Krasnoyarsk and the Stolbys

In Krasnoyarsk, we stayed at the Gustiny Dvor. We thought a buffet restaurant in the LP would be a good dinner venue. But when we got there, the buffet was closed. Even though we tried to get our waitress to leave us for 5 minutes to use our dictionaries, phrase books etc to decipher the menu, she didn’t understand. So having recognised the word salad in Cyrillic, I pointed at an option and the same in the main course section. G did the same. Our salads arrived, but mine had prawns. I hate prawns. So G kindly took the prawn salad and I took his selection. Our main courses were incredibly satisfactory and so all in all a meal well selected even if blindly so.

We rang Anatoliy Brewhanov, the director of SibTourGuides. He collected us next day at 10am and for the first time we were driven in a Lada. It was a bitterly cold day but we soon warmed up with the cracking pace of our guide. He showed us the various Stolby, rocks formed by lava cooling rather quickly. Most of the main rocks had been named. Names were as original as, 1st rock, 2nd rock Grandfather, grandson, the 3 brothers etc. One was named feathers alright for obvious reasons.
It was great to have a proper conversation with a Russian, being with a guide is often our only opportunity. I had so many questions. Sometimes I know I as too many but my curiosity is never ending. Anatoliy is a Political science lecturer and a very ardent protector of the environment. He not only comes up here to give tours but often just comes up with his wife and son. He had to hunt some kids away the other day as he caught them spraying grafitti on some of the stolby. His main regret being too late, to prevent 2 rocks being defaced.

After a few hours hiking and climbing, we lunched on the 4th rock. We had a lovely picnic of sandwiches and hot tea. We set off again and had some great photo opportunities. The Stolby and the surrounding nature reserve was spectacular, made even more beautiful by a fresh layer of snow, from the previous night.

Anatoliy told us about the time the x-files came to film in Krasnoyarsk. He said the locals were a bit miffed, because they used Mercedes cars with Moscow number plates all very in Krasnoyarsk. A Lada would have been far more appropriate and of course with the right number plates. As we were on the subject he told us about Russians own real x-file. Back in the 1950’s 12 experienced skiers went into Siberia proper. After a few days, when they didn’t show up a rescue team were sent in. They found 12 dead tourists, with a variety of cold related causes of death.
It appeared that each had run in different directions from their tents, leaving everything behind, including the appropriate outdoor clothing. One guy was found near a tree which he had tried to climb to get away from what ever it was. Some of the skin from his hands, where he had tried to climb but failed, was still on the tree. No-one had been eaten or attacked, which ruled out an animal attack. A whole taskforce was sent to investigate, including the KGB, as the Soviet authorities were very concerned but to no avail. To this day, no one really knows what happened.