Arapova Mountain

Arapova Mountain (Gora Arapova) is a steep ridge rising up to 40 meters above the floodplain of the Sakmara River, stretching for about 600 meters along the southern edge of the village of Sakmara in the Sakmarsky district of Orenburg Oblast. The ridge and its surroundings, covering 20 hectares, form a protected geological and geomorphological natural monument.

Nature

The ridge is the northern limb of a salt anticline, one of the folds in the tectonic system known as the Salmysh swell. On the northern slope, grey polymictic sandstones and conglomerates are exposed, while limestones with shell beds and oolitic layers lie at the base of the summit. The bedding dips to the north at an angle of about 30 degrees. The limestones belong to the middle unit of the Lower Kazanian substage of the Permian system, and the sandstones to the upper unit of the same substage.

On the northern slope and at the summit there are caves — man-made passages up to 10-12 meters long, presumably cut when stone was quarried for building the Sakmarsky fortress. Besides the caves, old workings left behind pits and quarries. Stone is still extracted today from the western side of the mountain. Not all the voids inside the mountain have been mapped: there are known cases of machinery sinking into them, and some of the cavities are thought to be of natural, karst origin.

History

The mountain is named after ataman Vasily Arapov, who in 1724 founded a Cossack fortress, Sakmarsky gorodok, on the bank of the Sakmara River — later the village of Sakmara, and one of the first fortresses in this area. According to local tradition, Arapov was the first ataman of the Yaik Cossack Host and built the fortress in 1725; the exact date varies between sources, but his role in founding the settlement is undisputed. For the people of present-day Sakmara, the mountain remains a landscape and historical symbol; a memorial plaque has been placed on one of its rocks.

The Sakmarsky district itself, as an administrative unit, was established on August 15, 1740 — the year a Bashkir uprising led by Karasakal was suppressed nearby.

Getting there

The mountain stands at the southern edge of the village of Sakmara in the Sakmarsky district of Orenburg Oblast. You can drive through the village streets and continue on foot along the mountain's northern slope.