The Dolgiye Gory (Long Mountains) are one of my most cherished places
This is where the Ural Range begins. If you look at them from above, you might think they are the backs of sleeping dragons, left here by someone to guard this land.
And then there’s the steppe. A completely different world, full of unfamiliar plants, scents, winds, and creatures. A nature reserve that houses a reintroduction centre — where the population of Przewalski’s horses is being restored.
The first time I came here, something inside me said: I will return. And I did — this time with my family. Because there are places you can’t simply remember. You have to go back to them again and again, each time discovering something new — or finding what you’ve already missed.
The steppe defies photography. You can’t fit it into a frame or capture it in words. It’s a living, breathing organism — with the scent of wormwood and wild grasses, with a horizon that stretches so far that you begin to feel like a tiny speck in an immense space. And that feeling is not unsettling — on the contrary, it is wonderfully calm.
Przewalski’s horses are a story in themselves. You look at these animals and realise: here it is, something real, almost primal. The reintroduction programme is slowly but surely bringing them back to the wild — where they belong.
The Dolgiye Gory draw you in. They don’t shout about themselves, they don’t stun you instantly, and they don’t demand admiration. They simply exist — solid, ancient, alive. And if you ever find yourself here, chances are you’ll want to come back too.
The video about our trip — “Dolgiye Gory: The Return” — is exactly about that.
The Book
