(Credit: https://vk.com/event59611858)

The village of Tigirek is the centre of the Tigireksky Reserve, both administrative and historical, as it stands on the place of the Cossack fortress of XVII century. The remains of the shaft, the traces of gates and ditches have preserved until today: Tigireksky Outpost, a part of Kolyvano-Kuznetsovskaya Line of Defense. You can also see the remains of the Beloretsky redoubt on the left bank of the Belaya River.

In addition to the mentioned industrial Razrabotnaya Mountain, the reserve has the preserved Beloretsky mine with the two galleries where tungsten ore and quartz sand piles were extracted. The reserve has enough prehistoric objects, both paleontological and archaeological. These are the caves with expressive names Strashnaya (“Terrible”) (with the stress on the penultimate syllable), Mrachnaya, Struna, Yashchur, Logovo Giyeny (“Hyena’s Lair”), or the most important natural monument “Silurian Section of Tigirek” - picturesque and informative outbreaks of Chagyrskaya and Kuimovskaya formations along the bank of the Inya river that are literally revealing the secrets of the formation of tectonic structures of the Earth.

It is necessary to receive a pass at the administration of the reserve located in Barnaul no later than two weeks before the trip. Those who live far from the Altai should add the time of mailing to these two weeks. You should submit an application to the administration with the designation of the purpose, terms, route of the trip, names of everyone in the group, contacts of the group leader. Those who go to Tigirek for scientific purposes should conclude an agreement with the reserve and agree the program with its scientific department (tel. 8 (3852) 63-17-59, 60-50-58). The address of the reserve administration: 111 Nikitina Street, Barnaul, Altai region. Telephone: +7 (3852) 63-33-98, fax: (3852) 63-21-81, e-mail: tigirek@gmail.com.

Local peculiarities

It is hard to get to the reserve – it is possible only by SUVs. The places are impassable and almost deserted: there are no people, apart from the employees of the reserve (no more than forty people). The nearest village is within a fifty kilometers distance. The reserve relies not on mass tourism, but on environmental specialized one: they wait for ornithologists, speleologists, photographers, etc. Infrastructure corresponds to this concept: you live in tents or in houses where the employees themselves live, or in the guest houses without any conveniences.