in honor of Vladimir Vysotsky.

Now the Stone Tents have turned into a favorite vacation spot for the townspeople. And despite the fact that there is a stop just a few tens of meters from the rocks public transport... There is a completely different world there, as if you are passing through an invisible portal. Even time flows differently there.

Just below the rocks, there is a granite amphitheater - in the past a gathering place for pioneers.

The archaeological site “Palkinsky Stone Tents” is located two kilometers northeast of the village of Palkino and is an island on the Iset River surrounded on three sides by a swamp and only one side facing the river bed. From the parking lot on the EKAD there is a deck made of tree trunks across the swamp, which is called a road.

According to archaeologists, during the Neolithic and Early Bronze Ages it was a full-fledged island on the Iset River, surrounded on all sides by water. In those days, the Iset was wider and fuller. Apparently, primitive people chose it for housing because it was convenient to defend themselves from enemies, build homes, fish and make tools.

Archaeological work on the island has been going on for more than half a century. It is the base camp of the Iset archaeological expedition, as evidenced by a sign on a pine tree. Unfortunately, at present, work on studying the ancient human site has been stopped due to lack of funding.

Scientists believe that there was an ancient settlement in this place, in which in the 6th-5th millennium BC. lived people engaged in hunting and fishing, as evidenced by the finds of remains of dwellings, tools, spearheads, stone weights for nets and images of prey.

The dwellings of these people, slightly sunk into the ground, were frame-and-post structures with a log roof and floor. In the interior, natural stone strata and boulders were used to construct beds and “tables”. Workshops for the production of stone tools were discovered on the territory of the monument: grinding plates, accumulations of rock pieces, anvils, tool blanks. Residents of the village used over 50 different rocks and minerals to make tools, which were found within a radius of about 70 km. This fact indicates excellent knowledge among the population natural resources edges.

The cultural layer is rich in artifacts and contains large number fragments of stone, blanks of stone tools and flakes, indicating that the tools were made on site, directly near the settlements.

Our excursion

Every year at the beginning of September our class goes out into nature to celebrate the class's birthday. At the holiday we play, organize competitions, congratulate summer birthday people, communicate, exchange impressions of summer holidays. This year we moved from primary school to secondary school, we began subject education, and, at the suggestion of history teacher Zoya Vasilievna Rakultseva, we have now decided to combine our holiday with an interesting lesson visiting our ancestors.

Zoya Vasilievna suggested visiting the site of an ancient man near Palkino. My parents rented a bus, which on the weekend of September 14, 2013 took us from school to the parking lot on the EKAD in about 40 minutes. The distance along the road was 30 km.

From the parking lot along a path and along a road through a swamp, we walked directly to the base camp of the Iset archaeological expedition. It is located approximately five hundred meters from the car park. In a spacious clearing with a fire pit, tables and benches, you can sit comfortably, have a snack, or warm up by the fire. Here we met our peers from another school.

After a short break, we went on an excursion led by Tatyana Vladimirovna Balasheva, a history teacher at gymnasium No. 130. She knows this monument very well, so our teacher, having met her here on an excursion with her class, asked to give a tour for us. First of all, we were taken to the rock painting “Running Hunter”, which was made with ocher and incisions on the wall of one of the stone tents. The drawing is difficult to discern, but, according to the teacher’s instructions, we were able to examine it.

Then we were shown a smooth-cut pebble with a hole from the teacher’s collection, and we were asked to guess what function it served for an ancient person. Having listed all sorts of ways to use it, we eventually guessed that it served as a sinker for a fishing net.

Then, near another stone tent, we saw on a vertical stone a relief in the form of a flying seagull, but the teacher said that this was a symbolic image of the antlers of an elk - the main object of hunting for people of that time.

A little lower, a deep elk footprint (hoof) is carved on a flat stone.

According to scientists, between these two images the carcass of the animal was cut up, and the notches served as a spell to appease the soul of the killed animal. So that on the next hunt the hunters will be lucky with their prey again. This is how religion was born, that is, the mystical perception of real events. A little to the side we were shown a stone sculpture of an elk’s head.

Archaeologists suggest that initially the stone, which surprisingly resembles the head of this animal, was crowned with stone horns. Then we saw a man-made depression in a flat stone - metal products were smelted here.

A little further we were shown a sawn and partly split boulder, from which stone tools were made. It was an ancient quarry.
Below the slope there was a burial ground, and if you go even lower and walk about three hundred meters, you can reach the swampy bank of the Iset River. Scientists believe that in ancient times the river approached the very tents.

The exact coordinates of the place: latitude: 56°53’26.38″N (56.89066), longitude: 60°24’59.22″E (60.41645). The excursion took about five hours, including travel there and back. Thus, we visited the site of a primitive man, saw many amazing things that we could even touch with our hands. We not only learned a lot of new things from the life of our ancestors, but we were also able to touch it!

The accessibility of this monument and the impressive visibility of its exhibits allows it to be used for school excursions and makes it convenient for visiting organized groups of tourists and guests of our city.

Just two kilometers from the center of Yekaterinburg there is a unique natural monument, beloved by all citizens and tourists - the Shartash stone tents. The structure has historical and cultural value and is a granite rock outcrop located near Lake Shartash; it is to this that they owe their name. The cliffs face an east-west direction and have a flat top that is easy to climb. Three buildings stand in a row, but have no connection with each other. The most monumental is in the center. The place is connected to the Shartashsky forest park, and in the middle of the two existing green areas there is beautiful lake Shartash.

The monumental and picturesque monument has a mattress-like shape, which was formed under the influence of weather conditions. The height of the rocks is 12 m, and the total height, including the earthen hill, is 25 m. At the foot of the formation on its northern part there is a granite amphitheater.

The main entrance to the park is shaped like a sphere cut in half. Having passed through it, travelers find themselves in front of a staircase leading directly to the tents.

Previously, visitors entering the rocks from the city side could see a memorial plaque installed here, a reminder that before the Great October Revolution this site became the site of illegal workers' meetings, May Days and gatherings of the Bolsheviks in 1905-1917, at which the leader often spoke Ural Bolsheviks Ya. M. Sverdlov. This memorial plaque has now been demolished.

Currently, stone tents are classified as Kirovsky district Yekaterinburg and are considered one of the favorite vacation spots of the townspeople. Hiking, cycling or skiing take place here regularly, local residents have picnics and relax with children in the fresh air. Not long ago, stone tents were located in the forest outside the city, but since Yekaterinburg began to grow in the 1980s, they have entered it.

Story

The Urals are rich in rocks called stone tents. They all have a common slab shape, which was formed due to the weathering of granites. The most famous are Shartashsky. They consist of several rocky outcrops stretching from west to east for approximately 80 m.

Modern archaeological data report that the shores of Lake Shartash were home to ten settlements, and there were also sites of ancient people here, the earliest of which date back to the 3rd century BC. e. Their conditional center, sacrificial place and so-called “metallurgical base” was a ridge of impressive granite boulders, today called the Shartash stone tents. On the top of the western side of one of the rocks is a round stone bowl, which was presumably used for sacrifice.

For a long time, Ural local historians had a version that the place served as a sanctuary, built more than a hundred thousand years ago by the Atlantean giants.

The place has attracted scientists and amateur enthusiasts throughout its history, but only in 1889 N. A. Ryzhnikov became the organizer of the first archaeological research. A year later, his work was continued by S.I. Sergeev, A.F. Comes and other interested people. As a result of the excavations, a huge number of fragments of ceramics and stone arrowheads were found, as well as iron knives and bronze figurines, pieces of copper sheets, stone tools and burnt bones. Some of the finds were obtained between rock slabs, which prompted scientists of the late 19th century to think about the artificial origin of the monument.

Even 100 years ago, getting to the stone tents was quite difficult. They were in an inaccessible place and were surrounded by forests and swamps. At that time they were called “Talatka Tract”.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the stone tents were under threat of destruction: the granite layers of the monument could be used as slabs for foundations and sidewalks, and they also wanted to build another quarry on this site. The rocks were saved through the efforts of the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers.

In the summer of 1914, Princess Elizaveta Fedorovna, who visited the holy places of the Urals, became familiar with the Shartash granite tents, which at that time had already become a regular gathering place for workers. Photographer N. N. Vvedensky captured a group photograph of this event.

In the 1970-1980s, the area next to the stone tents, where the Clean Swamp had previously been located, began to be built up. After the new district was formed, the Shartashsky monument entered the city limits.

Now

Currently, the stone tents have been given the status of a natural monument of the Sverdlovsk region, and they are also an object of cultural heritage due to the archaeological finds made here.

Next to the newly installed entrance portal is a talisman stone dedicated to natural formation. Wishes are written on it for everyone entering the park through the portal; the amulet sign also contains several symbols that communicate the origin of the world from chaos and the foundations of the perfection of all existence - love, knowledge and justice.

At any time of the year, life is in full swing here; The city has long loved the place, which is explained by its convenient transport links: a public transport stop is located a few tens of meters from the monument. Just below the stone tents you can find a granite amphitheater; pioneers used to gather at this place. It has nothing to do with antiquity, however, it fits very organically into the overall landscape. Some of the destroyed elements of the amphitheater were restored not so long ago, as evidenced by the relatively fresh concrete inserts.

Walking near the natural monument, you can stumble upon a no longer functioning triangulation tower, which rises 14 meters above the ground. At its top there is a small platform, a staircase leads to it.

Clean fresh air, an abundance of pines and ferns, as if transporting you to a fabulous past, gigantic slabs of rocks - all this becomes another reason to look into a wonderful place.

Park

The Shartash Forest Park is a specially protected natural area; it encircles Lake Shartash on the southern side like a huge horseshoe. Pine trees grow here, you can find planted poplars and wild apple trees. The forest area is inhabited by rodents, there are many birds, tourists and local residents often meet squirrels, which are not at all afraid of people and take food from their hands.

The areas of the park that are accessible to visit are equipped with a road and path network; the park has trail markings and information boards; guests of this place can relax on numerous benches.

Shartash stone tents (Ekaterinburg, Russia) - detailed description, location, reviews, photos and videos.

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Shartash stone tents are a unique natural monument, 2 km from the very center of Yekaterinburg. The funny name hides huge rock formations that appeared many years ago. Where does this strange name come from for the remnant stones? It turns out that it comes from the rare mattress-like shapes of the rocks, which they acquired due to the weathering of granite rocks. They are called Shartash because of their proximity to Lake Shartash, located just a kilometer away. The Shartash rocks are very ancient; they belong to the granite massif of the same name, which is more than 300 million years old.

For example, it is difficult not to notice a rounded recess in the stone where sacrifices most likely took place. Back in the 19th century, researchers found here a huge number of household items, weapons, jewelry, traces of metal processing and much more. Interesting finds were also discovered between the rocks. It was this fact that led researchers to the version about the artificial origin of the breed.

At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a danger of destruction of the unique natural monument- it was supposed to create quarries here. However, members of the Ural Society of Natural History Lovers managed to defend the complex. Nowadays, the Shartash stone tents have a special environmental status and are protected by the state.

After World War II, a prison and a camp for German prisoners were located near the monument. In the 70s large-scale housing construction began here, and houses were erected not far from the Shartash tents. Since then, this territory has been part of Yekaterinburg.

What to see

Today, stone Shartash tents are a favorite vacation spot for city residents. Here you can walk, enjoying the wonderful air, ride a bike, or simply contemplate the fascinating landscape, as if preserved from prehistoric times - gigantic slabs of rocks, pine trees and ferns. And nearby there is a public transport stop, which will take you to a modern, rapidly developing city in a few minutes.

Walking through the expanses of the forest, you can stumble upon an amphitheater, which, however, has nothing to do with antiquity, but fits into the landscape quite organically. Or go to the shore of the lake, where children love to swim and seasoned fishermen love to fish throughout the summer.

Practical information

Address: Ekaterinburg, st. Vysotsky. Website.

You can get there from Yekaterinburg by tram or bus to the “Kamennye Tent” stop. By car you must follow the street. Malysheva, which turns into st. Vysotsky, where the tents are located. The entrance is opposite the end of the Rossiya Kosk.