Mick Hartley

From English Russia:

[Photo: A.Butorin]

The Lena Pillars are rock formations spread for about 80 kms along the banks of the Lena river in the far east of Siberia, somewhere about half-way between the Chinese border and the Arctic Ocean, a day's boat ride upriver from Yakutsk.

From the UNESCO World Heritage site:

The territory of the NP "Lena Pillars" is situated at the northern periclinale of the Aldan anteclises, complicated by the small- amplitude arched uplift and protrusions occupying the large areas.

Good to know.

It's not a fully-fledged World Heritage site: it's merely on the Tentative list for Russia, alongside the Great Vasyugan Mire (about which the tentativeness is perhaps more understandable) and Great Pskov.

More pictures here.

And here's where to go to book your Lena boat trip: 

After having a welcome ceremony with ritual dance and “Purifying with fire” ceremony you are guided to rock massif (a trip for strong and tolerant ones!). Up there one can experience unrenderable feelings. From the top of one of the “towers” you will get a grandiose view of the great river, endless taiga zone, rocks and the sky of different color shades that makes a man feel himself a part of virgin nature and the great Universe.

[If you're wondering, as I was, why the river in the above picture is so narrow, given that the Lena is the 10th longest river in the world and for most of its length very wide indeed, I think that this may be either a tributary to the Lena – the Sinyaya – or just one channel of the river.]