The Sary-Too mountain range is translated from Kyrgyz as “yellow mountains”. But it’s more correct to call them rainbow mountains as they create such a colorful surreal landscape. These mountains are like a cut layer cake, in which you can see all the colors that exist in nature: terracotta, turquoise, citrine, emerald, sand, black, purple.

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Once these colored mountains were the bottom of the ancient Sarmatian sea. It disappeared several million years ago, and the exposed rocks containing various metals oxidized, creating a bizarre palette. They contain many fossils, fossil shells of heterodont molluscs and plant remains of that period. The people even call Sary-Too “the mountain of shells”.

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