For those who arrive in the capital of Kamchatka by sea these three vertical rocks are kind of roadside steles at the city entrance. The Avachinskaya Bay begins with them; Kamchatka also began with them some time ago.
Passenger vessels (excluding overseas cruise liners) have long not gone to the peninsula, sailors no longer constitute a major part of the local population, and The Three Brothers still remain the hallmark of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. The recognizable silhouettes of The Brothers are used as visual symbols of Kamchatka more often than all others (volcanoes, bear, salmon) put together. They are everywhere - from the covers of the books published on the peninsula to the beer labels.
The irony, however, lays in the fact that each year the number of people in Petropavlovsk who have seen Brothers with their own eyes decreases. The cliffs are separated from the city by bald peaks and a considerable distance, and the cruises through the Avachinskaya Bay have long turned from ordinary citizens’ leisure into a service for wealthy tourists: the cost of a five-hour voyage starts with 3 thousand.
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Still, there is another, albeit difficult, way to the Three Brothers. You need to get out of the city on the road to Zavoiko and follow by the Malaya Lagernaya Bay (there are actually three Lagernaya bays – Bolshaya, Srednyaya and Malaya) to Mayachnaya Bald Peak.
The nasty asphalt road will soon be replaced by the disgusting soil road where the traveler can meet another unpleasant surprise - the closed gate. The soil road leads to a military unit, and the barrier is lowered during summer maneuvers. In winter the road is always open, but you can only pass on by snowmobile.
If you overcome all obstacles and get to Mayachaya, a breathtaking panorama of the entire Avachinskaya Bay together with The Three Brothers will open. The top of the bald peak is the only available space on the land with a view to these attractions. You cannot come closer: the section of the coast between the Vilkova Cape and the Mayachny Cape is a closed territory accessible only to the military.
HISTORY
The Three Brothers rocks are known from XVIII century, they were marked on the plan of Avachinskii Gulf and the harbor of Petropavlovsk in 1737. In the 80s of the last century The Three Brothers were proclaimed natural monuments of regional importance. There is a legend on Kamchatka about three Koryak brothers who protected the bay from tsunami, but turned into stone. Perhaps, this legend was invented by local ethnographers, like many other stories.
Author: Anna Dorozhkina