Usva Pillars

Five kilometres from the settlement of Usva, the right bank of the river rises in a wall of limestone remnants: pillars up to 150 metres high run along the current, and apart from the wall stands the seventy-metre 'Devil's Finger' — the place's signature. The cliffs are a protected landscape monument, part of the 'Permsky' nature park. The place is ancient: in the Stolbovoy grotto at the foot of the pillars a bone has been radiocarbon-dated to 22,890 years — Ice Age people were here. Of the seventy-nine plant species recorded, several are rare, among them the dark-red helleborine. Today it is one of the most photographed spots in the krai: at dawn mists drift over the Usva, the 'Finger' catches the first rays, and trails run along the wall to the viewpoints. The panorama familiar to many was shot for the film 'The Geographer Drank His Globe Away' — and since then the tents at the foot have rarely stood empty.