Cape Stolbchaty

On the coast of Kunashir, the southernmost large island of the Kuril chain, a headland called Stolbchaty – "the columnar cape" – shows what happens when lava cools slowly and evenly. The cliffs are built from thousands of regular stone prisms, mostly four-, five- and six-sided, packed together like a bundle of pencils and reaching up to about 50 metres in height. Individual columns are up to half a metre across. The comparison everyone reaches for is the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, but Stolbchaty is a wall rather than a causeway: the columns rise as sheer cliffs straight from the surf, with no town in sight.

The columns were formed by volcanic activity in the island's distant past, associated with the nearby Mendeleev volcano; the scientists of the Kurilsky nature reserve describe the rock as andesite–dacite lava that was squeezed out and solidified in place. Erosion has broken the formation into distinct parts, and the reserve gives them names that describe what one sees: the Organ, where the columns stand upright in tight ranks like pipes; the Bastion; the Pavement, where the broken tops of the prisms form a tiled floor at the waterline; and the Turtle. Along the same shore stand weathered stacks that, in the right light, look like hooded monks.

Stolbchaty belongs to the Kurilsky nature reserve and is protected as a natural monument. It is at its most striking at low tide, when the pavement of polygonal stones is exposed and the play of shadow brings out the geometry of the walls.

Getting there

Kunashir is reached from Sakhalin. Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk International Airport (UUS) has scheduled flights by Aurora Airlines to Yuzhno-Kurilsk Mendeleyevo Airport (DEE) on the island itself, and passenger ships sail to Kunashir from the port of Korsakov, about 43 km from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The cape lies within the Kurilsky reserve, and visitors reach it along the reserve's Stolbovskaya ecological trail, either independently or with an excursion. The trail is rated difficult, with sections over steep rock.