Manpupuner rock formations — rock formation
Aleksandr Chazov · CC BY-SA 4.0

Manpupuner rock formations

  • 1 min read
  • 62.258° N 59.298° E

Interesting facts

  • According to Mansi legend, seven giants marching to destroy the Mansi turned to stone in terror when their shaman caught sight of the sacred mountain Yalping-Nyor.
  • In the same legend, the frightened shaman flung away his drum, which became the neighbouring mountain Koip, whose name means drum.
  • One pillar, about 34 metres tall, stands apart from the other six lined up along the cliff edge and is often compared to an upturned bottle.
  • Onlookers have long seen the pillars as a giant man, a horse's head or a ram, depending on the angle.
  • The pillars won a place among the Seven Wonders of Russia in a national vote whose results were announced on Red Square on 12 June 2008.
  • The stone pillars appear in the opening credits of the 1985 Soviet adventure film The Secret of the Golden Mountain.
  • The Pechora-Ilych reserve around the plateau was founded in 1930, after a forester proposed a sable sanctuary there in 1915.
  • The reserve forms the core of the Virgin Komi Forests, inscribed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1995.

Why it is worth it

On a bare plateau west of the main ridge of the northern Urals stand seven stone giants. The Manpupuner pillars rise between 30 and 42 metres from the tundra, lined up at the edge of the plateau like figures frozen in the middle of a march. They are made of sericite-quartzite schist, a rock tough enough to outlast everything around it: over roughly 200 million years, frost, wind and water stripped away the softer mountain that once enclosed them and left only these weathered columns behind.

Each pillar has its own shape, weathered and cracked in its own way, and their outlines change dramatically as you walk around them, which is why they have gathered so many names. Russians call them the Seven Strong Men or the Poles of the Komi Republic; in the Mansi language Manpupuner means "small idol mountain", and the Komi name translates as "idol stone". For the Mansi, the indigenous people of these mountains, the pillars were sacred, and climbing them was considered a sin. Today they count among the Seven Wonders of Russia.

The setting is as striking as the rocks. The plateau lies inside the Pechoro-Ilychsky Nature Reserve in the Komi Republic, a vast wilderness of forest, bog and mountain tundra where bears, wolverines, sables and otters still roam. The nearest town lies well over a hundred kilometres away, and the emptiness of the landscape — snow for much of the year, wind, low cloud, and then sudden clear light on the stones — is a large part of what makes the place unforgettable.

Getting there

Manpupuner is one of the more remote landmarks in Europe. The nearest town is Ivdel in Sverdlovsk Oblast, about 185 km away, and the nearest airport is Pechora (PEX), about 337 km away. Visitors arrive by helicopter, or on multi-day hiking or skiing expeditions from the Sverdlovsk side of the Urals by way of the Dyatlov Pass.

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Russia 73The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders in Russia 13The Most Remarkable Rock Formations 107The Most Beautiful Natural Wonders 580

From the encyclopaedia

The Manpupuner rock formations are a set of 7 stone pillars located west of the Ural Mountains in the Troitsko-Pechorsky District of the Komi Republic. They are located on the territory of the Pechoro-Ilychski Reserve on the mountain Man-Pupu-nyor, between the Ilych and Pechora rivers. They are also known as the Seven Strong Men Rock Formations and the Poles of the Komi Republic. Deemed one of the Seven Wonders of Russia, the Manpupuner rock formations are a popular attraction in Russia, though relatively unspoiled by tourism.

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62.25790, 59.29800per Wikidata