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WONDERS OF NATURE
Mountains of Kokchetau. Nature miracle
At first glance it seems like a mirage. After long hours of driving through the dry, even and almost waterless steppe, endless wheat fields and rare elevators, dark green mountain slopes and a spacious blue expanse of a lake with obelisks of granite rocks on the shores suddenly appear outside the train window. And the cozy white town at the foot of the high hills overgrown with pines and birches seems to have been transferred from somewhere in Transbaikalia or from the foot of the Zhiguli. This is how the northernmost oasis in the steppes of Central Asia meets a traveler in Kazakhstan - an amazing and unlike anything called Kokchetau. One can argue whether they are mountains or not. Geographers often call Kokchetau (Kokshetau) just a hill. Maybe they are right: after all, even the highest local point - Mount Sinyukha - is by no means Mont Blanc, its height is a little less than a kilometer. But for those who wandered with a backpack along the forest paths of Kokchetau soaked in coniferous aroma and climbed their steep granite hills, forded the rocky beds of talkative rivers and swam in a boat into the picturesque bays of calm lakes, another nickname for this wonderful country will always be closer - "Kazakhstan Switzerland". This poetic name very aptly defines the appearance of a unique corner of nature, as if by the will of a mighty wizard, abandoned from another world here, in the very heart of the Kazakh steppes.
Sinegorie (this is how the word "Kokchetau" is translated from the Kazakh) is located on the northern outskirts of the Kazakh uplands and stretches for two hundred kilometers from north to south and four hundred kilometers from east to west. Above the surrounding area, they rise only three hundred and six hundred meters, but, being composed of massive crystalline rocks, crowned with peaked ridges and covered with pine-birch forests, these ridges create a bewitching likeness of a mountain landscape. Its beauty is complemented by numerous lakes, spread out in the depressions of intermountains or at the foot of the hills. Favorable climate, abundance of water and rich hunting grounds have long attracted people here. Archaeologists have discovered Stone Age sites and remains of Bronze Age dwellings here. In the second half of the XNUMXth century, in the center of the mountains, near Lake Borovoe, the first folk resort was founded, where healing mineral springs and healing mud, combined with cool summer weather and pine air, cured lung diseases, sciatica, arthritis and other ailments. And nowadays a lot of tourists come to Kokchetau, especially from Siberia and the Urals. A small town, spread out on the shores of Lake Shchuchye, is surrounded by wooded hills, between which there is a highway leading north to Borovoye. A beautiful forest road winds among the stone ridges, descending into hollows and climbing the hills. Rocks can be seen between the trunks of pines and birches, and nearby, at their foot, springs with cold, tasty water make their way. Twenty kilometers from Shchuchinsk, from the next pass, a spacious lake surface opens below. The resort village lies on the isthmus between the lakes Bolshoye Chebache and Borovoe, not far from Mount Sinyukha. Climbing to its peak, rising 950 meters above sea level, allows you to enjoy a magnificent panorama of the surrounding area. To the north, from the crest of Sinyukha to the very horizon, steppes with rare saucers of lakes stretch, and forests stretch in the south. In the western part of this mountain-forest massif, the rocky ridges of Kokchetau lie in a semicircle more than twenty kilometers long, as if "squeezed" by lakes: in the southeast they rest against Shuchie, from the west they go around the Small Chebache, and the northeastern tip of the Sinyukha ridge is wedged between Big Chebachy and Borovoy. But these are only the largest local reservoirs. And all in all, in good weather, from the top you can count up to seventy lakes. The largest of them is Bolshoye Chebachye with an area of about twenty-five square kilometers and a depth of up to forty meters. Borovoe is almost two times inferior to it, but nevertheless it is considered the most beautiful in Kokchetau. The water in Borovoye is soft and so clear that even at great depths, schools of fish and granite pebbles at the bottom of the lake are clearly visible. On the northern rocky shore of the reservoir, bathing enthusiasts are waiting for natural stone "beds" - flat granite slabs, similar to mattresses. Along the southern coast of Borovoe stretches a vast sandy beach, bordered by pine trees. And if you walk along the river Gromova, which flows into the lake here, to its source, you find yourself in an unusual birch grove. The trees in it are bent by the winter winds, as if the plants were spinning in an outlandish dance. You can spend hours admiring the landscapes of Borovoe: the water surface of the lake, the bizarre architecture of rocks and mountain ridges. In the middle of the lake there is a picturesque island-rock "Sphinx", really similar to the ancient Egyptian sculpture of the Valley of the Pyramids. On the northern shore, against the backdrop of the wooded slopes of Sinyukha, rises the cone of the Okzhetpes rock (in Kazakh - "The arrow will not reach"), crowned with a stone statue resembling a lying elephant. A long time ago, when the Kazakhs who roamed here had no idea about either overseas sphinxes or elephants, the rock in the middle of the lake was called Zhumbaktas ("Rock of Mystery"). And there were reasons for this. The fact is that from different sides the rock has a different appearance. From the side of the isthmus, where the resort is located, it really looks like a sphinx. But if you look from the opposite side of the lake, you will see the face of an elderly woman. And it is worth going around another part of the coast, and the head of a girl with flying hair will appear before your eyes. An ancient legend explains the origin of the names of the island and the coastal rock in this way. In the XNUMXth century, one of the Kazakh clans, headed by Khan Ablai, roamed here. Once the khan raided the Kalmyks, took a lot of booty and divided it among the warriors on the shore of the lake at the foot of the cliff. The khan gave away everything of value to his batyrs, leaving only a captive Kalmyk girl. And a dispute flared up between the warriors: who will get the beauty. Then the khan ordered the girl to choose the groom herself. But to the captive, all the conquerors were equally hated. She climbed onto a rock, fastened her scarf on top and shouted: "Whose arrow reaches him, I will marry him!" All the horsemen fired once from their bows, but not a single arrow reached the target. Then the girl threw herself from the top of the rock into the lake and died. In the place where the captive rushed, the Zhumbaktas rock arose, and the Kazakhs began to call the cliff on the shore Okzhetpes. In the vicinity of Borovoye, mysterious and deep caves are hidden, in which, they say, robbers once hid. And along the slopes of the hills and the banks of the lakes, bizarre rocks rise, many of which have been given their own names by folk fantasy. On the crest of Sinyukha, for example, the rocks "Three Sisters" rise, as if walking one after another. The notch-bevel in the uppermost part of the ridge is called the "Devil's Coil". In the west, against the backdrop of forest and mountains, the profile of the rock "Sleeping Knight" looms. There are beautiful and wise legends about each of these rocks or caves. One of them tells about the origin of the Kokchetau mountains themselves. When Allah created the Earth and populated it with people, he gave rich islands and sea coasts to some peoples, high mountains and blue lakes to others, dense forests and rich fields to others. And only the Kazakhs got dry steppes. And they began to reproach God for injustice. Allah was ashamed that he had offended an innocent people, and he decided to somehow correct his mistake. He scraped out everything that was left there from the bottom of his travel bag, and scattered a little bit of everything among the steppes: picturesque lakes, emerald meadows, icy springs, cheerful streams, pine forests, granite rocks and high hills. This is how the mountains of Kokchetau appeared. Now the flow of tourists visiting this unique corner of Kazakhstan, of course, is much less than ten or fifteen years ago. But still, many thousands of people come here every year to breathe in the pine scent of the wooded slopes of Sinyukha, walk through the enchanted forest of dancing birches, look into the dark gapes caves, take a boat to the foot of the Sphinx, and then climb to the top of a steep hill and admire the fantastic silhouettes of granite sculptures and a scattering of blue lakes between the green mountain ranges. It must be said that the amazing mountain-forest oasis among the endless Kazakh steppes is not the only one. Five hundred kilometers to the southeast, halfway from Karaganda to the full-flowing Irtysh, there is another island of pine forests and stony hills, looking into the mirrors of the lakes. This is the famous Karkaraly oasis. The steep, rocky slopes of the local mountains, on which pines and birches miraculously hold, look more severe and sharper outlined than the hills of Kokchetau. And the mountains themselves are higher here - up to 1400 meters. Therefore, many lakes here resemble Altai or Tien Shan reservoirs. The most famous of them is Lake Shaitankul ("Devil's Lake"). According to legend, many brave horsemen drowned in it. This is not surprising: on three sides, the oval pond is surrounded by sheer granite banks up to ten meters high, so if you fall down, it’s not easy to get back. Not far from Shaitankul is the tract Maliksai ("Gorge of Caves"), where deep grottoes once served as a haven for primitive people. One of the caves, "Tent", when viewed from the inside, with its rounded shape with a vault and a hole at the top, is very reminiscent of a yurt. Another natural monument - a tunnel seventeen meters long and up to seven meters wide - was formed in a high rock as a result of the combined thousand-year efforts of water and wind. And if you drive one hundred and fifty kilometers north of the Karkaraly Mountains, you can see the third natural pearl of the Kazakh steppes - Bayanaul Mountains. This is the smallest of the three granite massifs, rising above the plain on the left bank of the Irtysh. Bayanaul forests, mountains, caves and lakes are also covered with legends, but having visited Kokchetau, you still perceive Karkaralinsk and Bayanaul as just a reduced repetition of this fabulous country of green mountains of fantastic rocks. Moreover, it has been reduced many times over: the area of Karkaraly is only about a thousand square kilometers, and Bayanaul is half that. Any of them can be crossed in a day or two, while the legendary Sinegorye is really a whole country that cannot be passed even in two weeks. Kokchetau is not an ordinary object for a superficial excursion. Traveling through them, you imperceptibly get used to this corner of nature, you give it a particle of your soul. And he is not in debt. The pine land of a thousand rocks and seventy lakes enters your mind with a poetic and colorful vision of an unusual and beautiful world. And in the memory again and again there is a severe stone sphinx, painted with a pink sunset brush on the turquoise canvas of Lake Borovoye... Author: B.Wagner
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