Peter und der Bär

Close to Krasnoyarsk, there is a big nature reserve in the hills called the “Stolby”. The Stolby are oddly shaped, spire-like rock formations. To get there, one can either go on a 5 hours hike, or go up the hill with a chair lift and then walk on top. Unfortunately they had not mentioned the Russian word for chair lift in the guide book and when enquiring how to get there and if it was open at all, they did not understand me at the hotel. So we decided to just take a cab there and see for ourselves. The downhill stop is located in some sort of fun park 9 km out of town on the other side of the Yenisey river, and luckily, the lift was running. I’d never taken such a lift without snow around before.
Once we arrived up we had a panorama of wooded rolling hills, dappled with yellow by the birches whose leaves were already turning. Here and there one could see some vertical rocks sticking out of the woods.

We set out walking on the small path that should lead us to a place with more of these rocks. The walk was very beautiful, it lead through the forest with a lot of birches. The fern on the ground formed a golden carpet. After we had walked for an hour, we met two young men in camouflage uniforms, carrying big rifles, who were coming from the opposite direction. They greeted us very politely and then made a speech in Russian I did not understand. They looked at each other a bit helplessly, then one of them managed to say the words “bear” and “danger” in English. They made clear to us that we had to turn back. We felt a bit sorry for having missed the stolby. We were also very curious about the bear. But many other walkers met the same fate and were sent back after us. We had no other choice but to walk back and enjoy the panoramic viewpoint a little more.

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