A trip to Lake Onega is worth it. Around it, along its entire coast, there are beautiful temples, villages with magnificent architectural buildings - monuments of northern Russian architecture.
Here you can see picturesque old buildings of various styles: Russian northern huts, tent temples and the “deuces” characteristic of Karelia (bell tower with a temple).
Among such Russian architectural exotics, there are also beautiful natural sights, the main among which is Andoma Mountain. About it will be described in more detail below, and before in general we will talk a little about Lake Onega.
Sights of Onega
Here, even the names of cities and villages are unusual for hearing, but they sound pretty beautiful: Verkhruchi, Sheltozero, Pudozh, Sheleiki, Vytegra. When preparing for a trip, you should know that along the shoreline of the lake guest houses and especially hotels are very rare. Almost the entire trip takes place in hiking conditions. You can arrange accommodation and food with local residents.
If the journey starts from Petrozavodsk, you should familiarize yourself with the interesting sights of this city. The island of Kizhi is very curious. The cities located around the lake, Kondopoga and Medvezhyegorsk, also have an important history.
Lake Onega with its beaches with boat moorings, cafes and bars in combination with the splendor of nature and ancient architectural structures can give travelers a new unforgettable experience.
Andoma Gora: photos, location, description of the surroundings
One of the most picturesque areas of the Vologda region is located in Vytegra. This site is a small elevated part of the coast of Lake Onega. The mountain offers amazing views of the endless waters of the blue lake and the same endless taiga around it.
40 km from the town of Vytegra there is this area - Mount Andoma. Only 3 small fishing villages were located in its area - Klimovskaya, Olkovo, Gnevashevskaya. Locals simply call this territory - Andoma Mountain. Vytegra is famous for this very beautiful corner on the coast of Lake Onega - special and even “witchcraft”.
However, the main advantage of Mount Andoma is not in its height, and not in amazing fabulous views, but in its internal geological content.
Andoma Mountain is a rather small stretch of coast, the length of which is only 3 kilometers. It is a landscape, paleontological and mineralogical reserve.
Nature is represented by the following noteworthy places: steep coast covered in places with alder and spruce; a view of the expanses of Onega and the Andoma River (mouth); boundless taiga forests.
Geology
The exposure height is up to 45 m above the water level of Lake Onega. The layers of its main rocks are crumpled in an anticline, the central fold of which is torn apart by a shift under the influence of various technogenic tectonic processes and glaciers.
Its base is composed of ancient deposits of the Devonian and Cambrian. These are multi-colored sandstones and clays, with small black “pellets” that stand out among them. The latter are petrified scales and teeth of the oldest shellfish. They inhabited these places many millions of years ago in the ancient sea, which once stretched on the site of the present Vologda Oblast.
Also in clay and sand sedimentary rocks you can find the remains of plants and animals of the same times. And the clays themselves have a high content of mineral salts of that very ancient sea, therefore they have excellent healing properties.
"Witching" Mount Andoma (Lake Onega) preserves the secrets of the most ancient seas. It is no accident that here you can find Druzes of crystalline quartz and healing shungite, as well as the shells of the ancient inhabitants of the sea: mollusks, fish. There are petrified ferns. All this has an age of approximately 370-400 million years.
Sedimentary deposits of those periods created on the steep banks of surprisingly bizarre stripes of a wide variety of shades - blue, light gray, yellow, dark purple and red. Thanks to the effects of the glacier, these layers have formed abstract paintings.
Andoma Mountain, which has such unusual clay slopes painted in colorful colors, can tell the most ancient history of the Earth. The clay here, as noted above, is also famous for its wonderful healing properties.
Features
In addition to all of the above, on Andome Mountain you can see unusual bizarre sculptures created by the almighty nature. They formed on an open slope under the influence of wind, rain and landslides. Unfortunately, the life of such sculptures is short-lived, but in the place of destroyed and crumbling figures, many new, no less fantastically beautiful, periodically appear.
Extremely attractive with these amazing natural works of Andoma Gora.
How can I get to?
Most often, the journey begins with arrival in the city of Petrozavodsk. Then travelers get to Vytegra on the road along the coast of Lake Onega.
You can get to the area where the Andoma Mountain is located from Vytegra by a surprisingly picturesque road, most of which passes along the shore of Lake Onega, where centuries-old pine trees stand and huge boulders protrude from the Onega waters.
At the top of the mountain there is a well-equipped parking lot, next to it there is a chapel built of wood and several stands are built to inform about the area.
Conclusion
It is rich in natural resources of Andoma Gora. A huge impression is made by a similar geological monument of the Earth, recreating the centuries-old history of the planet.
Being here, you can not only contemplate and imagine what the Earth was more than 370 million years ago. In these places you can feel it by touch, holding a piece of the past in the form of a lump of soil in your hands.
Among the Andoma rocks, raspberry- colored quartzites are found to date, which in the past adorned the Moscow and St. Petersburg royal palaces.