The Devil Plateau. Travel with the "Mysterious Uzbekistan". Part two

I started a small series of articles devoted to my trip around Uzbekistan, organized by the team of "Mysterious Uzbekistan" from our visit to the grove of thousand-year-old plane trees in the city of Urgut. From there we headed to the Devil Plateau, located near the mountain pass separating Samarkand and Shakhrisabz.

On the title photo of the post, our group is depicted on the Devil Plateau. I borrowed a photo from the "Mysterious Uzbekistan". All other photos in this article are made by me.
Actually, in Uzbek this place is called "Shaitan Zhita" or "Helmet of the Devil". And the Devil's Plateau is a poetic though not entirely faithful translation. Lovers of Sergei Lukyanenko’s books certainly read about this place - it is mentioned in his book "The Last Watch." It was here that the bright magicians Rustam and Gesser fought with the dark "Others" and turned their bodies into stones, forever imprisoning their souls in boulders.
These are all, of course, beautiful legends, and very few people remember why this place is associated with the impure. Local people graze goats and sheep and assure that the place has bad energy. They say that in ancient times sacrifices were made here by sorcerers-pagans. The place is really interesting, impressive and fascinating. Huge boulders are scattered around the neighborhood and with a small amount of imagination, you can see faces bent in pain, bizarre animals and monsters in boulders ...
If you omit the fantasies and legends and consider this place from the standpoint of ordinary geology - then this mysterious plateau is nothing more than just a game of nature. The result of the work of the sun, rain and wind, which are carved in a supple granite bizarre figures. But, gods! How boring to treat this miracle of nature as the result of some erosion! It is much more interesting to represent the Devil Plateau as the place of the battle between Good and Evil.
So, we left Urgut and came to the pass. Before climbing the Plateau, the devil stopped near an impromptu bazaar, where they traded dried fruits, sweets and other delicacies.

The road to the plateau is rocky and winding, and a minivan full of tourists would hardly have been able to climb there, so the organizers in advance put us on cars. So even better! Because after the Devil Plateau, we climbed the mountain and from there descended the ancient caravan trail of the times of Tamerlane. Symbolically - to go on the caravan trail on the caravan from the "Nexia".

The plateau is fenced with a small fence made of barbed wire. And through it is thrown here such a ladder of small logs. Frankly, I was worried when I climbed it - the structure creaked mercilessly and cracked under my weight, but still survived!

Moving to the other side, we went to the side of a small stone ridge. Near this ridge begin the stone labyrinths in which are scattered boulders with different poetic names: "Heart", "Skull", "Turtle", etc.
From the fence to the very plateau, you need to pass 150-200 meters in a terrain that looks lifeless. Usually on the hills grow thick grass, bushes and trees. Here they also are, but they are few. Mostly sand and stony soil.

By the way, the first on the way is the stone "Heart", standing alone in the middle of the plateau. By the way, this rock could have been shaken before, but now the wind brought under its foundation sand and the rock is now immovable.

What? No, I'm not mistaken the stone is really called "Heart." Not like that? And if you look at the other side?

The locals honor the Devil Plateau as a place of strength and therefore the trees are decorated with ribbons, which locals attach to the branches of trees.

To the right of the "Heart" rocks rise. The wind and rain so processed them that someone carved in the rocks carved patterns, to someone frozen human figures ... And what do you see?

But this boulder reminded me of an airship or a sperm whale thrown ashore ...

But this boulder is like a turtle. Unfortunately, in the photo the head of the "Turtle" merges with the boulders behind, but if you look closely, you can see a head with a pointed nose and a shell.

I heard the version that these stones brought the glacier many, many thousands of years ago. The glacier melted, and the boulders remained. I do not know if this corresponds to reality, but it seems that there was a stone river running ...

Despite its lifelessness, the Devil's Plateau has some attraction and a kind of harsh beauty.

Boulders have freakish shapes and shapes. Looking at some it seems that they have traces of the claws of an unknown monster.

Some boulders are literally cut up by the wind and rain to a razor sharpness ...

... And the others, standing side by side, the same wind and rain are polished ...

Looking at some of the stones are surprised - there is an impression that some gigantic stone began to work here and stopped working halfway ...

... Or the giants began to play with stones, scattering them in different directions and some of their "toys" were stuck in crevices ...

And if you move across all these boulders and reach the edge of the plateau, then you have a stunning view of the surrounding area.

On steemitworldmap !steemitworldmap 39.348370 lat 66.986046 long The Devil Plateau d3scr