Sikachi-Alyan Petroglyphs

Several hundred carvings are cut into basalt boulders along the Amur bank at Sikachi-Alyan, made from around the twelfth millennium BC onwards over a very long span - masks or faces with concentric features, elk, horses, boats, birds and snakes, pecked into hard volcanic stone. The mask motif is the best known and recurs in the art of the Amur peoples into recent centuries, so there is a continuity between the carvings and the decorative work of the Nanai who live in the village today. The catch is the river: the boulders sit at the water's edge, and when the Amur is high many carvings are submerged and invisible, while spring ice moves the stones themselves - some have shifted or been damaged, and a few have been lost. Visits are usually made with a local guide from the village, which also has a small ethnographic museum and craft work in fish skin and birch bark.

What to look for

• The mask motif - concentric carved faces that recur in Amur art for millennia.
• The animals and boats - elk, horses, birds and craft pecked into basalt.
• The riverbank setting - boulders at the water's edge, exposed only at low water.
• The Nanai village - a living community with a museum and fish skin craft.

When to go

June to September at low water. Two to three hours. High water hides many of the carvings entirely.

Before you go

If the river is high you may see almost nothing, and levels are not predictable far ahead. The boulders are slippery and the bank is rough. A local guide is effectively necessary to find the carvings. Mosquitoes are heavy and there are no facilities at the rocks.

Nearby

Khabarovsk is about an hour and a half west along the Amur.