Man pupu ner Mansiysk blockheads. Description of Man-Pupu-Ner. Information about the Manpupuner Plateau

April 10th, 2017

Someone thought it was alien landscape Or hand-drawn graphics? Not at all. When I see those real natural objects, I understand - how much I still don’t know, and even more so I haven’t seen on our planet Earth. I have long dreamed of going there and touching them with my hand.

After all, we habitually believe that in search of the wonders of the world, you must certainly go somewhere far away to distant lands in distant lands.

And it's right here, right next to it.

Age of the Greats geographical discoveries, we say, long gone. It is all the more surprising that even in the 21st century, when, it would seem, all roads have been traveled, you can discover incredible things right next to you, which few people knew about until now.

Among these wonders of the world is the unique Manpupuner Plateau, which lurks in Komi among the mountain dark coniferous forests of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve. "Small mountain of idols" - this is how "Manpupuner" is translated from the language of the Mansi people.

Komi hunters also call this place Ichet Bolvanoiz, or Small Bolvany. Idols are seven separately standing at an altitude of 700 meters above sea level. stone pillars. The lowest is 22 meters, and the tallest goes up 50 meters - like a 12-story building. This area is inaccessible. Perhaps this explains the fact that few have heard of the plateau. Although it bears the title of one of the seven wonders of Russia.

Stepping on the plateau, you find yourself in some other world. And everyone feels it in their own way: someone experiences an incredible feeling of freedom, someone, stretched out on soft and slightly crisp white moss, is charged with energy, but some are overcome by a strange psychological discomfort, a feeling of anxiety. This is from the fact that it is impossible to get rid of the feeling that idols are watching the guests.

Seven giants, lined up in a row against the backdrop of a transparent blue sky and endless taiga, upon closer examination, suddenly acquire obvious human features. Ahead of everyone is a real shaman with a raised hand. Here is an old man with a wrinkled face. Next to him is a typical Indian with an aquiline nose. With a certain angle and a certain amount of fantasy in the observer, one or another image appears in each of the idols. They stand with their faces turned to one side, as if holding - in the full sense of the word - their noses into the wind. And when you look at these frozen figures, the question involuntarily arises: how did they appear here?

The name Manpupuner migrated to geographic Maps from the Mansi language, and most likely entered the language of this people several centuries ago, when people tried to find an explanation for everything unusual, creating legends and myths. Mansi explained the appearance of stone pillars as follows: they say, seven Samoyed giants turned into idols, heading through the mountains to Siberia to destroy the Vogul people. The Samoyeds are the old name for the peoples who speak Samoyedic languages, that is, the Nenets, Nganasans, and Selkups.

And up until the 30s of the 20th century, the Voguls were called Mansi. And supposedly when the Samoyeds climbed the mountain that is today called Manpupuner, their leader-shaman saw in front of him the top of another mountain - Yalpingner, sacred to the Voguls. He threw his tambourine in horror, and all his companions immediately turned to stone. When exactly this legend was born is not known for certain, however, probably since then, Manpupuner has become an object of worship and has actually been revered by local tribes as a protector mountain, guarding their peace, protecting them from the invasion of hostile tribes. And given that only a few could visit the mountain area, since the road to it was carefully hidden, it is not surprising that Manpupuner was known among the people as a sacred place.

At the same time, these lands could be known not only to Mansi hunters and nomads, who drove countless herds of deer. In the neighborhood of the Mansi, the Komi traditionally lived, which, interestingly, preserved a slightly different mythical interpretation of the origin of stone idols. According to their beliefs, these are seven petrified brothers who did not want to marry their beautiful sister to an evil shaman, for which they paid with their lives. Thus, the Komi people give Manpupuner a slightly different sacred meaning, bringing to the fore both cruelty and the great power of shamanism. The Komi believed that anyone whose foot steps into the possession of stone blockheads will suffer punishment. And, apparently, the shamans, using these legends in their own interests, turned the tract into a forbidden territory, a kind of “place of power”.

“Both the Mansi and the Komi unequivocally deified the grandiose stone idols, worshiped them, but climbing the Manpupuner was considered undesirable, and for some it was completely forbidden,” says folklorist Oleg Ulyashev. - Women were strictly forbidden to approach blockheads, symbolizing male deities. The ban did not apply only to shamans. Sacrifice was hardly the case here, and if it did, it was extremely rare and irregular. There are places in the North where sacrificial rites were performed, for example, once a year or even once every 50 years. And Manpupuner is a special case, the local tribes did not seek to disturb the idols once again.”

The top of the idols was revered as sacred until the 20-30s of the XX century, until the first researchers came to this territory. In 1930, to preserve the unique natural complex It was decided to create a reserve. Since then, although rarely, researchers and travelers get here, and therefore there are more versions of the origin of idols.

The man-made version of the appearance of blockheads has its supporters. They believe that we see figures made long ago by masters, which, under the influence of wind and water, have lost their clear features. But who carved them and why? If we discard the alien version, it remains to suspect the ancient shamans, who needed the idols to perform rituals. However, most researchers are sure that there is no need to talk about the man-made idols. The most skillful master, nature, worked on their creation from beginning to end. Geologists assure that in the origin stone giants there is nothing mystical.

They are composed of sericite-quartzite schists, and owe their original shape to the effects of water and wind, as well as to the temperature difference inherent in a sharply continental climate. For millennia, and perhaps even millions of years, these factors worked the mountain, destroying the softer rock, isolating from it first a wall-like rock, which became narrower and narrower, and then cutting it into separate pillars. The process was also facilitated by the melting of glaciers, which in ancient times covered this part of the Ural Mountains with a solid shell. In essence, the idols are the unique remains of the mountain, the vertebrae of its skeleton. “Basically, in Ural mountains there are many such formations, - says an employee of the Geological Museum. A. A. Chernova Institute of Geology, Komi Science Center Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexey Ievlev. “But these are really striking in their size. It is also surprising that when the surrounding rocks collapsed due to various factors, including tectonic movements, these survived. Their phenomenon is in their resilience."

If you approach the remnants very close, without being afraid of the overhanging stone mass, you will see many deep, almost horizontal and less pronounced vertical small cracks in the rock. This is evidence that nature continues its painstaking work today. Fresh collapses of stone blocks at the foot of the idols are another confirmation of this. Lichens also have a gradual destructive effect on the breed, which, according to the observations of the reserve’s workers, every year conquer all more space on the bodies of idols. “All this only means,” says I. O. Director of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve Dominik Kudryavtsev, - that, alas, idols do not belong to the category of eternal ones. However, their age is not at all short - for several millennia they will surely rise on the plateau, striking travelers with their grandeur.

Evgeny Kalinin, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Geology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

- Similar remnants can be seen in the Krasnoyarsk reserve "Stolby", but there they consist of granite. And the remnants of the Manpupuner plateau are composed of quartzite-sandstones and crystalline schists. But, oddly enough, they are almost harder than granite rocks. I personally approached the blockheads with a hammer to beat off part of the rock, and I succeeded with difficulty. Imagine the strength! Well, the age of these idols, respectively, is no less solid. According to our estimates, it is 490 million years. It is no coincidence that this object was endowed with some mystical meaning in previous centuries, but my colleagues and I did not find modern beliefs associated with it.

Yuri Piotrovsky, Senior Research Fellow of the State Hermitage Museum, Deputy Head for Science of the Department of Archeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia:

- Megaliths for scientists represent a huge field of activity. For example, there have been attempts to define single center emergence of such monuments. Now we understand that it is very difficult. There is also a theory that all megaliths can be structures of one people. A controversial idea, and it is not yet possible to confirm it. Megaliths are phenomena of human culture, and they are associated with worship. But with the worship not of stones, but of what, as people have always believed, is inside the stones. However, there is a condition: megaliths are man-made objects, and the remains of the Manpupuner plateau are not such, they are geological monuments. Although this did not prevent them from worshiping in the past.

At the Voguls - local population Ural - there are other points of view. There are at least three legends explaining the origin of the Little Boobies (that's how it sounds in the translation Manpupuner from the Mansi language).

According to one version, for the Younger Brothers, i.e. six Samoyed giants were chasing the Voguls while they were trying to get beyond the Stone Belt. The giants had already almost caught up with the Vogulis, when suddenly, a shaman with a white face Yalpingner appeared in front of them. He raised his hand and managed to utter one spell, after which all the giants turned to stone. Unfortunately, Jalpingner himself has also petrified. Since then, they have been standing against each other.

Another legend says that seven giant shamans followed Ripheus to destroy the Voguls and Mansi. When they climbed the Coip, they saw the sacred mountain of the Voguls Yalpingner (the most Holy place for the Voguls) and understood the greatness and power of the Vogul gods. They were petrified with horror, only the leader of the giants, the chief shaman, managed to raise his hand to cover his eyes from Yalpyngner. But this did not save him - he, too, turned into stone.

In the end, we left the most romantic legend about the origin Manpupuner. As the myth says, there lived one tribe of Yugrs (Voguls, Mansi and other tribes related to them were called by a common name - Yugrs). It was so rich and happy that there were legends about it far beyond the Stone Belt. The tribe lived under the auspices of Yalpyngner, and their leader was the mighty and wise Kuuschai. The leader had a daughter, the beautiful Ayum. There was no one more beautiful than her. Torev (the bear), who lived on the other side of the Ural Mountains, found out about her beauty. And then, one day, Torev came to

Kuushai demanded from him Ayum as his wife, for which Ayum herself refused. Torev was very angry, called his giant brothers and decided to destroy the Yugrs, and take Ayum by force as his wife. Approaching the stone city where Ayum was, the giant brothers began to besiege it. A great battle ensued and the power was on the side of the giants. Then Ayum asked the good spirits of Yalpyngner to convey the news of the attack on the city to her brother Pygrychum, who was hunting at that time. But Pygrychum was far away. The giants broke into the city, destroyed the crystal palace, the fragments of which scattered over the Riphean mountains (since then, rock crystal has been found here). The Ugra-Vogul tribe was forced to flee. And so, when the giants had already almost caught up with Ayum and her compatriots, Pygrychum suddenly appeared with a golden shield and a shining sword, which the spirits of Yalpingner gave him. Pygrychum sent a beam of light reflected from his shield into Torev's eyes and he turned to stone. His brothers were petrified in the same way. And so it arose Manpupuner.

As you can see, in all the legends, one constant motive remains - the presence of giants who wanted to destroy the Vogul tribe and the magical help of Yalpingner. It must be said that Man-Pupu-Ner always been sacred place for the Voguls, but his strength was somewhat negative. Climb up the plateau Manpupuner it was strictly forbidden for an ordinary person, only shamans had access there, to recharge their magical powers. Very close to the plateau Manpupuner there are several more Vogul sanctuaries - Tore-Porre-Iz, Solat-Chakhl (Dead Mountain), where, according to legend, nine Mansi hunters died, and where the legendary group of Igor Dyatlov died (already in our times).

By the way, the Dyatlov group also consisted of nine people. Yalpyngner himself is also not far away, the Prayer Stone is relatively close (on the territory of the Vishera Reserve), where there was also a temple and a sacred cave of the Voguls and Mansi. As you can see, not only Manpupuner deserves the epithet magical and magical, but undoubtedly he is the most beautiful and impressive.

And more about the legends...

Legend of the Golden Baba.

Since ancient times there the legend of the Golden Baba, which is guarded by Mansi shamans. People used to think that this is some kind of material figure or sculpture, and they tried to find it. This is actually a treasure, but not a precious metal, but a spiritual treasure - this is what the artist Alexander Kaminsky thinks. More than once during the month he saw a luminous golden female figure against the background of a dark peak. “I think that this is one of the images of the Mother of the World.” (Or maybe it's the Mistress copper mountain Pavel Bazhov?)

Mansi legends.

However, the Mansi legends are the most interesting. ManPupuNer in Mansi it means "Small mountain of idols", and the blockheads themselves - ern pupygyt - "Nenets idols". According to a legend reflecting the ancient clashes between the Mansi and the Nenets, the Samoyed giants decided to go to war with the Mansi. They climbed the mountain and saw Tagt-Talyakh-Yalpyng-Ner-Oyka, terrible in his anger, not far off. This is “The Holy Old Man Ural at the top of the Northern Sosva”, and the giants turned into stone pillars. So they stand. And their leader-shaman dropped his tambourine. The tambourine rolled and turned into a huge mountain Coyp.

Nearby is Mount Pecherya-Talyakh-Chakhl - a mountain at the top of the Pechora. These mountains are sacred the Mansi people.

old-timer Russian population and epics.

Blockhead - here means an idol, an idol. It is interesting that the old-timer Russian population in the villages along the upper reaches of the Pechora calls stone idols heroes, transferring epic images to the Northern Urals. However, there is another name - the Male Stone with an interesting commentary recorded in the middle of the 19th century: “Watching from afar the pillars with which the peaks of the Male Stone are crowned, one might think that this mountain is inhabited by giant people. In the stories of superstitious peasants, there is a legend that the Ostyaks, making a sacrifice on its peaks, were turned to stone by the power of the Almighty as a punishment for idolatry. Komi is told that these are 7 robbers who were petrified according to the word of God until the day of the Last Judgment.

Ural - the birthplace of civilization?

According to one theory, the Urals was the epicenter of the birth of modern civilization. The country of Hyperborea was here - the foremother of world civilization, from which holy cities The worlds in which the Hyperboreans lived were the Aryans. Only in Chelyabinsk region archaeologists have found 23 such cities, the most famous of them is Arkaim. And recently, another city was found in Bashkiria, called Bakshay, which is 1000 years older than Arkaim. All these cities are interconnected by energy channels.

Once upon a time stone statues were objects of the Mansi cult. It was believed that spirits inhabited the plateau, and only shamans were allowed to visit them on the mountain. Manpupuner (Man-pupy-nyer) is translated from the Mansi language as "Small mountain of idols". According to one of the local legends, six giants were chasing the Voguls (Voguls is another name for the Mansi people) and almost overtook them, when suddenly a shaman with a white face named Yalpingner appeared in front of them. He raised his hand and managed to cast a spell, after which all the giants turned to stone, but Yalpingner himself also turned into stone. Since then, they have been standing against each other. Travelers who have visited the plateau say that the place is really unusual in terms of energy, all thoughts subside there and peace sets in.

Photo by Peter Zakharov:

opens from the plateau beautiful view on the virgin nature of the Northern Urals.

Photo by Peter Zakharov:

Photo by Sergey Makurin:

Despite the fact that Manpupuner is located in a remote area, this place is gaining more and more popularity among travelers and is becoming one of the most actively visited objects. sports tourism. To get to the plateau, tourists have to walk through the taiga for three days or hire a helicopter.
The growing popularity of the pillars is explained by the fact that in 2008 they took 5th place in the competition of 7 wonders of Russia and 1st place among the wonders of the Northwestern Federal District.

On the way to Manpupuner:

In order to preserve the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve (on the territory of which the pillars are located) in its original form, only 12 travelers will be allowed to visit Manpupuner at the same time, while the total number of visits to the plateau should not exceed 4 per month. Previously, tourists could freely come to winter period, now it will be possible to see the wonder of the world only from mid-June to mid-September. To control the number of visitors to the plateau, a wooden house 5x8 meters was built, where an employee of the reserve will be constantly located, checking the availability of permits for visiting. Tourists can stay in this house in case of bad weather. The house is heated with an economical stove, firewood for which will be delivered in winter by snowmobile.

Get more detailed information about Manpupuner can be found on the website http://www.manpupuner.ru.

Comment: I got information and photos in good quality remnants on the Manpupuner plateau. Let's look at this miracle of nature, and maybe the ancient creations of the rational part of nature ... because there are no unambiguous opinions yet.

Original taken from masterok to Mansiysk Bolvany

Someone thought it was an alien landscape or hand-drawn graphics? Not at all...

We habitually believe that in search of the wonders of the world, you must certainly go somewhere far away. After all, the era of the great geographical discoveries, we say, is long gone. It is all the more surprising that even in the 21st century, when, it would seem, all roads have been traveled, you can discover incredible things right next to you, which few people knew about until now.

Among these wonders of the world is the unique Manpupuner Plateau, which lurks in Komi among the mountain dark coniferous forests of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve. “Small mountain of idols” - this is how “Manpupuner” is translated from the language of the Mansi people.

Komi hunters also call this place Ichet Bolvanoiz, or Small Bolvany. The idols are seven separate stone pillars at an altitude of 700 meters above sea level. The lowest one is 22 meters, and the tallest goes up 50 meters - like a 12-story building. This area is inaccessible. Perhaps this explains the fact that few have heard of the plateau. Although it bears the title of one of the seven wonders of Russia.

Seven giants, lined up in a row against the backdrop of a transparent blue sky and endless taiga, upon closer examination, suddenly acquire obvious human features. Ahead of all - a real shaman with a raised hand. Here is an old man with a wrinkled face. Next to him is a typical Indian with an aquiline nose. With a certain angle and a certain amount of fantasy in the observer, one or another image appears in each of the idols. They stand with their faces turned to one side, as if holding - in the full sense of the word - their noses into the wind. And when you look at these frozen figures, the question involuntarily arises: how did they appear here?

The name Manpupuner migrated to geographical maps from the Mansi language, and most likely entered the language of this people several centuries ago, when people tried to find an explanation for everything unusual, creating legends and myths. Mansi explained the appearance of stone pillars as follows: they say, seven Samoyed giants turned into idols, heading through the mountains to Siberia to destroy the Vogul people. The Samoyeds are the old name for the peoples who speak Samoyedic languages, that is, the Nenets, Nganasans, Selkups.

“Both the Mansi and the Komi unequivocally deified the grandiose stone idols, worshiped them, but climbing the Manpupuner was considered undesirable, and for some it was completely forbidden,” says folklorist Oleg Ulyashev. - Women were strictly forbidden to approach boobs, symbolizing male deities. The ban did not apply only to shamans. Sacrifice was hardly the case here, and if it did, it was extremely rare and irregular. There are places in the North where sacrificial rites were performed, for example, once a year or even once every 50 years. And Manpupuner is a special case, the local tribes did not seek to disturb the idols once again.”

The top of the idols was revered as sacred until the 20-30s of the XX century, until the first researchers came to this territory. In 1930, in order to preserve the unique natural complex, it was decided to create a reserve. Since then, although rarely, researchers and travelers get here, and therefore there are more versions of the origin of idols.

The man-made version of the appearance of blockheads has its supporters. They believe that we see figures made long ago by masters, which, under the influence of wind and water, have lost their clear features. But who carved them and why? If we discard the alien version, it remains to suspect the ancient shamans, who needed the idols to perform rituals. However, most researchers are sure that there is no need to talk about the man-made idols. The most skillful master - nature - worked on their creation from beginning to end. Geologists assure that there is nothing mystical in the origin of stone giants.

They are composed of sericite-quartzite schists, and owe their original shape to the effects of water and wind, as well as to the temperature difference inherent in a sharply continental climate. For millennia, and perhaps even millions of years, these factors worked the mountain, destroying the softer rock, isolating from it first a wall-like rock, which became narrower and narrower, and then cutting it into separate pillars. The process was also facilitated by the melting of glaciers, which in ancient times covered this part of the Ural Mountains with a solid shell. In essence, the idols are the unique remains of the mountain, the vertebrae of its skeleton. “In principle, there are many such formations in the Ural Mountains,” says an employee of the Geological Museum. A. A. Chernov of the Institute of Geology of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexey Ievlev. - But these really amaze with their size. It is also surprising that when the surrounding rocks collapsed due to various factors, including tectonic movements, these survived. Their phenomenon is in their resilience."

If you approach the remnants very close, without being afraid of the overhanging stone mass, you will see many deep, almost horizontal and less pronounced vertical small cracks in the rock. This is evidence that nature continues its painstaking work today. Fresh collapses of stone blocks at the foot of the idols are another confirmation of this. Lichens also have a gradual destructive effect on the breed, which, according to the observations of the reserve's workers, every year win more and more space on the bodies of idols. “All this only means,” he says. O. Director of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve Dominik Kudryavtsev, - that, alas, idols do not belong to the category of eternal ones. However, their age is not at all short - for several millennia they will surely rise on the plateau, striking travelers with their grandeur.

Evgeny Kalinin, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, Leading Researcher at the Institute of Geology, Komi Scientific Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

Similar remnants can be seen in the Krasnoyarsk reserve "Stolby", but there they consist of granite. And the remnants of the Manpupuner plateau are composed of quartzite-sandstones and crystalline schists. But, oddly enough, they are almost harder than granite rocks. I personally approached the blockheads with a hammer to beat off part of the rock, and I succeeded with difficulty. Imagine the strength! Well, the age of these idols, respectively, is no less solid. According to our estimates, it is 490 million years. It is no coincidence that this object was endowed with some mystical meaning in previous centuries, but my colleagues and I did not find modern beliefs associated with it.

Yuri Piotrovsky, Senior Researcher at the State Hermitage Museum, Deputy Head for Science of the Department of Archeology of Eastern Europe and Siberia:

Megaliths for scientists represent a huge field of activity. For example, there were attempts to determine a single center for the emergence of such monuments. Now we understand that it is very difficult. There is also a theory that all megaliths can be structures of one people. A controversial idea, and it is not yet possible to confirm it. Megaliths are phenomena of human culture, and they are associated with worship. But with the worship not of stones, but of what, as people have always believed, is inside the stones. However, there is a condition: megaliths are man-made objects, and the remains of the Manpupuner plateau are not such, they are geological monuments. Although this did not prevent them from worshiping in the past.

The Voguls - the local population of the Urals - have other points of view. There are at least three legends explaining the origin of the Little Boobies (that's how it sounds in the translation Manpupuner from the Mansi language).

Another legend says that seven giant shamans followed Ripheus to destroy the Voguls and Mansi. When they climbed the Koip, they saw the sacred mountain of the Voguls Yalpyngner (the holiest place for the Voguls) and understood the greatness and power of the Vogul gods. They were petrified with horror, only the leader of the giants, the chief shaman, managed to raise his hand to cover his eyes from Yalpyngner. But this did not save him - he, too, turned into stone.

As you can see, in all the legends, one constant motive remains - the presence of giants who wanted to destroy the Vogul tribe and the magical help of Yalpingner. It must be said that Man-Pupu-Ner has always been a sacred place for the Voguls, but its power was somewhat negative. Climb up the plateau Manpupuner it was strictly forbidden for an ordinary person, only shamans had access there, to recharge their magical powers. Very close to the plateau Manpupuner there are several more Vogul sanctuaries - Tore-Porre-Iz, Solat-Chakhl (Dead Mountain), where, according to legend, nine Mansi hunters died, and where the legendary group of Igor Dyatlov died (already in our times).

And more about the legends...

Legend of the Golden Baba.

Mansi legends.

Nearby is Mount Pecherya-Talyakh-Chakhl - a mountain at the top of the Pechora. These mountains are sacred to the Mansi people.

Old-timer Russian population and epics.

Blockhead - here means an idol, an idol. It is interesting that the old-timer Russian population in the villages along the upper reaches of the Pechora calls stone idols heroes, transferring epic images to the Northern Urals. However, there is another name - the Male Stone with an interesting commentary recorded in the middle of the 19th century: “Watching from a distance the pillars with which the peaks of the Male Stone are crowned, one might think that this mountain is inhabited by giant people. In the stories of superstitious peasants, there is a legend that the Ostyaks, making a sacrifice on its peaks, were turned to stone by the power of the Almighty as a punishment for idolatry. Komi is told that these are 7 robbers who were petrified according to the word of God until the day of the Last Judgment.

Ural - the birthplace of civilization?

According to one theory, the Urals was the epicenter of the birth of modern civilization. The country of Hyperborea was here - the mother of the world civilization, from which the sacred cities of Light remained, in which the Hyperboreans - Aryans lived. Only in the Chelyabinsk region, archaeologists have found 23 such cities, the most famous of them is Arkaim. And recently, another city was found in Bashkiria, called Bakshay, which is 1000 years older than Arkaim. All these cities are interconnected by energy channels.

Weathering pillars or Manpupuner or Mansi blockheads - a geological monument in the Troitsko-Pechora region of the Komi Republic of Russia.

Weathering pillars are located on the territory of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve on Mount Man-Pupu-ner (in the Mansi language - “ small mountain idols"), in the interfluve of the Ilych and Pechora rivers. The second name is "Bolvano-iz", which is translated from the Komi language as "Mountain of idols". From here came the popular simplified name of the remnants - "Doodles".

Ostantsev - 7, height from 30 to 42 m. Numerous legends are associated with the Manpupuner, before it was the object of the Mansi cult.

The Manpupuner weathering pillars are considered one of the seven wonders of Russia.

About 200 million years ago, in place of stone pillars were high mountains. Rain, snow, wind, frost and heat gradually destroyed the mountains and, first of all, weak rocks. Hard sericite-quartzite schists, of which the remnants are composed, were destroyed less and survived to this day, and soft rocks were destroyed by weathering and carried away by water and wind into depressions in the relief.

One pillar, 34 meters high, stands somewhat apart from the others; it resembles a huge bottle turned upside down. Six others lined up at the edge of the cliff. The pillars have bizarre outlines and, depending on the place of inspection, either resemble the figure of a huge man, or the head of a horse or a ram. In the past, the Mansi deified the grandiose stone sculptures, worshiped them, but climbing the Manpupuner was the greatest sin.

They are quite far from inhabited places. Only trained tourists can get to the pillars. To do this, you need to get a pass from the administration of the reserve. From the side Sverdlovsk region And Perm Territory There is hiking route, from the Republic of Komi - a mixed route - automobile, water, foot route.

Ancient Mansi legend

“In ancient times, in the dense forests that approached the very Ural Mountains, the powerful Mansi tribe lived. The men of the tribe were so strong that they defeated a bear one on one, and so fast that they could catch up with a running deer.

In the Mansi yurts there were a lot of furs and skins of dead animals. From them, women made beautiful fur clothes. Good spirits that lived on sacred mountain Yalping-Nyer, helped the Mansi, because the wise leader Kuuschai, who was in great friendship with them, was at the head of the tribe. The leader had a daughter - the beautiful Aim and son Pygrychum. Far beyond the ridge spread the news of the beauty of young Aim. She was slender, like a pine tree growing in a dense forest, and she sang so well that deer from the Ydzhyd-Lyagi valley came running to listen to her.

Heard about the beauty of the daughter of the leader of the Mansi and the giant Torev (Bear), whose family hunted in the mountains of Haraiz. He demanded that Kuuschai give him his daughter Aim. But she refused, laughing Aim, from this proposal. The enraged Torev called his brothers the giants and moved to the top of Torre Porre Iz in order to seize Aim by force. Suddenly, when Pygrychum was on the hunt with a part of the soldiers, giants appeared in front of the gate stone city. The whole day there was a hot battle near the fortress walls.

Under clouds of arrows, Aim rose to high tower and shouted: - Oh, good spirits, save us from destruction! Send Pygrychum home! At the same moment, lightning flashed in the mountains, thunder boomed, and black clouds covered the city with a thick veil. - Insidious, - Torev growled, seeing Aim on the tower. He rushed forward, crushing everything in his path. And only Aim had time to descend from the tower, as it collapsed under the terrible blow of the giant's club. Then Torev again raised his huge club and struck at the crystal castle. The castle crumbled into small pieces, which were picked up by the wind and carried all over the Urals. Since then, transparent fragments of rock crystal have been found in the Ural Mountains.

Aim with a handful of warriors hid under the cover of darkness in the mountains. In the morning we heard the noise of the chase. And suddenly, when the giants were ready to seize them, in the rays rising sun Pygrychum appeared with a shiny shield and a sharp sword in his hands, which were given to him by good spirits. Pygrychum turned the shield towards the sun, and a fiery sheaf of light hit the giant in the eyes, who threw the tambourine aside. Before the eyes of the astonished brothers, the giant and the tambourine thrown aside began to slowly turn to stone. In horror, the brothers rushed back, but, falling under the beam of Pygrychum's shield, they themselves turned into stones.

Since then, for thousands of years, they have been standing on the mountain, which the people called Man-Pupu-Nyer (Mountain of stone idols), and not far from it rises the majestic peak of Koyp (Drum).

Another ancient Mansi legend tells about seven giants who went through the plateau in order to destroy the Vogul people. But when they reached the top of Man-Pupu-Nera, they saw the sacred Vogul mountain Yalping-ner in front of them. The sight of her terrified the giants, and they turned to stone, and the drum, thrown aside by their leader-shaman, turned into mountain peak south of Manpupuner - Koip, in Vogul - is the name of a percussion musical instrument.

Excursions to the Pillars of Weathering

In 2016, the reserve was closed for hiking. Driving on vehicles is also prohibited. Helicopter excursions have become an alternative; a helipad is being prepared.

Manpupuner is a hard-to-reach, uninhabited object of nature, but in combination with unforgettable beauty- its remoteness from the infrastructure creates an unusual egregor around stone boulders.

The virgin forests surrounding the reserve, legends floating in the air that the pillars are idols and the habitat of various spirits leave a truly fabulous, inexplicable impression of the greatness of this place.

The Man-Pupu-Ner plateau is called the Ural Stonehenge. And indeed, seeing weathering pillars, this is the word that comes to mind. There are beliefs that the plateau is a refuge for spirits.

Attractions around Manpupuner

Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve

One of the oldest nature reserves in the Urals was founded in 1930 to protect virgin forests, which are today included in the World Heritage List. natural heritage UNESCO. The objects of protection on protected area Republic of Komi, covering over 720 thousand hectares.

The flora of the reserve is represented by almost 660 plant species. Animal world includes over 230 species of birds and almost 50 mammals - brown bears, ermines, otters, wolverines, beavers, elks. Birds are especially numerically represented by the grouse family - hazel grouse, capercaillie, black grouse. Among the inhabitants of the water depths, salmon, grayling, and taimen are of value.

Losefarm

From the first years of the founding of the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve, the world's first farm for the domestication of elks was created. Animals were quite easily tamed. Initially, they were planned to be used as mounts in teams. During the existence of the moose farm, more than 300 animals have been raised, a significant research work for the study of the animal, the population of moose in the reserve has been increased. Smart animals living in the forest come to the farm before the appearance of offspring. You can see beautiful giants and little elk calves all year round.

Bear cave

The location of the natural and archaeological monument near the mouth of the Jordanian Log in the territory of the reserve has been known since 1960. Traces of the Upper Paleolithic site ancient man found in a cave at a depth of 2-2.5 m. People lived in a shelter about 30 thousand years ago. Scientists have found multiple bone and stone artifacts, as well as the bones of fossil animals - tiger, hoofed lemming, musk ox, woolly rhinoceros, mammoth.