Ilmensky Mineralogical Reserve

The Ilmensky range near Miass is geologically extraordinary: an alkaline massif in which around three hundred mineral species have been identified, including some twenty first described here and several found nowhere else, packed into a range about fifty kilometres long. Miners came for topaz, aquamarine and amazonite from the eighteenth century, and the density of pegmatite veins made it a place scientists came to work. In 1920 it was made a reserve specifically to protect the mineral deposits - one of the first protected areas in Russia and among very few anywhere created for geology rather than for animals or landscape - and it was later broadened to protect the forest and lakes as well. Access to the reserve itself is restricted to research, but the mineralogical museum at the entrance is substantial, with several thousand specimens laid out systematically and by locality, and is the reason to come.

What you actually see

• The museum - several thousand specimens arranged systematically and by locality.
• The mineral count - around three hundred species in a range fifty kilometres long.
• The 1920 designation - one of the first Russian reserves, and one created for geology.
• The first descriptions - some twenty minerals originally described from here.

When to go

May to September. Two to three hours at the museum. Closed on some days; check before travelling.

Honest expectations

The reserve is closed to general visitors - the museum is the whole of the public access, and people expecting to walk the range or collect are turned away. Collecting minerals is illegal. Labelling is in Russian.

Nearby

Lake Turgoyak is west; Zlatoust and Taganay are beyond it.