Volcano Tyatya - the fire-breathing mountain of Kunashir Island

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:43

Volcano Tyatya is the third most beautiful volcano in the world after Vesuvius and Fujiyama, located in a remote area of the Kunashir Island of the Kuril chain. In the Ainu language of the indigenous inhabitants of the island, the name of the mountain Chacha-Napuri is translated as "Father Mountain". The Japanese, whose language does not have the letter “h”, replaced the syllable with “cha” and changed the sound to “cha”. So, the two languages, having united, involuntarily, gave a good name to the giant - Tyatya.

Volcano Tyatya is a two-level classic giant, formed by andesite and bas alt lavas. It looks like a two-story cake. On the main cone with a height of 1485 meters rises the second, central, 337 meters high. The diameter of the base of the mountain reaches 18 kilometers.

Volcano Tyatya, the photo of which is presented in the article, is an unofficial symbol of Kunashir Island and is often used in illustrations depicting the Kuril Islands and the Kuril Reserve, on the territory of which the volcano is located. In 2013, he entered the TOP-10 symbols of the Far Eastern District, taking first place, and is one of the most beautiful places in Russia.

Ancient giant(modern volcanologists claim that the age of the mountain is twelve thousand years) rises in the northeastern territory of the island. The lands around are deserted, and the reason for this is the Tyatya volcano. The eruption, which began in 1973, was so powerful that the ashes settled on the territory of Shikotan Island, located 80 kilometers away, and the large village of Tyatino was wiped off the face of the earth. Lava flowing from the slope caused a fire that broke out in the reserve. The ongoing weak activity of the fire-breathing mountain is the main reason why the lands around the volcano remain uninhabited.

Tyatya volcano is also dangerous for aviation. Unpredictable emissions of a poisonous cloud, not only from the main crater, but also from a side crater, may have already caused the crash of several helicopters over the past years.

The territory of the Kuril Reserve and the Tyatya volcano located on it have always attracted tourists. From all sides it is surrounded by water - the reserve is washed by the waves of the Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk. The territory is overgrown with broad-leaved and coniferous forests and bamboo shoots. Of the large animals, the guests of these lands are brown bears. According to tourists and indigenous people who have visited the reserve, the rivers are literally teeming with fish of the salmon family, which can be caught by hand during the spawning period. The forests around the volcano are rich in berries. Krasnika, bramble, princess, blueberries, lingonberries, cloudberries will please lovers of "silent" hunting. By the way, thanks to the richness of the rivers flowing there with salmon, and the forests with berries, the bears in Kunashir are always full and happy, becausethere were no attacks on a person.

If we take into account that at the moment the volcano is weakly active, and the largest eruptions occur once every thousand years, Tyatya and the Kuril Reserve will delight naturalists, tourists and fans of extreme sports for at least a century, without exposing them to the danger of catastrophic emissions.