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It is the mountain ridge separating as a barrier the European from the Asiatic side of Russia. It extends for more than 2500 km between the Kara Sea in the North and the Kazakhstan’s steppes in the South. The mountains are not very high, mount Narodnaya, the highest peak, reaching only 1895 m.
The taiga, coniferous forest, covers a third of this region rich in flora and fauna, which is known above all for its natural resources. The very names of Magnitnaya Gora (magnetic mountain), the biggest iron deposit in the world, and of Magnitogorsk, city founded for the iron ore mining, are very suggestive in this regard.
The main cities as Yekaterinburg, Perm and Chelyabinsk have been closed to tourism for many years. Yekaterinburg, an important railway crossroads, is presently the fourth city in Russia. It is in this town that the tsar and his family were killed and their remains brought to Ganina Yama, 15 km far away, where a big sanctuary was erected in recent years.
Stone Idols
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