Krasnoyarsk residents were explained the new rules for visiting “Pillars” / Society news of Krasnoyarsk and the Krasnoyarsk Territory / Newslab.Ru
Krasnoyarsk residents were explained how the new rules for visiting the Stolby National Park will work.
According to park director Vyacheslav Shcherbakov, the rules that everyone is discussing are drawn up based on an analysis of tourists visiting specially protected areas. At the moment, they concern mainly organized tourist groups – both adults and children. In accordance with it, tourists can only be taken along routes that have a passport, and they are not allowed to climb rocks.
For ordinary tourists, noted Vyacheslav Shcherbakov, little will change. The National Park promises to increase the number of full houses with visiting rules and educational information, and to carry out more preventive work. As for visiting trails without passports and climbing rocks, people will have to assess their own risk.
“If the above rules are violated, the visitor himself bears responsibility for his life and health,” the directorate notes, emphasizing that so far no fines have been provided for ordinary people.
As the director of the regional institution “Spasatel” Alexander Kobets explained, the rescuers on duty in the national park will, as before, provide assistance free of charge and as quickly as possible to all tourists without exception. In 2025, they made 140 trips to the national park. 66 people were rescued, 1 person died, another 93 were assisted. He expressed hope that the measures taken by the national park will help improve the preparedness of tourists going for a walk, and thereby reduce injuries. Rescuers also carry out preventive work – during their daily duty they help tourists and conduct explanatory work.
As for climbing rocks, according to the president of the regional mountaineering federation and columnist with many years of experience, Nikolai Zakharov, this issue concerns a very small number of people. Only about 1% of all park visitors regularly climb the rocks. This will continue, since there is no direct ban on free climbing in the documents.
Nikolai Zakharov suggested that the park management and representatives of the regional authorities consider the issue of training mountain guides, who could then organize ascents for visitors for money.
Let us remind you that on December 1, 2025, new rules came into force in Russia that regulate tourists’ visits to specially protected areas, which include the Krasnoyarsk Pillars. They say that tourists should only visit specially equipped routes. At the moment, there are only three of them in the national park – a road along the Laletino stream, a circular route along the central Pillars and a walk through the Takmakovsky district. In addition, four more eco-trails received certification certificates: from the chapel to the First Transverse along the Laletinskaya road, two pass through a clearing in Narym, and the last one is located in the “Beaver Log” area.
“Climbing cannot be included in existing tourist routes, since rock climbing is a sport included in the register of sports. Accordingly, rock massifs can only be used by federations for the relevant sport and only in agreement with the Federal State Budgetary Institution that manages the protected areas,” the press service noted.
The national park explained that the routes closed to the public are unsafe “due to the unsatisfactory sanitary condition of the forests, the drying out and fall of the fir tree stand due to the activity of the Ussuri polygrapha, the biotic factor – the presence of predators, and also, importantly, the lack of funding for all the necessary activities.” All this also applies to the routes of the special protection zone (formerly the buffer zone).
