When you come to admire the volcano, you will not find here a familiar waste tank with a vent. All this remained in the distant past. Three million years ago in these places there were mountains more than six kilometers high and on one of the mountains there was an active volcano. Eversed lava flooded the area for kilometers around, and the "bombs" that the volcanoes "bombed", according to some scientists, could reach the modern Petrozavodsk, which is more than 80 km!
About a million years ago, the volcano fell asleep and the subsequent geological processes practically equaled it with the earth. The mountains turned into hills, and where the volcano was, the Sun River carried its waters.
In the XIX century, these places belonged to the Olonets province, and the most famous sights were three waterfalls: Girvas, Kivach and Por-rapids. In addition, the waterfall of Girvas was the largest and most beautiful - several cascades had a total height of 15 meters! And nowadays there is only one name left from the Girvas waterfall!
In the 1930s, the construction of the Paleozersk hydropower plant began on the Sun River and the dam was blocked by a dam, so the river became so shallow that the Girvas waterfall dried up altogether and even the Kivach Falls lost its former strength. But there, where the river dried up, scientists discovered the remains of paleovolcano - the oldest, found on Earth. So instead of one lost sight people got another.
You can see the tube of the explosion, the side slope of the left cone and the huge crater of the volcano, stretching to the north-east. Dimensions of the vent strike - 50x20 meters! everything in the district is covered with frozen lava flows with interspersed columnar and spherical fragments. These ball fragments up to a meter in diameter are "unexploded" volcanic bombs.
Frozen streams of lava occupy a total area of ​​more than a thousand square kilometers and stretch from Girvas to Svyatnavolok.
Looks frozen streams are simply fascinating due to the fact that each has its own shade of color - from green to black.
A lot of admiring the frozen lava field you can climb up to the forest and from the top look at the remains of the ancient volcano, even now this is a powerful sight!