The Minusinsk depression, also called the intermountain depression, is located on the border of Khakassia and the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Around the hollows are mountain ranges. Its southern and southwestern borders are framed by the mountain systems of the Western Sayan. The north-west and west sides of the basin are “guarded” by the Abakan ridge, and in the east is Vos
exact Sayan. The Minusinsk depression was discovered only from the north - the West Siberian Plain stretches there. The large rivers Abakan, Yenisei, Chulym and Tuba turn a mountain valley into a green and fertile land. Even on the eastern dunes of the basin, a beautiful pine forest grows.
The Minusinsk Basin is famous for its gardens, which were founded by the exiled Decembrist Krasnokutsky. Another Decembrist by the name of Krivtsov in a letter called this region Siberian Italy. The basin was not so vainly called in vain - the nature surrounding Minusinsk is very diverse and rich. The Krasnoyarsk Territory abounds with beautiful clear lakes surrounded by willows and poplars and stormy mountain rivers. Rich flood meadows interspersed with salt marshes and feather grass steppes, and among the mountains hid alpine meadows, fragrant with hundreds of herbs and flowers. Part of the mountains surrounding the basin is covered with wild taiga, which is rich not only in wood, but also in the valuable form of marble.
In addition to picturesque places, the Minusinsk depression is full of history. Even now, archaeologists find traces of various eras in it, from the Paleolithic to the Middle Ages. Various tribes and cultures left “traces” in the form of burial grounds and ancient mounds, ruins of cities and settlements, cave paintings, stone statues and figures of unknown creatures. Particularly interested in the sculpture of stone animals. It was these examples of ancient art that attracted the first archaeologists to Siberia.
Minusinsk district was full of such statues. Some figures carved from granite or sandstone look like flat stelae, while others are high reliefs
three meters high. Particular attention is drawn to a group of steles with animal masks crowned with characteristic headgear. From this group stands a stele called the "Shirin Baba". It resembles an ancient totem, in the center of which the face of a human beast is carved, framed by an ancient ornament. Under the mask is a grinning face of a wild beast, and above it you can see a realistic human face. All together is a very harmonious and mysterious composition, the secret of which has not yet been revealed. Scientists have just begun to unravel the secrets of ancient steles. Only in the 1960s did historians establish that almost all Yenisei steles were carved by the tribes of Okunev culture, which inherited the name of the Okunevsky ulus, near which excavations took place.
The Minusinsk depression preserves the history of not only local peoples. The horde of Genghis Khan passed through the hollow, leaving a mark from the burnt castles and devastated cities. Scientists and the remains of ancient ways are found here, along which caravans from Central Asia, Arabia, Tibet and China went. For more than a century, historians and archaeologists have been solving riddles and restoring the history of this ancient corner of the planet.
