After waking up early in the morning, grandpa and grandson went for a walk in the valley.
"The name 'Kiin – Kerish' means 'Proud handsome man' in Kazakh," said grandfather.
"And why is this place called that?"
"You'll soon see for yourself."
After wandering around for a long time, they were lucky enough to meet a whole family of pelicans and great cormorants, who were basking on a sandy shore. And then Sanzhar looked with interest at the multicolored clay canyon with green, blue and white mud. The reddish soil underfoot crunched with colored pebbles.
"It's wonderful here. It seems to me that I have fallen into a fairy tale," the boy said to his grandfather.
"Yes, an unimaginable beauty," grandfather confirmed. "As a kid, I read Conan Doyle's book 'The Lost World'. Quite similar."
"Can I read it?" the boy asked.
"Yes, You can get it from the library. And now we will have a look at the 'Flaming Cliffs'!" grandfather promised.
"Are these rocks? And why are they called that?"
"A look and you'll understand for yourself…"
From a distance, the bright clay hills and ravines of Kiin-Kerish really looked like flames fluttering in the wind. Everything around seemed to be on fire: it was as if the walls and towers of ancient Asian cities and fortresses with red-yellow reflections suddenly grew up in the middle of the flat desert.
On a hot day, watching the range of rich colors of the area, the grandfather and grandson noticed how the surrounding landscape changes its shades within a short time. They saw a bizarre play of colors: pinkish, red, brown shades of color gradually replaced one another.
In the evening, the travelers went to watch the sunset. The riot of its colors entered the lake and lit up the desert with orange, yellow and red flowers. And at night they admired the dark sky with huge sparkling stars, enjoyed the warm breeze, saturated with the tart smell of desert herbs. In the bright light of the moon, it seemed that they were on another planet.
"This unearthly landscape reminded me of fantastic stories about distant civilizations," grandpa told Sanzhar.
"What red planet do you know?"
"Mars."
"Right! And here we can observe a small piece of Mars with its red landscapes. Mystical atmosphere. Extremely colorful!"
The "Martian hills" were located in a lowland, as if in the crater of an ancient volcano. Nature itself inspired fairy-tale visions and plots. Divided into separate column-shaped peaks, there stood the mighty bastions of "watchtowers" guarding the approaches to the "fortress city". Their gray walls were dotted with deep potholes, as if they had been fired by cannonballs. Pink, purple, violet, and in some places white pyramids looked like the ruins of a ghost city. To the impressionable boy, it seemed that among the deserted valleys, mounds and castles, Kiin-Kerish was coming to life right before his eyes. The ancient city of extraordinary beauty stretched to the sky, and it wasn't just an enchanting mirage. And at night the boy had a dream...
One day, having heard about the local color-changing places, a group of hunters secretly came here. The steppe wind was wandering in their pockets, so they hunted for treasures under the guise of searching for an animal. These people really wanted to get fabulously rich. They examined the mysterious area till their eyes ached, looking under their feet in search of precious stones. In the heat of excitement, they did not even notice how night came. And so, having found a suitable clearing, the tired hunters decided to pass the night. Just as they settled down for the night, a bright moon suddenly peeked out from behind the clouds and lit up everything around. Under the light of the moon, people saw precious stones that surrounded them everywhere and sparkled with their beauty. Illuminated by the moonlight, the beautiful crystals sparkled and shimmered with each color of the rainbow. And they also had a strange feature of mysteriously changing their colors after some time.
The magical radiance of the stones made people's minds go blank, greed awoke in their hearts. Everyone wanted to take sole possession of rubies, gems and diamonds of pure water. Caught up in dreams of wealth, people quarreled and began to fight with each other for the right to possess treasures. As a result, all the hunters received numerous injuries.
After a while, dawn broke. And it turned out that they were fighting only for pieces of colored clay... Then people realized that it was the thirst for profit that blinded them. Tears flowed down their cheeks. People smiled with their bloody lips as they asked for forgiveness from their comrades. They reached out their hands and helped each other to get up from the ground. And then everyone looked up with humility and saw the endless turquoise sky with silver clouds. And people's faces became bright, and their souls became kind. For the first time in many years, they felt happy with the realization of their community with their comrades and never again chased after treasures, the thirst for which can lead a person to blindness. Thus, colorful clay stones gave wisdom to minds that previously wanted only wealth.
The treasure hunters founded the bright city of Kiin-Kerish on the site of their searches. This city was inhabited by enlightened people who lived by their own labor. Their thoughts remained pure, and their world became harmonious. They were active and cheerful, because they understood that there was no need to grieve in vain – it is better to smile at the sun and bow to the sky. They sang funny songs, knew how to distinguish good deeds from evil and always helped each other. They no longer searched for precious stones, but instead, after each day spent in labor, they looked at the sky, admiring the silvery starlight. Peering into the twinkling depths of the stars, people have seen there the reflection of a real paradise.
Once upon a time, the city of Kiin-Kerish stood on the earth. On the place of the present hills there were yurts, and castles with a peculiar architecture. When night comes, the legendary hills turn into a fairy-tale city again, and as the new day comes, the city again turns into clay hills. The wind rises over the hot steppe, trembling and wavering, circles and rustles above them, as if telling a fairy tale…
Folk wisdom says: "A friend is a friend, a brother is a brother, and valuables are not your relatives" and "Only the treasures of the soul do not disappear".
"Geologists believe that Kiin-Kerish is a unique paleontological monument" grandfather told Sanzhar. "The bright coloring of the clay rocks suggests that they were formed in the conditions of the hot and humid tropical climate of the Mesozoic. Do you know what enormous creatures dominated the Earth back then?"
"Did dinosaurs live here?" Sanzhar whistled delightedly.
"That's right. These lizards were gigantic in size-up to forty meters in length, with a weight of up to eighty tons."
"Cool! But why did they disappear?"
"The cold snap started. The land did not yield any more crops. The famine came. This dramatic climate change was captured by the deposits of Kiin-Kerish. By the way, scientists claim that palm trees and magnolias once grew here, and there were inhabitants of subtropical forests."
"Rhinos, crocodiles, turtles and salamanders?"
"Yes, Sanzhar"
"How interesting! Will we come back here again?"
"Certainly!"
