The Ural Mountains are a ridge on the border of Europe and Asia, as well as a natural border within Russia, to the east of which are Siberia and the Far East, and to the west is the European part of the country.

BELT MOUNTAINS

In the old days, for travelers approaching the Urals from the east or west, these mountains really seemed like a belt that tightly intercepted the plain, dividing it into the Cis-Urals and the Trans-Urals.

The Ural Mountains are a mountain range on the border of Europe and Asia, stretching from north to south. In geography, it is customary to divide these mountains according to the nature of the relief, natural conditions and other features into Pai-Khoi, the Polar Urals, and the Subpolar.

Northern, Middle, Southern Urals and Mugod-zhary. It is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of the Ural Mountains and the Urals: in a broader sense, the territory of the Urals includes the regions adjacent to the mountain system - the Urals, Cis-Urals and Trans-Urals.

The relief of the Ural Mountains is the main watershed range and several side ranges separated by wide depressions. In the Far North - glaciers and snowfields, in the middle part - mountains with smoothed peaks.

The Ural Mountains are old, they are about 300 million years old, they are noticeably eroded. The highest peak - Mount Narodnaya - is about two kilometers high.

The watershed of large rivers runs along the mountain range: the Ural rivers belong mainly to the basin of the Caspian Sea (Kama with Chusovaya and Belaya, Ural). Pechora, Tobol and others belong to the system of one of the largest rivers in Siberia - the Ob. There are many lakes on the eastern slope of the Urals.

The landscapes of the Ural Mountains are predominantly forested, there is a noticeable difference in the nature of vegetation on different sides of the mountains: on the western slope - mainly dark coniferous, spruce-fir forests (in the Southern Urals - mixed and broad-leaved in places), on the eastern slope - light coniferous pine-larch forests. In the south - forest-steppe and steppe (mostly plowed).

The Ural Mountains have long been of interest to geographers, including from the point of view of their unique location. In the era of Ancient Rome, these mountains seemed to scientists so far away that they were seriously called Riphean, or Ripean: literally translated from Latin - “coastal”, and in an expanded sense - “mountains on the edge of the earth”. They received the name Hyperborean (from the Greek "extreme northern") on behalf of the mythical country of Hyperborea, it was used for a thousand years, until in 1459 the Fra Mauro world map appeared, on which the "edge of the world" was shifted beyond the Urals.

It is believed that the mountains were discovered by the Novgorodians in 1096, during one of the campaigns to Pechora and Ugra by a team of Novgorod ushkuiniki, who were engaged in fur trade, trade and collection of yasak. At that time, the mountains did not receive any name. At the beginning of the XV century. Russian settlements appear on the upper Kama - Anfalovsky town and Sol-Kamskaya.

The first known name of these mountains is contained in documents at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, where they are called Stone: this is how any large rock or cliff was called in Ancient Russia. On the "Big Drawing" - the first map of the Russian state, compiled in the second half of the 16th century. - Ural is designated as Big Stone. In the XVI-XVIII centuries. the name Belt appears, reflecting the geographical position of the mountains between two plains. There are such variants of names as Big Stone, Big Belt, Stone Belt, Big Belt Stone.

The name "Ural" was originally used only for the territory of the Southern Urals and was taken from the Bashkir language, which meant "height" or "hill". By the middle of the XVIII century. the name "Ural Mountains" is already applied to the entire mountain system.

ALL MENDELEEV'S TABLE

Such a figurative expression is resorted to whenever it is required to give a short and colorful description of the natural resources of the Ural Mountains.

The antiquity of the Ural Mountains created unique conditions for the development of minerals: as a result of prolonged destruction by erosion, the deposits literally came to the surface. The combination of energy sources and raw materials predetermined the development of the Urals as a mining region.

Iron, copper, chromium and nickel ores, potash salts, asbestos, coal, precious and semi-precious stones - Ural gems have been mined here since ancient times. Since the middle of the XX century. oil and gas fields are being developed.

Russia has long been developing the lands adjacent to the Ural Mountains, occupying the Komi-Permyak towns, annexing the Udmurt and Bashkir territories: in the middle of the 16th century. after the defeat of the Kazan Khanate, most of Bashkiria and the Kama part of Udmurtia voluntarily became part of Russia. A special role in securing Russia in the Urals was played by the Ural Cossacks, who received the highest permission to engage in free arable farming here. The merchants Stroganovs laid the foundation for the purposeful development of the wealth of the Ural Mountains, having received from Tsar Ivan IV a charter on the Ural lands "and what lies in them."

At the beginning of the XVIII century. large-scale factory construction began in the Urals, caused by the needs of both the country's economic development and the needs of the military departments. Under Peter I, copper-smelting and iron foundries were built here, and subsequently large industrial centers were formed around them: Yekaterinburg, Chelyabinsk, Perm, Nizhny Tagil, Zlatoust. Gradually, the Ural Mountains found themselves in the center of the largest mining region in Russia, along with Moscow and St. Petersburg.

In the era of the USSR, the Urals became one of the industrial centers of the country, the most famous enterprises are the Ural Heavy Machine Building Plant (Uralmash), the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant (ChTZ), the Magnitogorsk Metallurgical Plant (Magnitogorsk). During the Great Patriotic War, industrial production was exported to the Urals from the territories of the USSR occupied by the Germans.

In recent decades, the industrial significance of the Ural Mountains has noticeably decreased: many deposits are almost exhausted, the level of environmental pollution is quite high.

The bulk of the local population lives on the territory of the Ural economic region and in the Republic of Bashkortostan. In the more northern regions, belonging to the Northwestern and Western Siberian economic regions, the population is extremely rare.

During the industrial development of the Ural Mountains, as well as the plowing of the surrounding lands, hunting and deforestation, the habitats of many animals were destroyed, and many species of animals and birds disappeared, among them - a wild horse, saiga, bustard, little bustard. Herds of deer, which used to graze throughout the Urals, now migrated deep into the tundra. However, the measures taken to protect and reproduce the fauna of the Urals managed to preserve the brown bear, wolf, wolverine, fox, sable, ermine, and lynx in the reserves. Where it has not yet been possible to restore populations of local species, acclimatization of imported individuals is being successfully carried out: for example, in the Ilmensky Reserve - sika deer, beaver, maral, raccoon dog, American mink.

SIGHTS OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS

Natural:

■ Pechoro-Ilychsky, Visimsky, Basegi, South Ural, Shulgan-Tash, Orenburg steppe, Bashkirsky reserves, Ilmensky mineralogical reserve.

■ Divya, Arakaevskaya, Sugomakskaya, Kungurskaya ice and Kapova caves.

■ Rocky outcrops of the Seven Brothers.

■ Chertovo Settlement and Stone Tents.

■ Bashkir National Park, Yugyd Va National Park (Komi Republic).

■ Hoffmann Glacier (Saber Ridge).

■ Azov Mountain.

■ Alikaev Stone.

■ Deer Brooks Nature Park.

■ Blue Mountains pass.

■ Revun rapids (Iset river).

■ Zhigalan waterfalls (River Zhigalan).

■ Aleksandrovskaya Sopka.

■ Taganay National Park.

■ Ustinovskiy Canyon.

■ Gumerovskoye gorge.

■ Red Key spring.

■ Sterlitamak shikhans.

■ Krasnaya Krucha.

■ The Sterlitamak shikhans in Bashkiria are ancient coral reefs that have formed on the bottom of the Perm Sea. This amazing place is located near the city of Sterlitamak and consists of several high cone-shaped hills. A unique geological monument, whose age is more than 230 million years.

■ The peoples of the Urals still use the names of the Urals in their languages: Mansi - Ner, Khanty - Kev, Komi - Iz, Nenets - Pe or Igarka Pe. In all languages ​​it means the same thing - "stone". Among the Russians who have long lived in the north of the Urals, a tradition has also been preserved to call these mountains Kamen.

■ The bowls of the St. Petersburg Hermitage were made from Ural malachite and jasper, as well as the interior decoration and the altar of the St. Petersburg Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood.

■ Scientists have not yet found an explanation for the mysterious natural phenomenon: the Ural lakes Uvildy, Bolshoy Kisegach and Turgoyak have unusually clear water. In neighboring lakes, it is completely muddy.

■ The top of Mount Kachkanar is a collection of bizarrely shaped rocks, many of which have their own names. The most famous of them is Camel Rock.

■ In the past, the richest deposits of high-quality iron ore in the Magnitnaya, Vysoka and Blagodat mountains, known throughout the world and listed in all textbooks on geology, are now either hidden or turned into quarries hundreds of meters deep.

■ The ethnographic appearance of the Urals was created by three streams of settlers: Russian Old Believers who fled here in the 17th-18th centuries, peasants transferred to the Ural factories from the European part of Russia (mainly from the modern Tula and Ryazan regions) and Ukrainians, attracted as an additional labor force at the beginning 19th century

■ In 1996, the Yugyd Va National Park, together with the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve, with which the park borders in the south, was included in the list of UNESCO World Natural Heritage Sites under the name “Virgin Komi Forests”.

■ Alikaev Stone - a 50-meter rock on the Ufa River. The second name of the rock is Maryin cliff. Here they filmed the TV movie "Shadows disappear at noon" - about life in the Ural outback. It was from the Alikaev stone, according to the plot of the film, that the Menshikov brothers threw off the chairman of the collective farm, Marya Krasnaya. Since then, the stone has a second name - Maryin cliff.

■ The Zhigalan waterfalls on the Zhigalan River, on the eastern slope of the Kvarkush ridge, form a 550 m long cascade. With a river length of about 8 km, the elevation difference from source to mouth is almost 630 m.

■ Sugomak cave is the only cave in the Ural Mountains, 123 m long, formed in marble rock. There are only a few such caves on the territory of Russia.

■ The Krasny Klyuch spring is the most powerful water source in Russia and the second largest in the world after the Fontaine de Vaucluse spring in France. The water flow of the Red Key spring is 14.88 m3/sec. Landmark of Bashkiria in the status of a hydrological monument of nature of federal significance.

GENERAL INFORMATION

• Location: between the East European and West Siberian plains.
• Geographical division: Pai-Khoi ridge. Polar Urals (from Konstantinov Kamen to the headwaters of the Khulga River), Subpolar Urals (the section between the Khulga and Shchugor rivers), Northern Urals (Voy) (from the Shchugor River to Kosvinsky Kamen and Mount Oslyanka), Middle Urals (Shor) (from the mountain Oslyanka to the Ufa River) and the Southern Urals (the southern part of the mountains below the city of Orsk), Mugodzhary (Kazakhstan).
• Economic regions: Ural, Volga, North-Western, West Siberian.
• Administrative affiliation: Russian Federation (Perm, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Kurgan, Orenburg, Arkhangelsk and Tyumen regions, Udmurt Republic, Republic of Bashkortostan, Republic of Komi), Kazakhstan (Aktobe region).
• Large cities: Yekaterinburg - 1,428,262 people. (2015), Chelyabinsk - 1,182,221 people. (2015), Ufa - 1,096,702 people. (2014), Perm - 1,036,476 people. (2015), Izhevsk - 642,024 people. (2015), Orenburg-561 279 people (2015), Magnitogorsk - 417,057 people. (2015), Nizhny Tagil - 356,744 people. (2015), Kurgan - 326,405 people. (2015).
• Languages: Russian, Bashkir, Udmurt, Komi-Permyak, Kazakh.
• Ethnic composition: Russians, Bashkirs, Udmurts, Komi, Kazakhs.
• Religions: Orthodoxy, Islam, traditional beliefs. Monetary unit: ruble, tenge.
• Rivers: the Caspian Sea basin (Kama with Chusovaya and Belaya, Ural), the Arctic Ocean basin (Pechora with Usa; Tobol, Iset, Tura belong to the Ob system).
• Lakes: Tavatui, Argazi, Uvildy, Turgoyak, Big Pike.

CLIMATE

• Continental.
• Average January temperature: from -20°C (Polar Urals) to -15°C (Southern Urals).
• Average temperature in July: from + 9°С (Polar Urals) to +20°С (Southern Urals).
• Average annual precipitation: Subpolar and Northern Urals - 1000 mm, Southern Urals - 650-750 mm. Relative humidity: 60-70%.

ECONOMY

• Minerals: iron, copper, chromium, nickel, potassium salts, asbestos, coal, oil.
• Industry: mining, ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, heavy engineering, chemical and petrochemical, fertilizers, electrical engineering.
• Hydroelectric power industry: Pavlovskaya, Yuma-guzinskaya, Shirokovskaya, Iriklinskaya HPPs. Forestry.
• Agriculture: crop production (wheat, rye, garden crops), animal husbandry (cattle, pig breeding).
• Traditional crafts: artistic processing of Ural gems, knitting of Orenburg downy shawls.
• Service sector: tourism, transport, trade.

The Russian plain, which we have just met, is bounded in the east by a well-defined natural boundary - the Ural Mountains. These mountains have long been considered to be beyond the border of two parts of the world - Europe and Asia. Despite its low altitude, the Urals are quite well isolated as a mountainous country, which is greatly facilitated by the presence of low plains to the west and east of it.

"Ural" is a word of Turkic origin, which means belt in translation. Indeed, the Ural Mountains resemble a narrow belt or ribbon thrown by someone on the plains of northern Eurasia from the shores of the Kara Sea to the steppes of Kazakhstan. The length of the mountains from north to south is about 2000 km (from 68°30' to 51° N), and the width is 40-60 km and only in some places more than 100 km. In the northwest, through the Pai-Khoi ridge and the island of Vaigach, the Urals are connected to the mountains of Novaya Zemlya; in the south, it is continued by Mugodzhary.

Many Russian and Soviet researchers took part in the study of the Urals. The first researchers of its nature were P. I. Rychkov and I. I. Lepekhin (second half XVIII in.). In the middle XIX in. E. K. Hoffman worked in the Northern and Middle Urals for many years. A great contribution to the knowledge of the landscapes of the Urals was made by Soviet scientists V. A. Varsanofyeva (geologist and geomorphologist) and I. M. Krasheninnikov (geobotanist).

The Urals represent the oldest mining region in our country. In its depths there are huge reserves of a wide variety of minerals. Iron, copper, nickel, chromites, aluminum raw materials, platinum, gold, potassium salts, precious stones, asbestos - it is difficult to list everything that the Urals is rich in. The reason for such a wealth of minerals lies in the peculiar geological history of the Urals, which also determines the relief and many other elements of the landscape of this mountainous country.

Geological history. The Ural is one of the ancient folded mountains. In its place in the Paleozoic there was a geosyncline, the seas rarely left its territory. They changed their boundaries and depth, leaving behind powerful layers of sediments. Twice in the Paleozoic, the Urals experienced mountain building. The first, Caledonian folding, which manifested itself in the Silurian and Devonian, although it covered a significant territory, was not the main one for the Ural Range. The main folding is the second, Hercynian. It began in the Middle Carboniferous in the east of the Urals, and in the Permian it spread to the western slopes.

The Hercynian folding proceeded most intensively in the east of the ridge. It was accompanied here by the formation of strongly compressed, often overturned and recumbent folds, complicated by large thrusts, leading to the appearance of scaly structures. Folding in the east of the Urals was supplemented by deep splits and intrusions of powerful granite intrusions. Some of the intrusions in the Southern and Northern Urals reach enormous sizes: up to 100-120 km long and 50-60 km wide.

Mountain building proceeded much less vigorously on the western slope; as a result, simple folds predominate there, thrusts are rare, and there are no intrusions.

Tectonic pressure, which resulted in folding, was directed from east to west. The rigid foundation of the Russian platform prevented the spread of folding to the west. The folds are most compressed in the region of the Ufimsky plateau, where even on the western slope they are very complex. In the north and south of the Urals, folded structures diverge in the form of a fan, forming the Pechora and Aral virgations.

After the Hercynian orogeny, folded mountains arose on the site of the Ural geosyncline, and the later tectonic movements here were in the nature of block uplifts and subsidence. These block uplifts and subsidences in places, in a limited area, were accompanied by intense folding and faulting. In the Triassic-Jurassic, most of the territory of the Urals remained dry land, on its surface there was an accumulation of coal-bearing strata, well developed along the eastern slope of the ridge.

The geological structure of the Urals reflects its geological history and especially the nature of the manifestation of the Hercynian orogeny. Along the entire length of the ridge, when moving from west to east, a regular change of rocks is observed, differing from one another in age, lithology and origin. It has long been customary to distinguish six such meridional zones in the Urals, showing a connection with the largest tectonic structures. The first zone is formed by Paleozoic sedimentary deposits (Permian, Carboniferous, Devonian). It is developed along the western slope of the ridge. East of it is a zone of crystalline schists of Precambrian and Lower Paleozoic age. The third zone is represented by igneous basic rocks - the gabbro zone. In the fourth zone, outflowing rocks, their tuffs, and Paleozoic shales emerge. The fifth zone consists of granites and gneisses of the eastern slope. In the sixth zone, Paleozoic metamorphic deposits intruded by igneous rocks are common. The folded Paleozoic in this last zone is largely covered by horizontal Cretaceous and Tertiary sediments, which are characteristic of the West Siberian Lowland.

The distribution of minerals in the Urals is subject to the same meridional zonality. Deposits of oil, state-owned coal (Vorkuta), potash salt (Solikamsk), rock salt, and gypsum are associated with the Paleozoic sedimentary deposits of the western slope. Platinum deposits gravitate towards the intrusions of the main gabbro rock zone. The most famous deposits of iron ore - mountains Magnitnaya, Blagodat, Vysokaya are associated with intrusions of granites and syenites. Deposits of indigenous gold and precious stones are associated with granite intrusions, among which the Ural emerald has become world famous.

Orography and geomorphology. The Ural is a whole system of mountain ranges, elongated parallel to one another in the meridional direction. As a rule, there are two or three such parallel ranges, but in some places, with the expansion of the mountain system, their number increases to four or more. So, for example, the Southern Urals between 55 and 54 ° N is distinguished by great orographic complexity. sh., where there are at least six ridges. Between the ridges lie narrow depressions occupied by river valleys.

Relatively low areas are replaced in the Urals by elevated ones - a kind of mountain knots in which the mountains reach not only their maximum heights, but also their greatest width. It is remarkable that such knots coincide with the places where the Ural Range changes its strike. The main of these nodes are Subpolar, Middle Ural and South Ural. In the Subpolar node, lying at 65 ° N. sh., the Ural changes its strike from the southwest to the south. Here rises the highest peak of the Ural Range - Mount Narodnaya (1894 m). The Middle Urals junction is located at about 60°N. sh. where the strike of the Urals changes from south to south-southeast. Among the peaks of this knot, Mount Konzhakovsky Kamen (1569 m) stands out. The South Ural node is located between 55° and 54° N. sh. Here the strike of the Ural ranges changes from

from the southwest to the south, and from the peaks Iremel (1566 m) and Yaman-Tau (1638 m) attract attention.

A common feature of the relief of the Urals is the asymmetry of its western and eastern slopes. The western slope is more gentle, it passes into the Russian Plain more gradually than the eastern one, which steeply descends towards the West Siberian Lowland. The asymmetry of the ridge is due to tectonics, the history of its geological development.

In connection with the asymmetry, there is another orographic feature of the Urals - the displacement of the main watershed ridge to the east, closer to the West Siberian lowland. This watershed range in different parts of the Urals has different names - Ural-Tau in the Southern Urals, Belt Stone in the Northern Urals. At the same time, almost everywhere the main watershed ridge separating the rivers of the Russian Plain from the rivers of Western Siberia is not the highest. The largest peaks, as a rule, lie to the west of the watershed ridge. Such a hydrographic asymmetry of the Urals is the result of increased "aggressiveness" of the rivers of the western slope, caused by a sharper and faster uplift of the Cis-Urals in the Neogene compared to the Trans-Urals.

Even with a cursory glance at the hydrographic pattern of the Urals, the presence of sharp, elbow turns in most rivers on the western slope is striking. In the upper reaches of the river flow in the meridional direction, following the longitudinal intermountain depressions. Then they turn sharply to the west, sawing often high ridges, after which they again flow in the meridional direction or retain the old latitudinal direction. Such sharp turns are well expressed in Pechora, Shchugor, Ilych, Belaya, Aya, Sakmara and many others. It has been established that the rivers saw through the ridges in places where the axes of the folds are lowered. In addition, many rivers, apparently, are older than mountain ranges and their incision flowed simultaneously with the uplift of mountains.

A small absolute height determines the predominance of low-mountain and mid-mountain geomorphological landscapes in the Urals. The tops of the ridges are flat, at some mountains they are domed with more or less soft contours of the slopes. In the Northern and Polar Urals, near the upper forest boundary and above it, where frosty weathering is vigorously manifested, stone seas (“kurums”) are widespread. These places are also characterized by upland terraces resulting from solifluction processes and frost weathering.

Alpine landforms in the Urals are a rarity. They are known only in the most elevated parts.

Polar and Subpolar Urals. The bulk of modern glaciers of the Urals are connected with the same mountain ranges.

"Lednichki" is not an accidental expression in relation to the glaciers of the Urals. Compared to the glaciers of the Alps and the Caucasus, the Urals look like miniature dwarfs. All of them belong to the type of cirque and cirque-valley glaciers and are located below the climatic snow limit. The total area of ​​50 glaciers known so far in the Urals is only 15 sq. km. km. The most significant region of modern glaciation is located in the polar watershed to the southwest of Lake Bolshoye Shchuchye. Caro-valley glaciers up to 1.5-2 km long have been found here (LD Dolgushin, 1957).

The ancient Quaternary glaciation of the Urals was not very intense either. Reliable traces of glaciation can be traced to the south no further than 61 ° N. sh. Such glacial landforms as kars, cirques and hanging valleys are quite well expressed in the Urals. At the same time, the absence of ram foreheads and well-preserved glacial-accumulative forms - drumlins, eskers and terminal moraine ridges - attracts attention. The latter suggests that the ice sheet in the Urals was thin and not active everywhere; large areas, apparently, were occupied by slow-moving firn and ice.

A remarkable feature of the relief of the Urals is the ancient leveling surfaces. They were first studied by V. A. Varsanofyeva in 1932 in the Northern Urals and after that were described by other researchers in the Middle and Southern Urals. Various researchers for different places in the Urals find from one to seven ancient alignment surfaces. These ancient leveling surfaces serve as convincing evidence of the uneven uplift of the Ural Mountains in time. The highest leveling surface corresponds to the most ancient peneplanation cycle, falling on the lower Mesozoic, the youngest, lower surface, is of Tertiary age.

IP Gerasimov (1948) denies the existence of leveling surfaces of different ages in the Urals. In his opinion, there is one leveling surface in the Urals, which was formed during the Jurassic-Paleogene and then subjected to deformation as a result of the latest tectonic movements and erosional erosion.

It is difficult to agree that for such a long time as the Jurassic-Paleogene, there was only one undisturbed cycle of denudation. But I. P. Gerasimov is undoubtedly right, emphasizing the great role of neotectonic movements in the formation of the modern relief of the Urals. After the Cimmerian folding, which did not deeply affect the Paleozoic structures, the Urals during the Cretaceous and Paleogene existed in the form of a strongly peneplanated country, on the outskirts of which there were also shallow seas. The modern mountainous nature of the Urals acquired only as a result of tectonic movements that took place in the Neogene and Quaternary period. Where neotectonic movements had a large scope, in the Urals there are the most elevated mountainous areas, where they manifested themselves weakly - there are little changed ancient peneplains.

Karst landforms are widespread in the Urals. They are characteristic of the western slope and Cis-Urals, where Paleozoic limestones, gypsums and salts serve as karst rocks. The Kungur ice cave is very famous in the Cis-Urals. It has about 100 beautiful grottoes and up to 36 underground lakes.

Climatic conditions. Due to the large extent from north to south in the Urals, there is a zonal change in climate types from tundra in the north to steppe in the south. The contrasts between north and south are most pronounced in summer. The average July temperature in the north of the Urals is below 10°, in the south it is above 20°. In winter, these differences smooth out and the average January temperature is equally low both in the north (below -20°) and in the south (about -16°).

The small height of the mountains with an insignificant length, from west to east, does not create conditions for the formation of its own special mountain climate in the Urals. Here, in a slightly modified form, the climate of the plains adjacent to the west and east is repeated. At the same time, in the Urals, climate types seem to be shifting to the south. For example, the mountain-tundra climate continues to dominate at a latitude where the taiga climate is already developed in the adjacent lowland regions; the mountain-taiga climate penetrates the latitude of the forest-steppe climate of the plains, etc.

The Urals are stretched across the direction of the prevailing westerly winds. In this regard, its western slope is more often visited by cyclones and is better moistened than the eastern one; on average, it receives 100-150 mm more precipitation. Thus, the annual amount of precipitation on the western slope is: in Kizel (260 m above sea level) - 688 mm, in Ufa (173 m) - 585 mm; on the eastern slope it is equal to: in Sverdlovsk (281 m) - 438 mm, in Chelyabinsk (228 m) - 361 mm. Very clearly the differences in the amount of precipitation between the western and eastern slopes can be traced in winter. While on the western slope the Ural taiga is buried in snowdrifts, on the eastern slope the snow remains shallow all winter.

The maximum precipitation - up to 1000 mm per year - falls on the western slopes of the Subpolar Urals. In the extreme north and south of the Ural Mountains, the amount of precipitation decreases, which is associated, as in the Russian Plain, with a weakening of cyclonic activity.

The rugged mountainous terrain creates an exceptional variety of local climates in the Urals. Mountains of unequal height, slopes of different exposure, intermountain valleys and basins - they all have their own special climate. In winter and during the transitional seasons of the year, cold air rolls down the slopes of the mountains into depressions, where it stagnates, causing the phenomenon of temperature inversion, which is very common in the mountains. In the Ivanovsky mine in winter, the temperature is higher or the same as in Zlatoust, although the latter is located 400 m below the Ivanovsky mine (the height of the Ivanovsky mine is 856 m, Zlatoust is 458 m).

Soils and vegetation. In accordance with the climatic conditions, the soils and vegetation of the Urals show latitudinal zonality from the tundra in the north to the steppes in the south. However, this zonality is special, mountain latitude, differing from zoning on the plains in that the soil-vegetation zones are displaced here far to the south.

The extreme north of the Urals from the foot to the top is covered with mountain tundra. Mountain tundra, however, very soon (to the north of 67°N) pass into a high-altitude landscape belt, at the foothills being replaced by mountain taiga forests.

Forests are the most common type of vegetation in the Urals. They stretch like a solid green wall along the ridge from the Arctic Circle to 52 ° N. sh., interrupted at high peaks by mountain tundra, and in the south, at the foot, by steppes.

The forests of the Urals are diverse in composition: coniferous, broad-leaved and small-leaved. Ural 3 coniferous forests have a completely Siberian appearance: in addition to Siberian spruce and pine, they also contain Siberian fir, Sukachev's larch and cedar. The Urals do not pose a serious obstacle to the distribution of Siberian conifers; they all cross the ridge, and the western border of their distribution runs along the Russian Plain.

Coniferous forests are most common in the northern part of the Urals, north of 58 ° N. sh. True, they are also found south of this latitude, but their role here sharply decreases due to an increase in the area of ​​small-leaved and broad-leaved forests. The least demanding coniferous species in terms of climate and soils is Sukachev's larch. It goes farther than other rocks to the north, reaching 68 ° N. sh., and together with pine further than other species, it descends to the south, only slightly short of the latitudinal segment of the Ural River. Despite the fact that Sukachev's larch has such a vast range, it does not occupy large areas and almost does not form pure stands. The main role in the coniferous forests of the Urals belongs to spruce-fir and pine plantations.

Broad-leaved forests begin to play a significant role south of 57 s. sh. Their composition in the Urals is very depleted: there is no ash and oak is found only on the western slope of the ridge. The Ural broad-leaved and mixed forests are characterized by linden, which often forms pure plantations in Bashkiria.

Many broad-leaved species do not go further east than the Urals. These include oak, elm, holly maple. But the coincidence of the eastern border of their distribution with the Urals is an accidental phenomenon: the advance of oak, elm and maple into Siberia is hindered not by the severely destroyed Ural Mountains, but by the Siberian continental climate.

Small-leaved forests are scattered throughout the Urals, but there are more of them in its southern part. The origin of small-leaved forests is twofold - primary and secondary. Birch is one of the most common tree species in the Urals.

Mountain podzolic soils of varying degrees of swampiness and podzolization are developed under forests in the Urals. In the south of the distribution of coniferous forests, where these forests acquire a southern taiga character, typical mountain podzolic soils give way to mountain soddy podzolic soils. Even further south, under the mixed, broad-leaved and small-leaved forests of the Southern Urals, gray forest soils are common.

The farther south, the higher and higher the forest belt of the Urals rises into the mountains. Its upper border in the Northern Urals lies at an altitude of 450-600 m above sea level, in the Middle Urals it rises to 600-750 m, and in the Southern Urals to 1000-1100 m.

Between the mountain forest belt and treeless mountain tundra stretches a narrow transitional belt, which P. L. Gorchakovsky (1955) calls the subbalt. In the subalpine belt, thickets of shrubs and twisted low-growing forests alternate with clearings of wet meadows on dark mountain meadow soils. Winding birch, cedar, fir and spruce entering the subalpine belt in places form a dwarf form.

South of 57° N. sh. first, on the foothill plains, and then on the slopes of the mountains, the forest belt is replaced by forest-steppe and steppe on chernozem soils. The extreme south of the Urals, like its extreme north, is treeless. Mountain chernozem steppes, interrupted in places by mountain forest-steppe, cover the entire range here, including its peneplanated axial part.

Animal world The Urals is composed of three main complexes - tundra, forest and steppe. Following the vegetation, northern animals in their distribution along the Ural ridge move far to the south. Suffice it to say that until recently the reindeer lived in the Southern Urals, and the brown bear still sometimes comes to the Orenburg region from the mountainous Bashkiria.

Typical tundra animals inhabiting the Polar Urals are: reindeer, arctic fox, ungulate lemming, Middendorf's vole, white and tundra partridge; in summer there are many waterfowl of commercial importance (ducks, geese).

The forest complex of animals is best preserved in the Northern Urals, where it is represented by taiga species. Typical taiga-Ural species include: brown bear, sable, wolverine, otter, lynx, squirrel, chipmunk, red-backed vole; of game birds - hazel grouse and capercaillie.

The distribution of steppe animals is limited to the Southern Urals. As on the plains, there are many rodents in the steppes of the Urals: small and reddish ground squirrels, large jerboa, marmot, steppe pika, common hamster, common vole, etc. Of the predators, the wolf, corsac fox, and steppe polecat are common. The composition of birds in the steppe is diverse: steppe eagle, steppe harrier, kite, bustard, little bustard , saker falcon, gray partridge demoiselle crane, horned lark, black lark.

From the history of development Ural landscapes. In the Paleogene, on the site of the Ural Mountains, a low hilly plain rose, resembling a modern Kazakh hillock. From the east and south it was surrounded by shallow seas. The climate was then hot, evergreen tropical forests and dry woodlands with palms and laurels grew in the Urals.

By the end of the Paleogene, the evergreen Poltava flora is replaced by the Turgai deciduous flora of temperate latitudes. Already at the very beginning of the Neogene, forests of oak, beech, hornbeam, chestnut, alder, and birch dominated in the Urals. During this period, major changes occur in the relief: as a result of vertical tectonic movements, the Urals from a small hillock turns into a middle-mountainous country. Together with uplifts, a process of altitudinal differentiation of vegetation takes place: the tops of the mountains are captured by mountain taiga, bald vegetation is gradually formed, which is facilitated by the restoration in the Neogene of the continental connection of the Urals with Siberia, the birthplace of mountain-tundra vegetation.

At the very end of the Neogene, the Akchagyl Sea approaches the southwestern slopes of the Urals. The climate at that time was cold, the ice age was approaching; coniferous taiga becomes the dominant type of vegetation in the Urals.

In the era of the Dnieper glaciation, the northern half of the Urals is hidden under the ice cover, in the south at this time there is a cold birch-pine-larch forest-steppe, in some places spruce forests, and near the valley of the Ural River and along the slopes of the Common Syrt - the remains of broad-leaved forests.

After the death of the glacier, the forests moved to the north of the Urals, and the role of dark coniferous species increased in their composition. In the south of the Urals, broad-leaved forests have become more widespread, while the birch-pine-larch forest-steppe has degraded. Birch and larch groves found in the Southern Urals are direct descendants of those birch and larch forests that were characteristic of the cold Pleistocene forest-steppe.

- Source-

Milkov, F.N. Physical geography of the USSR / F.N. Milkov [and d.b.]. - M .: State publishing house of geographical literature, 1958. - 351 p.

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Ural mountains- the mountain range that crosses Russia from north to south is the border between two parts of the world and the two largest parts (macro-regions) of our country - European and Asian.

Geographical position of the Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains stretch from north to south, mainly along the 60th meridian. In the north they bend towards the northeast, towards the Yamal Peninsula, in the south they turn towards the southwest. One of their features is that the mountainous territory expands as you move from north to south (this can be clearly seen on the map on the right). In the very south, in the region of the Orenburg region, the Ural Mountains connect with nearby elevations, such as General Syrt.

Strange as it may seem, the exact geological boundary of the Ural Mountains (hence the exact geographic boundary between Europe and Asia) still cannot be accurately determined.

The Ural Mountains are conditionally divided into five regions: Polar Urals, Subpolar Urals, Northern Urals, Middle Urals and Southern Urals.

To one degree or another, part of the Ural Mountains is captured by the following regions (from north to south): Arkhangelsk Region, Komi Republic, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Perm Territory, Sverdlovsk Region, Chelyabinsk Region, Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg Region , as well as part of Kazakhstan.

Professor D.N. Anuchin in the 19th century wrote about the variety of landscapes of the Urals:

“From the Konstantinovsky stone in the north to the Mugodzhar mountains in the south, the Urals show a different character in different latitudes. Wild, with rocky peaks in the north, it becomes forest, with more rounded outlines in the middle part, it becomes rocky again in the Kyshtym Urals, and especially near Zlatoust and beyond, where the high Iremel rises. And these charming lakes of the Trans-Urals, bordered from the west by a beautiful line of mountains. These rocky shores of Chusovaya with its dangerous "fighters", these rocks of Tagil with their mysterious "scribes", these beauties of the southern, Bashkir Urals, how much material they provide for a photographer, painter, geologist, geographer!

Origin of the Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains have a long and complex history. It begins back in the Proterozoic era - such an ancient and little-studied stage in the history of our planet that scientists do not even divide it into periods and epochs. Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, on the site of future mountains, a rupture of the earth's crust occurred, which soon reached a depth of more than ten kilometers. Over the course of almost two billion years, this fault widened, so that about 430 million years ago an ocean up to a thousand kilometers wide was formed. However, soon after this, the convergence of lithospheric plates began; the ocean disappeared relatively quickly, and mountains formed in its place. It happened about 300 million years ago - this corresponds to the era of the so-called Hercynian folding.

New large uplifts in the Urals resumed only 30 million years ago, during which the Polar, Subpolar, Northern and Southern parts of the mountains were raised by almost a kilometer, and the Middle Urals by about 300-400 meters.

At present, the Ural Mountains have stabilized - no major movements of the earth's crust are observed here. Nevertheless, to this day they remind people of their active history: from time to time earthquakes happen here, and very large ones (the strongest had an amplitude of 7 points and was recorded not so long ago - in 1914).

Features of the structure and relief of the Urals

From a geological point of view, the Ural Mountains are very complex. They are formed by breeds of various types and ages. In many ways, the features of the internal structure of the Urals are associated with its history, for example, traces of deep faults and even sections of the oceanic crust are still preserved.

The Ural Mountains are medium and low in height, the highest point is Mount Narodnaya in the Subpolar Urals, reaching 1895 meters. In profile, the Ural Mountains resemble a depression: the highest ridges are located in the north and south, and the middle part does not exceed 400-500 meters, so that when crossing the Middle Urals, you can not even notice the mountains.

View of the Main Ural Range in the Perm Territory. Author of the photo - Yulia Vandysheva

It can be said that the Ural Mountains were “unlucky” in terms of height: they were formed in the same period as Altai, but subsequently experienced much less strong uplifts. The result - the highest point of Altai, Mount Belukha, reaches four and a half kilometers, and the Ural Mountains are more than two times lower. However, such an "elevated" position of Altai turned into a danger of earthquakes - the Urals in this respect is much safer for life.

Despite relatively low altitudes, the Ural Range serves as an obstacle to air masses moving mainly from the west. More precipitation falls on the western slope than on the eastern slope. In the mountains themselves, in the nature of the vegetation, altitudinal zonation is pronounced.

Typical vegetation of the mountain tundra belt in the Ural Mountains. The picture was taken on the slope of Mount Humboldt (Main Ural Range, Northern Urals) at an altitude of 1310 meters. Author of the photo - Natalia Shmaenkova

The long, continuous struggle of volcanic forces against the forces of wind and water (in geography, the former are called endogenous, and the latter exogenous) has created a huge number of unique natural attractions in the Urals: rocks, caves and many others.

The Urals is also known for its vast reserves of minerals of all types. This is, first of all, iron, copper, nickel, manganese and many other types of ores, building materials. The Kachkanar iron deposit is one of the largest in the country. Although the metal content in the ore is low, it contains rare, but very valuable metals - manganese, vanadium.

In the north, in the Pechora coal basin, hard coal is mined. There are noble metals in our region - gold, silver, platinum. Undoubtedly, Ural precious and semi-precious stones are widely known: emeralds mined near Yekaterinburg, diamonds, gems of the Murzinskaya strip, and, of course, Ural malachite.

Unfortunately, many valuable old deposits have already been depleted. "Magnetic mountains", containing large reserves of iron ore, have been turned into quarries, and malachite reserves have been preserved only in museums and in the form of separate inclusions at the site of old mines - it is hardly possible to find even a three-hundred-kilogram monolith now. Nevertheless, these minerals largely ensured the economic power and glory of the Urals for centuries.

Film about the Ural Mountains:

Journey to the Cis-Urals and to the western slope of the Ural Mountains was made by schoolchildren of the geographical club "Raimantau" in the first ten days of August. As part of the grant project of the Russian Geographical Society "From Ik to Yaik", the children visited the geographical sights of the capital of Bashkortostan - Ufa, the single mountains Malaya and Bolshaya Serpentine, Shalashovskaya and Kiselevskaya caves.

A large-scale research expedition of Bashkir schoolchildren "From Ik to Yaik" is carried out with the grant support of the Russian Geographical Society. During the year, the children will have to cross the Republic of Bashkortostan from west to east, from the Ik River to the Ural River (the old name is Yaik).

Project objectives:

• study of changes in the landscapes of Bashkortostan;
• expeditionary research along four routes;
• practical study of geography in field conditions;
• accumulation of geographical knowledge about the native land;
• carrying out ecological observations and drawing the attention of the population to the problems of environmental protection;
• organization of active and educational recreation for schoolchildren;
• promotion among young people of a healthy lifestyle and travel around their native land.

The end point of the Pre-Ural route was the city of Asha, located in the Chelyabinsk region, on the border with Bashkortostan. On the way to it, making a transfer to the train in Ufa, young travelers decided to get acquainted with the geography of the largest city of Bashkiria. Their first object was the Museum of Geology and Minerals, in the showcases of which more than three thousand samples of rocks and minerals are collected. By visiting the museum, you can get an idea of ​​the richest mineral wealth of Bashkortostan, due to the difference in geological structure: the western part of the republic has a platform structure, and the eastern part is folded. In the west there are large deposits of oil, gas, coal, rock salt, and in the east - iron ore, zinc, copper and gold. The children most of all liked the most colorful section - "Colored Stones and Minerals", which represents the richest collection of South Ural jaspers. In the museum you can take a picture next to the map of Bashkiria, made of ornamental and semi-precious stones from various deposits of the republic.

After visiting the museum, the expedition members went to the Dudkinskaya ferry across the Ufa River. Previously, there was a busy place here - the Siberian Highway began, and now a boat transports only summer residents through the crossing. Nearby, in the high forested coastal slope of Ufimka, there is the Dudkinskaya adit.

On the way to it, the expedition members examined a section of the Permian rocks that make up the Ufa Peninsula - a hilly area between the Belaya and Ufa rivers. The Dudka gypsum mine was developed from the 1920s to the fifties. It is a complex 2500-meter labyrinth of drifts with a vault height of up to 4 meters. In some places in the roof you can see natural karst cavities, and not far from the adit, the guys found several karst sinkholes.

Karst processes caused by the dissolution of gypsum with water are one of the main problems of Ufa. Over the past hundred years, more than three hundred karst failures have been recorded on the Ufa Peninsula. In Ufa, cracks often form in houses due to ground movements. The walls of some buildings are pulled together with metal belts, and several high-rise buildings had to be dismantled.

After admiring the coast of the Ufa River and climbing a narrow serpentine, the expedition members went to the city center. Their next goal is to search for the house where the famous polar navigator lived Valerian Ivanovich Albanov, who was born on May 26, 1882 in Ufa, and in 1904 graduated from the St. Petersburg Distant Navigation School. In 1912, he was invited as a navigator to the expedition of Georgy Brusilov on the schooner "Saint Anna", the purpose of which was to pass the Northern Sea Route.

Off the western coast of Yamal, the ship was jammed with ice and began its two-year drift in a north-westerly direction. On April 10, 1914, due to the threat of starvation, part of the crew - 11 people led by the navigator Albanov - left the schooner.

Four months later, only two participants in the transition - Albanov and sailor Konrad managed to break through the hummocky ice and wide open waters to the Franz Josef Land archipelago, the rest died. The fate of the crew that remained on the St. Anna is still unknown. The materials of Brusilov's expedition delivered by Albanov became an important contribution to the geography of the Arctic Ocean, and the navigator's book "To the South, to Franz Josef Land" aroused great interest among readers in Russia and abroad. Valerian Albanov and the schooner "Saint Anna" served as prototypes for navigator Ivan Klimov and the ship "Saint Maria" in Veniamin Kaverin's novel "Two Captains".

And now, the expedition members are on Aksakov Street, near the walls of a one-story house that does not have a number. Having entered a small grocery store on the right side of the building, they found out that this is the same house No. 6, in which, as confirmed by Ufa local historians, the famous polar navigator spent his childhood. Unfortunately, there is no plaque about Valerian Albanov on the house, the house does not have the status of a historical and architectural monument and, therefore, can be demolished, like many old houses in the center of Ufa.

The next point of the expedition was the Malaya and Bolshaya Zmeinaya mountains, located next to the Sim River, on the border with the Chelyabinsk region. These lone mountains owe their origin to the ancient Perm Sea, which washed the western slopes of the then young Urals, and are fossil reefs (coral islands) that arose about 300 million years ago.

The most famous Permian reefs are the Sterlitamak shikhans. But there are others in Bashkortostan that are less famous and unexplored. These include the Snake Mountains, located just 70 kilometers east of Ufa. From the Serpentine Mountains, a panorama of the advanced Ural Ranges opens, in front of which, within the city of Asha, another reef mass rises - Lime Mountain, a natural monument of the Chelyabinsk region.

On Mount Malaya Zmeinaya there is a quarry for the extraction of building stone. The expedition members applied to the administration of the enterprise with a request for permission to visit the quarry in order to search for samples of fossil fauna on its territory (explosive work is underway in the quarry). They received permission to explore and an accompanying mountain foreman. Within a few hours, the guys discovered ancient fossils: brachiopods, ammonoids, sea lilies, sponges and corallites. The collected samples of fossil organisms of the early Permian sea basin will become exhibits of the school geographical cabinet-museum. The expedition members also visited Mount Bolshaya Zmeinaya, 280 meters high, the slope of which descends steeply to the Sim River. The mountain, covered with linden forest, remains untouched by human activity. Perhaps it should be preserved as a natural monument?

Sedimentary rocks predominate on the western slopes of the Southern Urals - limestones, dolomites and marls. They are easily soluble in water, and therefore hundreds of caves are located here. The expedition members visited the Kiselevskaya and Shalashovskaya caves, located near the city of Asha. The narrow mountain valley of the Sim River opening outside the city with steep cliffs, from which avalanches descend on the railway passing here in winter, and rockfalls in summer, is figuratively called the "Gate of the Urals".

To get to the Kiselyovskaya cave, you need to climb the steep path up the Kiselevskaya ravine. The entrance to the cave is an inclined well, which you need to descend carefully, but it is better to use rope insurance. The length of the cave is 1260 meters, its largest grotto, the Banquet Hall, reaches a length of more than 100 meters, a width of up to 40, and a ceiling height of 10 meters. The floor in the cave is covered with blocks of limestone, there are many clay areas. In the cave, the guys observed a variety of sinter formations: stalactites, stalagmites, scallops, snow-white calcite streaks, cave pearls.

The entrance to the Shalashovskaya cave is located at the end of a blind karst ravine at the bottom of a large sinkhole, the inlet of which is 10 meters wide and 1.5 meters high. Entering it, the guys crawled through a low passage and ended up in the main gallery, along which a small stream runs, forming small erosion pots filled with water under two-meter ledges. In the main gallery there are small grottoes, the walls and vaults of which are covered with bluish-white sintered calcite formations. The total length of the passages of the Shalashovskaya cave is 225 meters.

After spending the night in the forest near the Shalashovskaya cave, the members of the expedition "From Ik to Yaik" went by train home from Chelyabinsk Asha, located on the eastern border of Bashkortostan, to Tuymazy, located at the western borders of the republic.

The material was prepared by the head of the expedition, geography teacher I.M. Danilko

"The stone belt of the Russian Land" - this is how the Ural Mountains were called in the old days. Indeed, they seem to gird Russia, separating the European part from the Asian. The mountain ranges, stretching for more than 2,000 kilometers, do not end on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. They just submerge into the water for a short time, in order to “emerge” later - first on the island of Vaygach. And then on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. Thus, the Ural stretches to the pole for another 800 kilometers.

The "stone belt" of the Urals is relatively narrow: it does not exceed 200 kilometers, narrowing in places to 50 kilometers or less. These are ancient mountains that arose several hundred million years ago, when fragments of the earth's crust were soldered together with a long uneven "seam". Since then, although the ridges have been renewed by ascending movements, they have been more destroyed. The highest point of the Urals is Mount Narodnaya - it rises only 1895 meters. Peaks over 1000 meters are excluded even in the most elevated parts.

Very diverse in height, relief and landscapes, the Ural Mountains are usually divided into several parts. The northernmost, wedged into the waters of the Arctic Ocean, is the Pai-Khoi ridge, low (300-500 meters) ridges of which are partially submerged in glacial and marine sediments of the surrounding plains.

The Polar Urals are noticeably higher (up to 1300 meters or more). In its relief there are traces of ancient glacial activity: narrow ridges with sharp peaks (carlings); between them lie wide deep valleys (troughs), including through ones. According to one of them, the Polar Urals is crossed by a railway going to the city of Labytnangi (on the Ob). In the Subpolar Urals, which is very similar in appearance, the mountains reach their maximum heights.

In the Northern Urals, separate massifs - "stones" stand out, noticeably rising above the surrounding low mountains - Denezhkin Kamen (1492 meters), Konzhakovsky Kamen (1569 meters). Longitudinal ridges and depressions separating them are clearly expressed here. The rivers are forced to follow them for a long time before they gain strength to escape from the mountainous country along a narrow gorge. The peaks, unlike the polar ones, are rounded or flat, decorated with steps - upland terraces. Both peaks and slopes are covered with collapses of large boulders; in some places, remnants in the form of truncated pyramids (locally tumpy) rise above them.

In the north, you can meet the inhabitants of the tundra - reindeer in the forests are found bears, wolves, foxes, sables, ermines, lynxes, as well as ungulates (moose, deer, etc.).

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Scientists are not always able to establish when people settled in a particular area. Ural is one such example. Traces of the activities of people who lived here 25-40 thousand years ago are preserved only in deep caves. Several sites of ancient man have been found. The northern ("Basic") was 175 kilometers from the Arctic Circle.

The Middle Urals can be attributed to the mountains with a great deal of conventionality: a noticeable dip formed in this place of the "belt". There are only a few isolated gentle hills no higher than 800 meters. The plateaus of the Cis-Urals, belonging to the Russian Plain, freely "overflow" through the main watershed and pass into the Trans-Ural Plateau - already within Western Siberia.

In the Southern Urals, which has a mountainous appearance, parallel ridges reach their maximum width. Peaks rarely overcome the thousand-meter barrier (the highest point is Mount Yamantau - 1640 meters); their outlines are soft, the slopes are gentle.

The mountains of the Southern Urals, largely composed of easily soluble rocks, have a karst relief form - blind valleys, funnels, caves and failures formed during the destruction of arches.

The nature of the Southern Urals differs sharply from the nature of the Northern Urals. In summer, in the dry steppes of the Mugodzhary ridge, the earth warms up to 30-40`C. Even a weak wind raises whirlwinds of dust. The Ural River flows at the foot of the mountains along a long depression of the meridional direction. The valley of this river is almost treeless, the current is calm, although there are also rapids.

Ground squirrels, shrews, snakes and lizards are found in the Southern steppes. Rodents (hamsters, field mice) spread on the plowed lands.

The landscapes of the Urals are diverse, because the chain crosses how many natural zones - from the tundra to the steppes. Altitudinal belts are weakly expressed; only the largest peaks are noticeably different in their bareness from the foothills overgrown with forests. Rather, you can catch the difference between the slopes. Western, still "European", are relatively warm and humid. Oaks, maples and other broad-leaved trees grow on them, which no longer penetrate the eastern slopes: Siberian, North Asian landscapes dominate here.

Nature, as it were, confirms the decision of man to draw a border between parts of the world along the Urals.

In the foothills and mountains of the Urals, the subsoil is full of untold riches: copper, iron, nickel, gold, diamonds, platinum, precious stones and gems, coal and rock salt ... This is one of the few areas on the planet where mining originated five thousand years ago and will continue to exist for a very long time.

GEOLOGICAL AND TECTONIC STRUCTURE OF THE URALS

The Ural Mountains formed in the region of the Hercynian folding. They are separated from the Russian Platform by the Cis-Ural marginal foredeep, filled with Paleogene sedimentary strata: clays, sands, gypsum, limestones.

The oldest rocks of the Urals - Archean and Proterozoic crystalline schists and quartzites - make up its water-spreading ridge.

To the west of it are Paleozoic sedimentary and metamorphic rocks crumpled into folds: sandstones, shales, limestones and marbles.

In the eastern part of the Urals, among the Paleozoic sedimentary strata, igneous rocks of various compositions are widespread. This is the reason for the exceptional wealth of the eastern slope of the Urals and the Trans-Urals with a variety of ore minerals, precious and semi-precious stones.

CLIMATE OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS

The Ural lies in the depths. mainland far from the Atlantic Ocean. This determines the continentality of its climate. Climatic heterogeneity within the Urals is associated primarily with its large extent from north to south, from the shores of the Barents and Kara Seas to the dry steppes of Kazakhstan. As a result, the northern and southern regions of the Urals find themselves in unequal radiation and circulation conditions and fall into different climatic zones - subarctic (up to the polar slope) and temperate (the rest of the territory).

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The belt of mountains is narrow, the heights of the ridges are relatively small, so there is no special mountain climate in the Urals. However, meridionally elongated mountains have a rather significant effect on circulation processes, playing the role of a barrier to the prevailing western transport of air masses. Therefore, although the climates of neighboring plains are repeated in the mountains, but in a slightly modified form. In particular, at any crossing of the Urals in the mountains, the climate of more northern regions is observed than on the adjacent plains of the foothills, that is, the climatic zones in the mountains are shifted to the south compared to neighboring plains. Thus, within the Ural mountainous country, the change in climatic conditions is subject to the law of latitudinal zonality and is only somewhat complicated by altitudinal zonality. There is a change in climate from tundra to steppe.

Being an obstacle to the movement of air masses from west to east, the Urals is an example of a physiographic country where the effect of orography on climate is quite clearly manifested. This effect is primarily manifested in better moistening of the western slope, which is the first to encounter cyclones, and the Cis-Urals. At all crossings of the Urals, the amount of precipitation on the western slopes is 150 - 200 mm more than on the eastern ones.

The greatest amount of precipitation (over 1000 mm) falls on the western slopes of the Polar, Subpolar and partially Northern Urals. This is due to both the height of the mountains and their position on the main paths of the Atlantic cyclones. To the south, the amount of precipitation gradually decreases to 600 - 700 mm, again increasing to 850 mm in the most highly elevated part of the Southern Urals. In the southern and southeastern parts of the Urals, as well as in the far north, the annual precipitation is less than 500 - 450 mm. The maximum precipitation occurs during the warm period.

In winter, snow cover sets in the Urals. Its thickness in the Cis-Urals is 70 - 90 cm. In the mountains, the snow thickness increases with height, reaching 1.5 - 2 m on the western slopes of the Subpolar and Northern Urals. Snow is especially plentiful in the upper part of the forest belt. There is much less snow in the Trans-Urals. In the southern part of the Trans-Urals, its thickness does not exceed 30–40 cm.

In general, within the Ural mountain country, the climate varies from severe and cold in the north to continental and rather dry in the south. There are noticeable differences in the climate of mountainous regions, western and eastern foothills. The climate of the Cis-Urals and the western slopes of rop is close in a number of ways to the climate of the eastern regions of the Russian Plain, and the climate of the eastern slopes of rop and the Trans-Urals is close to the continental climate of Western Siberia.

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The rugged relief of the mountains causes a significant variety of their local climates. Here there is a change in temperature with height, although not as significant as in the Caucasus. During the summer, temperatures drop. For example, in the foothills of the Subpolar Urals, the average temperature in July is 12 C, and at altitudes of 1600 - 1800 m - only 3 - 4 "C. In winter, cold air stagnates in the intermountain basins and temperature inversions are observed. higher than on mountain ranges.Therefore, mountains of unequal height, slopes of different wind and solar exposure, mountain ranges and intermountain basins differ from each other in their climatic features.

Climatic features and orographic conditions contribute to the development in the Polar and Subpolar Urals, between 68 and 64 N latitude, of small forms of modern glaciation. There are 143 glaciers here, and their total area is just over 28 km2, which indicates a very small size of glaciers. Not without reason, when speaking about the modern glaciation of the Urals, the word "glaciers" is usually used. Their main types are steam (2/3 of the total number) and leaning (sloping). There are kirov-hanging and kirov-valley. The largest of them are the IGAN glaciers (area 1.25 km2, length 1.8 km) and MGU (area 1.16 km2, length 2.2 km).

The area of ​​distribution of modern glaciation is the highest part of the Urals with a wide development of ancient glacial cirques and cirques, with the presence of trough valleys and peaked peaks. Relative heights reach 800 - 1000 m. The Alpine type of relief is most characteristic of the ridges lying to the west of the watershed, but the cirques and cirques are located mainly on the eastern slopes of these ridges. On the same ridges, the greatest amount of precipitation also falls, but due to snowstorms and avalanche snow coming from steep slopes, snow accumulates in negative forms of leeward slopes, providing food for modern glaciers, which exist due to this at altitudes of 800 - 1200 m, i.e. e. below the climatic limit.

WATER RESOURCES

The rivers of the Urals belong to the basins of the Pechora, Volga, Ural and Ob, i.e., respectively, the Barents, Caspian and Kara seas. The amount of river runoff in the Urals is much greater than in the adjacent Russian and West Siberian plains. The mountainous relief, increased precipitation, lower temperatures in the mountains favor an increase in runoff, so most of the rivers and rivers of the Urals are born in the mountains and flow down their slopes to the west and east, to the plains of the Cis-Urals and Trans-Urals. In the north, the mountains are a watershed between the river systems of the Pechora and Ob, to the south - between the basins of the Tobol, which also belongs to the Ob and Kama systems - the largest tributary of the Volga. The extreme south of the territory belongs to the Ural River basin, and the watershed shifts to the plains of the Trans-Urals.

The rivers are fed by snow (up to 70% of the flow), rain (20 - 30%) and groundwater (usually no more than 20%). Significantly increases (up to 40%) the participation of groundwater in the feeding of rivers in karst areas. An important feature of most of the rivers of the Urals is the relatively low variability of runoff from year to year. The ratio of the runoff of the most abundant year to the runoff of the least water usually ranges from 1.5 to 3.

Lakes in the Urals are very unevenly distributed. Their greatest number is concentrated in the eastern foothills of the Middle and Southern Urals, where tectonic lakes predominate, in the mountains of the Subpolar and Polar Urals, where tarns are numerous. On the Trans-Ural plateau, suffusion-subsidence lakes are common, and in the Cis-Urals there are karst lakes. In total, there are more than 6000 lakes in the Urals, each with an area of ​​​​more than 1 ra, their total area is over 2000 km2. Small lakes predominate, there are relatively few large lakes. Only some lakes of the eastern foothills have an area measured in tens of square kilometers: Argazi (101 km2), Uvildy (71 km2), Irtyash (70 km2), Turgoyak (27 km2), etc. In total, more than 60 large lakes with a total an area of ​​about 800 km2. All large lakes are of tectonic origin.

The most extensive lakes in terms of the water surface are Uvildy, Irtyash.

The deepest are Uvildy, Kisegach, Turgoyak.

The most capacious are Uvildy and Turgoyak.

The cleanest water is in the lakes Turgoyak, Zyuratkul, Uvildy (a white disk is visible at a depth of 19.5 m).

In addition to natural reservoirs, there are several thousand reservoir ponds in the Urals, including more than 200 factory ponds, some of which have been preserved since Peter the Great.

Great is the importance of the water resources of the rivers and lakes of the Urals, primarily as a source of industrial and domestic water supply for numerous cities. A lot of water is consumed by the Ural industry, especially metallurgical and chemical industries, therefore, despite the seemingly sufficient amount of water, there is not enough water in the Urals. A particularly acute shortage of water is observed in the eastern foothills of the Middle and Southern Urals, where the water content of the rivers flowing down from the mountains is low.

Most of the rivers of the Urals are suitable for timber rafting, but very few are used for navigation. Partially navigable are Belaya, Ufa, Vishera, Tobol, and in high water - Tavda with Sosva and Lozva and Tura. The Ural rivers are of interest as a source of hydropower for the construction of small hydropower plants on mountain rivers, but so far they are little used. Rivers and lakes are wonderful places for recreation.

MINERALS OF THE URAL MOUNTAINS

Among the natural resources of the Urals, a prominent role belongs, of course, to the wealth of its bowels. Among the minerals, deposits of ore raw materials are of the greatest importance, however, many of them have been discovered for a long time and have been exploited for a long time, therefore they are largely depleted.

Ural ores are often complex. In iron ores there are impurities of titanium, nickel, chromium, vanadium; in copper - zinc, gold, silver. Most of the ore deposits are located on the eastern slope and in the Trans-Urals, where igneous rocks abound.

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The Urals are primarily vast iron ore and copper provinces. More than a hundred deposits are known here: iron ore (Vysokoy, Blagodat, Magnitnaya mountains; Bakalskoye, Zigazinskoye, Avzyanskoye, Alapaevskoye, etc.) and titanium-magnetite (Kusinskoye, Pervouralskoye, Kachkanarskoye). There are numerous deposits of copper-pyrite and copper-zinc ores (Karabashskoye, Sibayskoye, Gayskoye, Uchalinskoye, Blyava, etc.). Among other non-ferrous and rare metals, there are large deposits of chromium (Saranovskoye, Kempirsayskoye), nickel and cobalt (Verkhneufaleyskoye, Orsko-Khalilovskoye), bauxite (the Krasnaya Shapochka group of deposits), Polunochnoye deposit of manganese ores, etc.

Placer and primary deposits of precious metals are very numerous here: gold (Berezovskoye, Nevyanskoye, Kochkarskoye, etc.), platinum (Nizhny Tagil, Sysertskoye, Zaozernoye, etc.), silver. Gold deposits in the Urals have been developed since the 18th century.

Of the non-metallic minerals of the Urals, deposits of potassium, magnesium and table salts (Verkhnekamskoye, Solikamskoye, Sol-Iletskoye), coal (Vorkuta, Kizelovsky, Chelyabinsk, South Ural basins), oil (Ishimbayskoye) stand out. Deposits of asbestos, talc, magnesite, diamond placers are also known here. In the trough near the western slope of the Ural Mountains, minerals of sedimentary origin are concentrated - oil (Bashkortostan, Perm region), natural gas (Orenburg region).

Mining is accompanied by fragmentation of rocks and pollution of the atmosphere. The rocks extracted from the depths, getting into the zone of oxidation, enter into various chemical reactions with atmospheric air and water. The products of chemical reactions enter the atmosphere and water bodies, polluting them. Ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, the chemical industry and other industries contribute to the pollution of atmospheric air and water bodies, so the state of the environment in the industrial regions of the Urals is of concern. The Urals is the undoubted "leader" among the regions of Russia in terms of environmental pollution.

GEMS

The term "gems" can be used extremely broadly, but specialists prefer a clear classification. The science of precious stones divides them into two types: organic and inorganic origin.

Organic: Stones are created by animals or plants, for example, amber is fossilized tree resin, and pearls mature in shellfish shells. Other examples include coral, jet and tortoiseshell. Bones and teeth of terrestrial and marine animals were processed and used as material for making brooches, necklaces and figurines.

Inorganic: Hard, naturally occurring minerals with a consistent chemical structure. Most gemstones are inorganic, but of the thousands of minerals extracted from the bowels of our planet, only about twenty are awarded the high title of "gem" - for their rarity, beauty, durability and strength.

Most gemstones are found in nature in the form of crystals or their fragments. To get to know the crystals better, just sprinkle a little salt or sugar on a piece of paper and look at them through a magnifying glass. Each grain of salt will look like a small cube, and a grain of sugar will look like a miniature tablet with sharp edges. If the crystals are perfect, all their faces are flat and sparkle with reflected light. These are typical crystalline forms of these substances, and salt is indeed a mineral, and sugar refers to substances of plant origin.

Facets of crystals form almost all minerals, if in nature they had the opportunity to grow in favorable conditions, and in many cases, acquiring precious stones in the form of raw materials, you can see these facets in part or in full. The edges of crystals are not a random game of nature. They appear only when the internal arrangement of atoms has a certain order, and give more information about the geometry of this arrangement.

Differences in the arrangement of atoms within crystals cause many differences in their properties, including such as color, hardness, ease of splitting and others, which the amateur must take into account when working stones.

According to the classification of A. E. Fersman and M. Bauer, groups of precious stones are divided into orders or classes (I, II, III) depending on the relative value of the stones combined in them.

Gems of the 1st order: diamond, sapphire, ruby, emerald, alexandrite, chrysoberyl, noble spinel, euclase. They also include pearls - a precious stone of organic origin. Pure, transparent, even dense tone stones are highly valued. Poorly colored, cloudy, with cracks and other imperfections, stones of this order can be valued lower than gems of the II order.

Gems of the II order: topaz, beryl (aquamarine, sparrowite, heliodor), pink tourmaline (rubellite), phenakite, demantoid (Ural chrysolite), amethyst, almandine, pyrope, uvarovite, chromium diopside, zircon (hyacinth, yellow and green zircon), noble opal. With exceptional beauty of tone, transparency and size, the listed stones are sometimes valued along with precious stones of the 1st order.

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Gems of the III order: turquoise, green and polychrome tourmalines, cordierite, spodumene (kunzite), dioptase, epidote, rock crystal, smoky quartz (rauchtopaz), light amethyst, carnelian, heliotrope, chrysoprase, semi-opal, agate, feldspars (sun stone , moonstone), sodalite, prehnite, andalusite, diopside, hematite (bloodstone), pyrite, rutile, amber, jet. Only rare species and specimens are of high value. Many of them are so-called semi-precious in terms of application and value.

The Urals have long amazed researchers with an abundance of minerals and its main wealth - minerals. What is there in the underground pantries of the Urals! Extraordinarily large hexagonal crystals of rock crystal, amazing amethysts, rubies, sapphires, topazes, wonderful jaspers, red tourmaline, the beauty and pride of the Urals is a green emerald, which is valued several times more expensive than gold.

The most "mineral" place in the region is Ilmeny, where more than 260 minerals and 70 rocks have been found. About 20 minerals were discovered here for the first time in the world. The Ilmensky mountains are a real mineralogical museum. There are such precious stones as: sapphire, ruby, diamond, etc., semi-precious stones: amazonite, hyacinth, amethyst, opal, topaz, granite, malachite, corundum, jasper, sun, moon and Arabic stone, rock crystal, etc. .d.

Rock crystal, colorless, transparent, usually chemically pure, almost without impurities, a kind of low-temperature modification of quartz - SiO2, crystallizing in a trigonal system with a hardness of 7 and a density of 2.65 g / cm3. The word "crystal" itself comes from the Greek word "crystalloss", which means "ice". Scientists of antiquity, starting with Aristotle and including the famous Pliny, were convinced that "in the fierce Alpine winter, ice turns into stone. The sun is not able to melt such a stone later ...". And not only the appearance, but also the ability to always remain cool contributed to the fact that this opinion lasted in science until the end of the 18th century, when the physicist Robert Boyle proved that ice and crystal are completely different substances by measuring the specific gravity of both. The internal structure of ROCK CRYSTAL is often complicated by twin intergrowths, which significantly worsen its piezoelectric homogeneity. Large pure single crystals are rare, predominantly in voids and fissures of metamorphic shales, in voids of various types of hydrothermal veins, and also in chamber pegmatites. Homogeneous transparent single crystals are the most valuable technical raw material for optical devices (spectrograph prisms, lenses for ultraviolet optics, etc.) and piezoelectric products in electrical and radio engineering.

Rock crystal is also used for the manufacture of quartz glass (raw materials of lower grades), in artistic stone-cutting art and for jewelry. Rock crystal deposits in Russia are concentrated mainly in the Urals. The name emerald comes from the Greek smaragdos, or green stone. In ancient Russia, it is known as smaragd. The emerald occupies a privileged place among precious stones, it has been known since ancient times and has been used both as an adornment and in religious ceremonies.

Emerald is a variety of beryl, a silicate of aluminum and beryllium. Emerald crystals belong to the hexagonal syngony. Emerald owes its green color to chromium ions, which have replaced some of the aluminum ions in the crystal lattice. This gemstone is rarely found in flawless crystals, as a rule, emerald crystals are badly damaged. Known and valued since antiquity, it is used for inserts into the most expensive jewelry, usually processed with a step cut, one of the varieties of which is called emerald.

Quite a few very large emeralds are known that have received individual names and have been preserved in their original form, although the largest known weighing 28,200 g, or 141,000 carats, found in Brazil in 1974, as well as found in South Africa weighing 4,800 g "or 24,000 carats, were sawn and faceted for jewelry inserts.

In ancient times, emeralds were mined mainly in Egypt, in the mines of Cleopatra. Precious stones from this mine settled in the treasuries of the richest rulers of the ancient world. Emeralds are believed to have been adored by the Queen of Sheba. There is also a legend that the emperor Nero watched the battles of gladiators through emerald lenses.

Emeralds of much better quality than stones from Egypt have been found in dark mica schists, along with other beryllium minerals - chrysoberyl and phenakite, on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains near the Tokovaya River, about 80 km east of Yekaterinburg. The deposit was accidentally found by a peasant in 1830, noticing several green stones among the roots of a fallen tree. Emerald is one of the stones associated with the Supreme Spirit. It is believed that it brings happiness only to a pure, but illiterate person. The ancient Arabs believed that a person who wears an emerald does not see terrible dreams. In addition, the stone strengthens the heart, eliminates troubles, has a beneficial effect on vision, protects against seizures and evil spirits.

In ancient times, the emerald was considered a powerful talisman of mothers and sailors. If you look at a stone for a long time, then in it, like in a mirror, you can see everything secret and discover the future. This stone is credited with a connection with the subconscious, the ability to turn dreams into reality, to penetrate secret thoughts, it was used as a remedy for the bites of poisonous snakes. It was called the "stone of the mysterious Isis" - the goddess of life and health, the patroness of fertility and motherhood. He acted as a symbol of the beauty of nature. The special protective properties of the emerald are an active struggle against the deceit and infidelity of its owner. If the stone cannot resist bad qualities, it can crack.

DIAMOND - a mineral, a native element, occurs in the form of eight and dodecahedral crystals (often with rounded edges) and their parts. Diamond is found not only in the form of crystals, it forms intergrowths and aggregates, among which there are: bead - fine-grained intergrowths, ballas - spherical aggregates, carbonado - very fine-grained black aggregates. The name of the diamond comes from the Greek "adamas" or irresistible, indestructible. The unusual properties of this stone gave rise to a lot of legends. The ability to bring good luck is just one of the countless properties attributed to the diamond. Diamond has always been considered the stone of winners, it was the talisman of Julius Caesar, Louis IV and Napoleon. Diamonds first came to Europe in the 5th-6th centuries BC. At the same time, diamond gained its popularity as a precious stone relatively recently, only five hundred and a half years ago, when people learned how to cut it. The first similarity of a diamond was possessed by Charles the Bold, who simply adored diamonds.

Today, the classic brilliant cut has 57 facets, and provides the famous "play" of the diamond. Usually colorless or painted in pale shades of yellow, brown, gray, green, pink, extremely rarely black. Brightly colored transparent crystals are considered unique, given individual names and described in great detail. Diamond is similar to many colorless minerals - quartz, topaz, zircon, which are often used as its imitations. Differs in hardness - it is the hardest of natural materials (on the Mohs scale), optical properties, transparency for x-rays, luminosity in x-ray, cathode, ultraviolet rays.

The ruby ​​got its name from the Latin rubeus, meaning red. The ancient Russian names for the stone are yahont and carbuncle. The color of rubies varies from deep pink to deep red with a purple hue. Among the rubies, the most highly valued stones are the color of "pigeon blood".

Ruby is a transparent variety of the mineral corundum, aluminum oxide. Ruby color is red, bright red, dark red or purple red. Ruby hardness 9, glass luster.

The first information about these beautiful stones dates back to the 4th century BC and is found in Indian and Burmese chronicles. In the Roman Empire, the ruby ​​was extremely revered, and was valued much higher than the diamond. In different centuries, Cleopatra, Messalina and Mary Stuart became connoisseurs of rubies, and the ruby ​​collections of Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Medici were once famous throughout Europe.

Ruby is recommended for paralysis, anemia, inflammation, fractures and pain in the joints and bone tissues, asthma, weakness of the heart, rheumatic heart disease, inflammation of the pericardial sac, inflammation of the middle ear, chronic depression, insomnia, arthritis, diseases of the spine, chronic inflammation of the tonsils, rheumatism. Ruby lowers blood pressure and helps to cure psoriasis. Helps with exhaustion of the nervous system, relieves night terrors, helps with epilepsy. Has a tonic effect.

PLANT AND ANIMAL WORLD OF THE URALS

The flora and fauna of the Urals is diverse, but has much in common with the fauna of the neighboring plains. However, the mountainous relief increases this diversity, causing the appearance of altitudinal belts in the Urals and creating differences between the eastern and western slopes.

Glaciation had a great influence on the vegetation of the Urals. Before the glaciation, more heat-loving flora grew in the Urals: oak, beech, hornbeam, hazel. The remains of this flora are preserved only on the western slope of the Southern Urals. With the advancement to the south, the altitudinal zonality of the Urals becomes more complicated. Gradually, the boundaries of the belts rise higher and higher along the slopes, and in their lower part, when moving to a more southern zone, a new belt appears.

South of the Arctic Circle, the forests are dominated by larch. As it moves south, it gradually rises along the slopes of the mountains, forming the upper boundary of the forest belt. Spruce, cedar, birch join the larch. Near Mount Narodnaya, pine and fir are found in the forests. These forests are located mainly on podzolic soils. There are a lot of blueberries in the grassy cover of these forests.

The fauna of the Ural taiga is much richer than the fauna of the tundra. Elk, wolverine, sable, squirrel, chipmunk, weasel, flying squirrel, brown bear, reindeer, ermine, weasel live here. Otters and beavers are found along the river valleys. New valuable animals settled in the Urals. In the Ilmensky Reserve, the acclimatization of the spotted deer was successfully carried out, and the muskrat, beaver, deer, muskrat, raccoon dog, American mink, and Barguzin sable were also settled.

In the Urals, according to the difference in heights, climatic conditions, there are several parts:

Polar Ural. The mountain tundra is a harsh picture of stone placers - kurums, rocks and remnants. Plants do not create a continuous cover. Lichens, perennial grasses, creeping shrubs grow on tundra-gley soils. The animal world is represented by arctic fox, lemming, snowy owl. Reindeer, white hare, ptarmigan, wolf, ermine, weasel live both in the tundra and in the forest zone.

The subpolar Urals are distinguished by the highest heights of the ridges. Traces of ancient glaciation are more clearly visible here than in the Polar Urals. On the crests of the mountains there are stone seas and mountain tundra, which is replaced by mountain taiga down the slopes. The southern border of the Subpolar Urals coincides with 640 N. A natural national park has been formed on the western slope of the Subpolar Urals and the adjacent regions of the Northern Urals.

The Northern Urals has no modern glaciers; it is dominated by medium-altitude mountains, the slopes of the mountains are covered with taiga.

The Middle Urals is represented by dark coniferous taiga, which is replaced by mixed forests in the south, and linden massifs in the southwest. The Middle Urals is the kingdom of mountain taiga. It is covered with dark coniferous spruce and fir forests. Below 500 - 300 m they are replaced by larch and pine, in the undergrowth of which grow mountain ash, bird cherry, viburnum, elder, honeysuckle.

NATURAL UNICOMS OF THE URALS

Ilmensky ridge. The highest height is 748 meters, it is unique in the richness of its bowels. Among the almost 200 different minerals found here, there are rare and rare ones not found anywhere else in the world. For their protection, in 1920, a mineralogical reserve was created here. Since 1935 this reserve has become complex, now all nature is protected in the Ilmensky reserve.

The Kungur ice cave is a magnificent creation of nature. This is one of the largest caves in our country. It is located on the outskirts of the small industrial city of Kungur, on the right bank of the Sylva River, in the bowels of a stone mass - Ice Mountain. The cave has four tiers of passages. It was formed in the thickness of rocks as a result of the activity of groundwater, which dissolved and removed gypsum and anhydrite. The total length of all surveyed 58 grottoes and passages between them exceeds 5 km.

Environmental problems: 1) The Urals is the leader in environmental pollution (48% - mercury emissions, 40% - chlorine compounds). 2) Of the 37 polluting cities in Russia, 11 are located in the Urals. 3) Technogenic deserts have formed around 20 cities. 4) 1/3 of the rivers are devoid of biological life. 5) 1 billion tons of rocks are extracted annually, of which 80% goes to the dump. 6) Special danger - radiation pollution (Chelyabinsk-65 - plutonium production).

CONCLUSION

Mountains are a mysterious and still little known world, uniquely beautiful and full of dangers. Where else can you get from the scorching summer of the desert into the harsh winter of snow in a few hours, hear the roar of a wildly roaring stream under the overhanging rocks in a gloomy gorge into which the sun never looks. Pictures flickering outside the window of a car or car will never let you fully feel this formidable splendor ...

There is no such density of tourist facilities as in the Bakhchisarai region anywhere in the world! Mountains and the sea, rare landscapes and cave cities, lakes and waterfalls, secrets of nature and mysteries of history. Discoveries and the spirit of adventure... Mountain tourism here is not complicated at all, but any trail pleases with clean springs and lakes.

Adygea, Crimea. Mountains, waterfalls, herbs of alpine meadows, healing mountain air, absolute silence, snowfields in the middle of summer, the murmur of mountain streams and rivers, stunning landscapes, songs around the fires, the spirit of romance and adventure, the wind of freedom are waiting for you! And at the end of the route, the gentle waves of the Black Sea.