Psychedelic Salt Mines (Beryozniki)

About 400 km west of Yekaterinburg, near Beryozniki, lie working potash and salt mines whose walls show dizzying psychedelic stripes of yellow, red, white and blue — the natural patterning of the mineral seams.

Reaching them legitimately is difficult; the trip is for adventurous travellers willing to arrange a permit-only photographic tour. A long way out from Yekaterinburg but the closest major city to start the journey.

things to do sight
A story
The mines are not officially open to tourists — they are still operated by Uralkali for potash extraction. Almost every photograph that has reached the outside world was taken on an unauthorised industrial-tourism trip. The colours come from layers of potassium and magnesium chlorides deposited 250 million years ago when the area was an evaporating inland sea.