Uvildy: Reserved lake in the Urals

Origin of Lake Uvildy: legends and facts

The name of the reservoir comes from the ancient Bashkir language, and means “a hole in the ground.” There are many legends about its origin: according to one of them, many centuries ago on the site of the reservoir there was a prosperous city that mined precious metals. As their wealth increased, the townspeople became vile and envious, and the Earth, no longer able to tolerate the atrocities committed by them, swallowed up the city and flooded the place with water.

According to another legend, on the site of the lake there was a city of wisdom - a repository of sacred knowledge, and in order to temporarily hide it from humanity, not ready to accept the truth. The earth hid it under a layer of water. Researchers find a connection between this Bashkir legend and the myths about Shambhala and Kitezhgrad.

Ancient artifacts are still found at the bottom of the lake: in 2001, divers discovered fragments of ritual vessels at the bottom, dating back to the 4th millennium BC. The find was transferred to the local history museum.

It is documented that in 1824, in the vicinity of Uvilda, Evgraf Mechnikov discovered the first South Ural gold, which marked the beginning of the gold rush . Even Tsar Alexander the First himself could not resist the thirst for gold prospecting: after independently sifting more than 20 pounds of sand, he found a 3-kilogram gold nugget.

Lake Uvildy

Video: Lake Uvildy

Name meaning

There are several versions of the meaning of the name of the lake. The word “uvildy” translated from Bashkir can mean “blue bowl”. The reservoir really resembles a bowl with a blue bottom filled with water. Bashkirs also call Lake Ueldekul (Ueldekul). “Uelde” means “depression”, and “kul” (“kul”) means “lake”. Some sources contain Russian versions of the name: Uvelgi and Ueldy.

Climatic features

The Chelyabinsk region has a continental climate. Summers here are dry and hot, and winters are long. However, the area of Lake Uvildy has its own microclimate created by the reservoir. In summer it is cool near Uvilda. Winter is much milder than in other areas of the region. The weather is unstable. The air temperature can change several times a day, both upward and downward.

The swimming season on Lake Uvildy does not last long. Due to the great depth of 35-38 m, the reservoir warms up very slowly. Swimming on the lake begins in the second half of July. In mid-August the water gradually cools. In early September, there are practically no vacationers on the shore. Storm season begins in October.

Ecology of Lake Uvildy

Lake Uvildy is part of a group of endorheic low-water exchange reservoirs. This means that it takes at least 17 years to completely renew the water in the lake. However, Uvildy is considered environmentally friendly. Proof of this is the presence of crayfish that will never live in polluted water. Pike, perch, ripus, bream and other fish species are also found here.

In January 1969, Lake Uvildy received the status of a Natural Monument. But after a few years, the Chelyabinsk region almost lost this monument. In the second half of the 1970s, the Urals suffered from severe drought. The Argazin reservoir, which supplied Chelyabinsk with water, gradually became shallow. To provide the city with a vital resource, a canal was dug between the reservoir and the lake. Chelyabinsk was saved, but Uvildy was significantly damaged. It took at least 30 years to restore the original water level. Only in the late 2000s did the depth of the lake become the same.

Today Uvildy suffers from high recreational load, which exceeds the norm by 20-25 times. In the summer months, not only vacationers from numerous tourist centers and sanatoriums come to the shore, but also residents of private houses and cottages.

Islands

Small areas of land divided the lake into 3 sub-reservoirs: northern, western and southern. The islands on Lake Uvildy have beautiful names:

Spruce. It was named this way due to the spruce trees growing here. The height of the trees reaches 30 m.
Go hungry. Legend has it that during a storm, fishermen sailed past this island. A small piece of land allowed them to wait out the bad weather and escape. Despite the fact that the fishermen had to starve, they were able to survive.
Birch. Rowan, bird cherry and many berry bushes grow on this part of the land, but birch is most often found here.
Elm. The island is connected to the shore by a bridge and an earthen embankment. This land got its name thanks to the elms growing here - rare trees for the Urals. Scientists do not know how they ended up on the island. Not a single elm tree was seen on the shores of the lake.
Crane Islands. The group of small land masses received this name because of its arrangement, which resembles a wedge of flying cranes.

In addition, on Lake Uvildy there are the islands of Suffering, Teplyak, Mullin and many others.

Legends of Lake Uvildy

Like any attraction, Lake Uvildy is surrounded by many legends.
According to one legend, the reservoir should be considered cursed. The lovers drowned in the lake. After this sad event, people died every year on Uvildy. Several divers were invited to explore the “blue bowl”. A boat was found at the bottom of the lake, which, according to experts, was made back in the 18th century. Probably the folk legend was not a complete fiction. More interesting finds were also discovered: fragments of a wooden ladle and 2 ceramic vessels. The age of the finds is at least 7 thousand years. There are suggestions that all these items were used for funeral rites by people who lived near the lake before the advent of our era.

The divers' finds were transferred to the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore, where they can be seen. After the first success, many projects were developed to search for new objects of archaeological value. But due to the lack of necessary financial resources, none of the projects was ever implemented.

The legend that Lake Uvildy is cursed could also have appeared thanks to the work of the Russian writer D. N. Mamin-Sibiryak. At the end of the 19th century, Dmitry Narkisovich visited the shores of Uvilda, calling it “Dead Lake” in his essay. However, researchers of the writer’s work assure that the word “dead” is used as a synonym for the words “uninhabited”, “uninhabited”. Until recently there was not a single village on the banks of the reservoir or near it.

Video: Uvildy Resort

Entertainment on Lake Uvildy

A vacation on the lake implies close contact with nature, which a modern city dweller is deprived of. People come to Uvildy for a quiet, relaxing holiday without visiting nightclubs and noisy events. The shore of a reservoir can be an ideal place for meditation for fans of various eastern practices.

The favorite pastime of both visitors and local residents is fishing. You can catch not only fish, but also crayfish. Especially for tourists in 2008, a huge number of bream and pike fry were released into Lake Uvildy. In 2009, several species of salmon were released into the lake. The regional leadership's immediate plans include filling the reservoir with muksun, nelma and omul.

In 2010, an ice fishing competition was held for the first time on the lake. In the same year, the “Fishing in the Silver Rain on Uvildy” competition was held. Participants in the competition had to catch ripus and Chud whitefish. Separate nominations were created for fish of other breeds.

Accommodation

Vacationing as a “savage” has its charms, but not every tourist can afford to spend the night in a tent. Moreover, it is not always safe. It is much better to buy a ticket to one of the recreation centers near the lake: “Pearl Coast”, “Yantar”, “Rodnichok”, “Zarya” and others.

The Uvildy sanatorium is especially popular. The health facility was opened in 1932. For some time, the sanatorium was converted into an evacuation hospital. In the mid-1940s, after healing mud was discovered near Uvilda, the sanatorium was repurposed as a balneo-mud resort. The emergence of new equipment, as well as the discovery of the healing properties of water and climate near the lake, provided more opportunities for treatment and healing of resort guests. Today “Uvildy” specializes not only in restoring lost health. The resort widely uses cosmetic procedures. Among the celebrities who came to the lake to maintain youth and beauty were People's Artist of the USSR Elena Obraztsova and pop singer Edita Piekha.

How to get there

The best way to get to Lake Uvildy is by your own transport. You should travel from Chelyabinsk along the Chelyabinsk - Yekaterinburg highway. The lake is separated from the city by 90 km. Having driven 15 km from the capital of the Southern Urals, you need to turn to the village of Argayash. From the village you will need to turn left and go towards the village of Kuznetskoye. Behind the village you can see a sign to the Uvildy sanatorium. After 4 km, travelers will reach the lake. If you do not have personal transport, you can get to the reservoir by trains No. 014, No. 039, No. 097, No. 182 and No. 189. You should get off at the Ripus railway station.

Nature

Throughout the warm season, the nature of the lake’s surroundings pampers tourists with a variety of vegetation: both rare and quite common: viburnum, strawberries, cranberries, blueberries, etc. There are expanses of mixed forests around the lake.

A characteristic feature of the lake is the presence of many islands of different sizes with unique natural conditions. Thus, one of the islands, called Vyazovy, is a real mystery of the local nature: elms grow on this island - a tree species not typical for the Urals. You can get to Elm Island via an earthen embankment and a bridge connecting it to the eastern shore of the lake.

The second island with a mysterious and unique nature is Spruce. The spruce trees growing on it reach 30 meters in height and the like cannot be found within a radius of 100 km.

The area of the largest islands - Golodai and Berezovoy - is about 1 km, the small islands occupy 10 or more meters. In total, Uvildy has more than 70 islands (Iorsky, Paseka, Dolgonky, Suffering Island, Cave of Love, Zhuravliny, Bukovy, etc.).

Rest and treatment

Uvildy is a balneological resort of all-Russian significance. On the lake there is a mud bath and several specialized medical buildings. Radon mineral water springs found near the reservoir, as well as medicinal lake silt, are actively used for medical purposes.

Every year, hundreds of people visiting local sanatoriums are cured of diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, endocrine, gynecological, urological, heart diseases, and problems of the musculoskeletal system are eliminated.

Uvildy is a favorite vacation spot for residents of the entire Chelyabinsk region . In addition to the Uvildy resort complex, there are about 70 recreation centers and camps along the coastline.

The distance from Chelyabinsk to Uvilda is 85.8 km, or about an hour by car. During the summer, the lake is visited by more than 15-20 thousand tourists. The swimming season is short: the top layer of water warms up to 20 degrees only in mid-July, and this temperature lasts until mid-August. A special type of entertainment is sailing competitions held at several yacht clubs.

The winter period is also not an obstacle for tourists. Freezing turns the reservoir into a huge skating rink, accessible to everyone. Skates can be rented at a sanatorium or recreation center. In addition, ski trails are built annually in the forests next to the reservoir.

Accommodation

Guests of the Uvildy sanatorium of the Urals can stay comfortably in rooms of various categories or in a comfortable cottage. The complex includes four large dormitory buildings and several cottages.

We offer the following types of accommodation during your holiday:

Standard rooms;
Comfort rooms;
Junior Suite, Suite, Presidential Room;
Standard cottage, Luxury cottage.

Each room at the sanatorium on Lake Uvildy has everything you need for a comfortable stay - equipped bathrooms, double beds, safe, refrigerator.

Fishing

The crystal clear lake of Uvildy is a real paradise for tourists. In addition to the most obvious factor of its popularity - its extraordinary beauty, the lake attracts with the diversity and abundance of ichthyofauna, which opens up ample opportunities for summer and winter fishing.

Uvildy is home to large quantities of ripus, roach, and pike. Fishermen record large catches of bream, perch, crucian carp, tench, and whitefish. Several years ago, the lake was stocked with fish from the salmon family, and since then fishermen have increasingly come across trout.

Uvildy is a good place for quiet family fishing: the fishery industry is not developing, since the lake is included in the list of natural monuments of regional significance.

Fishing on motor boats and alkaline batteries are not permitted. You can use echo sounders, but you shouldn’t count on an instant bite.

The winter fishing season opens approximately from mid-November and ends at the end of March (ice often lasts until mid-April).

There are many recreation centers on the reservoir, equipped specifically for the needs of fishermen: equipment is provided, recommendations are given regarding the fishing process, and the most “fishing spots” are illuminated.

Diving

Uvildy is an attractive destination for amateur divers. Its average depth is 15-20 meters (40 meters is the maximum depth), which falls within the non-decompression limits for recreational diving.

Diving can be done directly from the shore. Taking into account the fact that the water temperature at depth is always 5-6 degrees, a dry suit is needed for diving.

Divers are attracted by the exceptional purity of the water: visibility is up to 5 meters, which makes scuba diving an exciting excursion. Interest in diving is fueled by periodic finds at the bottom of the reservoir of wrecks of sunken ships and traces of ancient settlements.

Mysterious discovery

In the summer of 2001, in the area of the “Red Stone” recreation center, underwater in mud at a depth of 22 meters, three divers (including the co-author of this article, Alexander Sedyakin) discovered two ceramic vessels and a fragment of a wooden ladle in the shape of a duck.

According to scientists, they date back to the 4th millennium BC and were presumably used in funeral rites. The amazing finds were transferred to the Chelyabinsk Museum of Local Lore, where they can now be seen in the main exhibition.

More than ten years have passed since the discovery. All these years, Alexander Sedyakin had the opportunity to spend the summer in Uvildy and organize scuba diving. There were many ideas for finding new archaeological objects, but all of them remained unrealized. There are special expensive devices to search for objects in the mud, but there is no way to purchase them. Perhaps someone will take up this topic someday.

Divers dived at Uvildy and to a maximum depth of 38 meters in the very center of the lake, not far from Morskoy Island. However, nothing interesting was found at the bottom except an abandoned fishing net with half-decomposed and live fish. When scuba diving, you can easily find traces of human activity throughout the lake.

Interest in Lake Uvildy from scuba diving enthusiasts will not disappear. You can dive directly from the shore. The average depth of the lake is 15 meters, which exactly corresponds to the no-decompression limits for amateur diving.

The water in the lake is cold. In July, in hot weather, the upper layer warms up, and at depth the water temperature is constant - 4-6 degrees. For diving in the lake, it is advisable to have a dry suit and know the basics of planning and organizing dives.

Night diving near the coastline is very interesting, but at depth there is nothing to do without a flashlight. Visibility is about 5 meters, it can be better at depth.