“Following the Route of Alexander Von Humboldt’s Expedition”
Geological-historical tour
Duration 14-15 days
In 1829 the eminent Germany scientist in the area of natural sciences, Alexander Von Humboldt, visited the Urals. The scope of his scientific interests was widespread. He had a dream to some day visit Asia.
In 1829, on the invitation of emperor Alexander I, Alexander Von Humboldt realized his trip to the Urals, where he covered 1400 km during eight months and visited the northern, middle and southern Urals. He was interested in the geological structure of the Urals, conformity to natural laws in spreading of minerals, disposition of mining and metallurgical industry and the geomorphologic peculiarities of the Urals. He examined plants, gold and platinum mines, cooper mines and other objects. His description of the Urals’ nature was published in his famous book "Central Asia".
Offering such a trip is a rare possibility to acquaint with the Urals during short time - to drive about 1400 km from the mountains of the northern Urals to the steppes of the southern Urals - to see different climate and landscape zones. This is all possible, side by side with the geology of the Urals, to acquaint with history, culture, architectural and cult monuments of the Ural.
Short description of the trip:
1 day
1.1 Overview of the excursion in historical centre of Ekaterinburg.
1.2 Visit a talc deposit Shabry (40 km from Ekaterinburg).
2 day
2.1 Visit the gold deposit of Berezovsk town, which is the native land of the gold industry Russia. Visit the museum "Gold and platinum of the Urals".
2.2 Visit Shartash granitic quarry and lake Shartash. Visit the museum "Lake Shartash", magic stone structures – dolmens and place of sacrifice of ancient peoples.
2.3 Visit the Uktus gabbro-ultrabasite massif.
3 day
3.1 Visit the Murzinka semi-precious stone band.
Visit the mineralogical museum by A.E. Fersman in the village Murzinka. Visit old-time and modern mining-works of semi-precious stones (beryls, topazes, amethysts and others). .
3.2 Visit Neviyansk (86 km from Ekaterinburg) - one of the oldest plants of the Urals. Neviyanskij Plant was built on the edict of Peter the Great in 1710. Tourists can visit a museum of local lore, history and economy, museum-plant and famous inclined Neviyansk tower (like the Leaning Tower of Piza) belonging to the mining and metallurgical works of the Demidov’s .
4 day
4.1 Visit of Nizhnij Tagil. (150 km from Ekaterinburg) – ancestral land of the Demidov’s - founders of the mining and metallurgical industries in the Urals. Visit the famous deposit "Mednorudyanskoe". See the main quarry at Vyusokogorsk - mining-concentrating group of enterprises, which, from 1721 to 1990 was the source of raw materials for metallurgical production in Nizhnij Tagil.
4.2 Visit Verkhoturie. Verkhoturie – Historic spiritual centre of the Urals.
You will be introduced to the history of city, which more than 400 years, was formed and developed as the spiritual centre of the Urals.
5 day
5.1 Visit the obelisk marking the boundary of Europe and Asia. Visit the geological museum in Gornozavodsk.
5.2 Visit the town of Kungur.
Excursion of the city "Kungur". Visit the Kungur Ice Cave, museum of local lore, history and economy and visit the Nikolsk temple. Visit a stonemason’s workshop, where items are manufactured from selenite, anhydrite and talc-chlorite.
6 day
Stay in Ekaterinburg.
6.1 Visit places of interest concerned with the stay in Ekaterinburg from 1812 to 1918 of members of the dynasty of the Romanov Tzars: Alexander I, Alexander II, Duke Leikhtenbergskii, Grand Dukes Vladimir and Aleksei, and the family of last Russian Tzar - Nikolai II.
6.2 Visit the obelisk marking the boundary of Europe and Asia.
Visit the geographical margin between Europe and Asia, examine the frontier obelisk “Europe – Asia” on the old big Siberian tract, which is a landmark and historical monument.
7 day
7.1 Visit the town of Polevskoi and deposits at Gumeshevskoe.
Tourists will visit "native land" and see Uralian malachite, glorified mountain wealths of Russia and handicraft of Uralian stonemasons.
7.2 Arrival at the city of Miass.
Miass is known as the city in the Golden Valley. For half of the century the Miass valley was the main store of gold in Russia. The old centre of the city has many historical, cultural and architectural monuments displaying every style of the 19th and 20th centuries.
8 day
8.1. Visit the Ilmenskii mineralogical reserve.
Excursion to the unique Ilmenskii mineralogical museum. In summer, it is possible to organize excursions to some the most well known old-time mining-works: Blyumovskaya, Amazonitovaya, Criolitovaya.
8.2 Visit the manifestations of Uralian landscape jasper on the way to the town of Uchaly. It is possible to organize excursions to the classical lerholite-ultra basite massives of the Urals – Nurali and Mindyak.
9 day
9.1. Visit of classical copper deposit near Sibai town.
9.2 Visit the city of Orsk. See the manifestation of the famous landscape “Orskoi” jasper
10 day
10.1 Visit the town of Sol-Ileck. Excursion to the salt deposit and hydrocloric lake.
11 day
11.1 Visit the town of Sterlitamak. Excursions to reef knolls - "Shikhany" – mountains “Shah-Tau” and “Tra-Tau”.
11.2 Excursion to the Serpievskij cave complex.
11.3 Excursion to the magnezit deposit in Satka town.
12 day
12.1 Visit the town of Zlatoust.
Visit the Zlatoust gun factory. History of the world-famous Zlatoust engraving started in 1815 after foundation of the Zlatoust gun factory specializing in cold steel production. To make their works unique Ural gunsmiths decorated the dirks, sabers and swords with silver and gold inlays.
Excursion - climbing to Taganai ridge.
See a fragment of a zonal metamorphic complex and a classical manifestation of high-temperature Precambrian migmatites and some mineralogical mining-works.
13 day
13.1 Visit lake Turgoyak – one of the natural wonders, famous for its pure and transparent water.
13.2 Visit the town of Kyshtym.
Excursion to a fragment of Ilmenogorsk-Sysert - shear zone of granitoid blastomilonites.
13.3 Visit the town of Kasli.
The gifted craftsmen have made their town world-famous. In the early 19th century the small Ural town had already turned into one of the world centres of iron art casting. Art castings produced in Kasli were awarded the gold medals at exhibitions in Paris, Vienna and Philadelphia. Kasli art castings used in the decoration of streets and squares give the town its unique look. While visiting the only museum of art castings in Russia, you will see the outstanding works of Kasli craftsmen.
14 day
14.1 Stay in the city of Ekaterinburg. Museum programmes.
This tour can be changed and added.  
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