Ukok Plateau

The Ukok Plateau is a high-altitude highland at the very south of the Altai Republic, in the Kosh-Agach district, where the borders of Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia meet. The plateau sits at 2,200 to 2,500 metres, while the surrounding mountains rise to 4,374 metres at the peak of Kuiten-Uul. Ukok is part of the UNESCO World Heritage site "Golden Mountains of Altai" and since 2005 has been protected as the "Zone of Peace Ukok" nature park. The indigenous Altaians have long considered the plateau a sacred place, and in the early 1990s it became known worldwide after the discovery of a mummy named the "Princess of Ukok".

Legends and accounts

The plateau is often called the heavenly pasture: the sky comes so close to the ground here that it merges with the endless lakes' reflections into one. According to Altaian tradition, the woman found on the plateau — Ak-Kadyn, "the Honest, Sincere, Kind Khatun" — guarded the gates of the underworld, keeping evil from breaking through from the lower worlds. In local folklore she has merged with Ochy-Bala, a heroine of the Altaian epic.

Another local story concerns the so-called "Makaryev spot" — a small open patch of ground among boulder fields where, by local accounts, being present affects people in an unusual way. There is no explanation for it, and it remains one of the plateau's mysteries.

The Princess of Ukok

In 1993, Novosibirsk archaeologist Natalia Polosmak excavated the Ak-Alakha-3 burial mound and found the grave of a young woman aged 28 to 30. The mummy, preserved under a layer of permafrost, belongs to the Pazyryk culture of nomadic herders of the 5th–3rd centuries BC; six saddled horses were buried with her in the chamber. Her body is covered with "animal style" tattoos — the largest, on her left arm, shows a deer with a griffin's beak and ibex horns. Study of the mummy showed that the woman died of breast cancer.

Since 1995 a moratorium on archaeological excavations has been in force on the plateau. Until 2012 the mummy was kept at the museum of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Novosibirsk's Akademgorodok; it is now displayed on certain days at the National Museum of the Altai Republic. In 2015 several Altai residents went to court demanding the remains be reburied, but the mummy and the items found with it remain federal property.

Besides the princess's burial mound, more than four hundred archaeological sites have been found on Ukok: kurgans of ancient chieftains, the Bertek rock carvings, and a late-medieval cemetery. Geoglyphs dated to 2,000–3,000 BC can only be made out from the air.

Nature

Ukok lies above the tree line: there are no forests, but rare species live here, including the snow leopard, Pallas's cat, Siberian ibex, marmots and ground squirrels. The Tavan Bogd mountain range on the plateau's edge carries the largest glaciers in the Altai, including the roughly 11-kilometre-long Potanin Glacier.

Getting there

The route to Ukok runs along the Chuysky Trakt to the village of Kosh-Agach, and from there only in a properly equipped off-road vehicle: it is about 150 kilometres from Kosh-Agach to the plateau over the Teply Klyuch pass, and about 220 kilometres and 14 to 16 hours of driving to the Bertek valley. The pass is free of snow from late June to mid-September. Along the way, off-road vehicles pass the abandoned Kalguty mine and the Dzhumaly hot springs, whose radon-rich water never freezes.

Good to know

Ukok Plateau is a border zone. Entering the five-kilometre strip along the state border requires a permit from the FSB border directorate, which takes 15 working days to process for Russian citizens and 30 days for foreign visitors. At the Tarkhata and Ak-Alakha border posts you must show your passport and permit. There is no tourist infrastructure on the plateau: visitors camp in tents or stay in the few guesthouses of nearby villages such as Aktash.