The Curonian Spit: The Dancing Forest

The most mysterious landmark Curonian Spit – Dancing Forest - is at its 37th kilometer, between the village Fishing (former Rossiten) and a tourist route "The height of Efa". This forest was planted on the slopes and the summit of the Round Dune (German Runderberg) in 1961 with the aim of strengthening its sand. In the past, the forest has grown and has turned into the most mysterious and unexplained natural phenomena of our country. Here birds do not sing, almost no animals, and tree trunks some kind of unknown force bent in the most bizarre forms. And many people, getting here, feel unusual: someone has an inexplicable burst of energy, and someone starts complaining about a headache.

They say that "architecture is music frozen in stone." If you try to transfer this statement to botany, then in Dancing Forestat first there is a crazy disco in the middle. Trees dance "who is in that much": they are bent in waves

They are twisted by a ring

And the most advanced "dancers" try to portray themselves as a spiral

And the more you go deeper into the forest, the "furious" becomes the mad dance of trees:

First among quite ordinary "colleagues" the eye comes across some slightly twisted pines

Then they become more and more

At the same time, the intensity of their "dance passions" is growing:

And all this happens in a ringing, almost mystical silence. True, it is not completely allowed to enjoy noisy tourists, of whom the route "Dancing Forest" carry by bus from Kaliningrad.

And, interestingly, the absolute majority of the trees on the Circle dune have a very common "correct" form - and only in a small area. For many years scientists have been wondering - what is the cause of these distortions? And why only here?

At the moment, there are several basic versions, but none of them has yet been officially confirmed and none is recognized as the main one. So, some experts tend to the natural factors as to the cause of the tree curvature - that is, some unique combinations of wind, temperature changes and its characteristics in this part of the Curonian Spit.Others tend to blame unknown insect pests or even viruses that have not been detected so far. For example, the most believable version is the version of the activity of butterfly caterpillars "runaway wintering" - it, it seems, is cold in winter, there is nothing to do and it gnaws wood out of harm. Scientists argue that this shoot escapes, the pine shoots, the main, the apical and, to a lesser extent, lateral buds. After the apical bud was eaten, the tree begins to use the lateral instead of the main one. Optimum food for a harmful insect is pine young, especially one that grows on soils with a lack of groundwater and poor nutrients. According to the researchers, exactly such conditions exist on the Curonian Spit. However, this slender version can not explain the strange food selectivity of the runaway for some reason.

There is also a "geological" version: according to it, the causes of the curvature of the tree trunks should be sought in the mobility of the sand.Unlike the other dunes of the Curonian Spit, the Kruglaya dune is located on a kind of " cushion "of clay - and this probably explains its baboutThe mobility is greater in comparison with other dunes. The varying angle of the incline of the dune in combination with the constantly blowing from the sea. That is, they seemed to want to grow normally, but the sand and the wind constantly forced them to dodge. After reaching a certain age, the trees are already strong enough

Many trees of the Dancing Forest coil just near the ground.

There is also a "chemical" version - and it's related to the fact that there is a famous German glider school in the area - they say that the Germans always have something about chemistry and have all been devoured. By the way, local mushroom pickers prefer to stay away from Dancing Forest away.

The school, by the way, really was here until the end of World War II. Today from the gliding school, founded in 1922 in Rossitene (nowadays the village Fishing) and formerly the center of the Germanic gliding, only a part of the foundation remained.After the defeat in the First World War, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forbidden to have its own military aircraft and schools for training military pilots . In these conditions, the only place where you could get a "ticket to heaven" were glider schools. The one that was located at the site of the present Dancing Forest, by 1936 it became known that it had an imperial status - during its existence until 1945, about 30,000 pilots left it, among which there were many different record-breakers: in terms of flight range, duration, etc. By the way, the last flight in the school took place on January 18, 1945, a few days before the Soviet troops entered the Curonian Spit.

The information boards, installed at the very beginning of the tourist route "Dancing Forest", tell about the school and its aces-gliders.

There are also shields with information about the Dancing Forest and its most interesting features.

By the way, in the old days, in the place of the present, the Dancing Forest, the ancient oaks and beeches rustled, considered sacred among the pagan tribes, who at that time inhabited the Baltic and the Curonian Spit.According to one version, the Christian missionary Wojciech Adalbert, The name of the church was Zalenogradsk, was killed by the pagans, because of disrespect to the trees, which was in violation of the boundaries of the sacred grove.

But back to the versions of the advent of the Dancing Forest. The most popular among tourists and local residents are mystical versions. It's understandable, it's understandable, it's much more interesting to think that the reason for the curvy of the trees is a portal to a parallel world. I also like to think about the portal or about some young witches who came to the Sabbath and for some reason in the midst of the ritual dance turned to wriggling pines, rather than settled for boring explanations about winds, soils and so on. In each of us there lives a child - and he loves fairy tales, especially when all other life is filled with boring prose. For example, it was worthwhile for someone to come up with a legend that if you crawl inside the spiral of one of the dancing trees, then the period of life the unfortunate tree, ripping off his bark with his flabby and hungry rejuvenation teles, and in all seriousness to calculate, how many years they have been acquired and how much they still need to climb.

It was from such visitors that

and the tourist trail was sent through special wooden decks, along which signs are found in abundance forbidding them to descend and touch trees.

However, when did these bans stop Russian tourists? Some visitors before the trip as usual "take to the chest" and, remembering their distant ancestors and spit on the calls of environmentalists, begin climbing trees in the search of the most successful foreshortening for a photo. So if you see a man sitting on a "dancing" tree on the Internet - you know, this is one of them. According to scientists, if the guests continue to climb trees and trample around them, then in a few years only the pictures will remain of the unique dancing forest.

So, going back to the theme of the mystical versions of the origin of the Dancing Forest. The main one presupposes the presence on the small section of the Round Dune of the place with the strongest and still unexplained science of energy, which is the cause of deformation of the trees and many changes in the well-being of many people (personally, by the way, I didnt feel anything special there. The Hindu "loka" - that is, which is, in fact, places where the souls can only get after death in the process of reincarnation. And here, on the Curonian Spit, different worlds are somehow closing up, creating side effects that are unexplained by our science.

As it should be, the Dancing Forest has its own legend:

Than the matter ended, it is not known whether they "married, lived long and died in one day", or Barti (which, from my point of view, is more likely) soberly appreciated even make the trees dance under his tune, and retired. However, this is nothing more than a beautiful legend - for the simple reason that during the time of the pagan prussians there was no Dancing Forest on the Curonian Spit.

Naturally, such a fertile topic could not be ignored by all sorts of ufologists-say, if not "aliens" base, then, at least, their "transfer station", at the very slender tip-the place of their ship's wreck.

Whatever it was, none of the above-mentioned versions of the origin on the Curonian Spit of the Dancing Forest is recognized as dominant - and that's good, because everyone can choose the one that is closer to him and enjoy the view of the unusual forest in combination with an interesting version of his origin.

As an experiment in 2006, in the "anomalous square" were planted young pine trees - scientists wanted to see how they behave. Ten years have passed, the trees do not seem to wriggle, but grow very slowly, as if something is hampering them ...

How to get to the Curonian Spit and the Dancing Forest

By car: coordinates for the navigator N55 ° 11.034 'E20 ° 51.261'.
By public transport: get to the start of the route "Dancing Forest" can be on buses or minibuses, from Kaliningrad, Zelenogradsk and Svetlogorsk to the Curonian Spit - to Morskoye. Below you can see their schedule:

Useful links about the Curonian Spit:

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P.S. http://finnish.ooo/the-curonian-spit-the-dancing-forest/

Unforgettable impressions of the Dancing Forest and the Curonian Spit!
Your Roman Mironenko