Trip from Karkaralinsk to Ust-Kamenigirsk.

"Yes, the best sons die,
Yes, proud eagles die
But still Madi’s poems are heard
In the midst of your mountain steeps, Karkaraly! ”

Syrbay Maulenov.

Hiking in the sights of Karkaraly park.

To the north of the city of Karkaralinsk, about a kilometer, in the middle of the rocky ridge that encircled the city, there is a huge stone canopy. This is the Great Stone Chamber. It is an 8 - 10-meter deep in the rock. Its width is 15 - 20 meters, height - up to 8 meters.
Large boulders lie under the canopy. Here an excursion group of 50 people can take shelter from the rain and the scorching rays of the sun. The Stone Chamber is located on the territory of the Karkaraly National Natural Park in the Karkaraly district of the Karaganda region.
This is a vast hollow in a granite wall, reliably sheltered from rain and sun by a giant stone visor. Large boulders lie beneath the arch in disorder. A panorama opens from stone chambers: on the one hand there are yellow wavy steppes, dozens of winding road ribbons, and on the other hand there are wooded blue mountains.
The path along which you come here is knocked out by thousands of feet, repeating all the zigzags of a narrow granite pipe, clogged with rubble and stone blocks. Between them there are raspberry bushes, bird cherry, honeysuckle.
In some places, along the cracks of the gorge, small growths of shade and a moisture-loving fern survived. Not far from the Stone Chambers there is a Mockingbird - a labyrinth of rocks that resembles a room with good acoustics: this is how they distinctly reflect any sound, repeating it exactly seven times, large granite walls.
Above there are pines, birches, in open areas creeping green branches of juniper. The crest of the hill itself is a flat area with boiler-shaped depressions filled with water. Climbing the steps of the natural course for the first time, you never stop thinking about how beautiful the earth is, how entrancing its green trees are, the air infused with the scent of pine needles!
A mountain stream is boiling, making its way through granite strata, racing with a spring wind... Dancing around, pouring hundreds of bright eyes into the soul, radiant drops of warm May rains ... A panorama opens from the Stone Chambers: on the one hand there are yellow wavy steppes, dozens of ribbons winding roads, on the other - wooded blue mountains.
On the border of the contact of natural zones there are quiet reaches of rivers, bays of overflowing pits of the Big and Small Shchuchye lakes. Far to the west, in the blue distance, you can see the bare Komsomol peak, a regular pyramid with a pointed peak like an arrow, Nayzashoky stretched out by Zhaurtau.
And below the city with blocks of old wooden houses and new brick. Apparently, once upon a time, strong trees stood at the entrance to the grotto. This can be judged by the recall of the botanist M. M. Siyazov, who as early as 1906 saw here sticking up the remains of three thick pine stumps, "cut down by some stupid destroyer."
Now there are no mature trees on the slope of the Stone Chambers - only young rare pines stand, and from here the city is clearly visible through.

Authority:
Advertising booklet of Karkaraly National Park, 2003.

Photos
Alexander Petrov.