Climb the highest hill, and look around, you will not see anything but hundreds of hills of different heights. Of course, none of them is similar to the neighboring one, and has its own unique appearance, character and inhabitants. But at first glance, you find yourself in a very limited landscape world. And so I thought. Sometime. Before I really began to love my land and look at it not only deeper and wider.
Walk 40 kilometers to the north and the North Sea stretches in front of you with its harsh metal-colored waters and merciless Arctic winds.
If you decide to go west, in just 100 kilometers you will get to the amazing Norwegian lands, with their beautiful fjords.
Half a day's journey to the east and you will find yourself in the tundra, on endless plains overgrown with moss, where there are no obstacles for your gaze.
But today we will look towards the south. For me it is the south, but for most of the inhabitants of the planet it is still the north. Nevertheless, this piece of my beloved peninsula will surprise everyone. Because there, in the south, the real giants of our region have been living for almost 400 million years - Khibiny Mountains.
The last time I was here in September 2021. And it turned out to be the most magical time of the year in these parts. Local forests and valleys still preserve the legacy of a short northern summer, but winter has already come to the mountain passes.
So contrasting and fabulous, as if some gigantic artist had drawn a brush with white paint at a certain height and separated the peaks of the mountains from their bases, merging them together with the cloudy sky.
You think that you just have to get to this border of colors and whiteness and you will enter into the invisible world of fabulous creatures and unseen miracles. Maybe it's true, there are daredevils and dreamers who decided to stay there forever.
The world seems no less beautiful for those who have decided to stay down in the arms of these menacing but reliable giant mountains. They surround and protect the forests located at their foot from the coming autumn.
Humans left their mark here, but did it very delicately and with respect. Roads stretch along rivers, gently skirting rocks and boulders. In some places, they modestly ask the trees to let them pass on, in order to cross this edge in humility and in safety.
Stormy rivers run from the peaks of the celestial dairy world, fill these ancient places with the continuous noise of life, emphasize the harmony and peace that reigns here.
Even these mischievous streams some places bow before the greatness of their progenitors-mountain glaciers, they stop for a while, taking the form of small lakes of amazing azure color.
This color is not a reflection of the bright blue sky, caressed by the sun, as in the south. After all, the sky here is almost always shrouded in clouds, captured by low, but persistent mountains, on the way to the mainland.
If someone asks me why this water shine so bright azure, I don't have a smart answer. I don't have the rational answer of a man born in progress and surrounded by technology. My answer is because it has always been so in these parts, because the mountains decided so. Add this little touch to make those lands more beautiful, even though it seemed impossible.