Visited this site in August 2020 as weekend trip from Moscow. I decided to visit Manpupuner Plateau, which is located in the heart of Pechoro-Ilychskiy Nature Reserve, part of Virgin Komi Forests site. The quick visit here without hard backpacking is only possible with helicopter tour. The logistics has changed as compared with visit made by Martina Ruckova back in 2017. The change is explained to improve accessibility of the helicopter flight due to weather conditions. You first fly on your own to Ukhta, then the car drives you 170 km through sometimes good and sometimes awful road to Troizko-Pechorsk. Troizko-Pechorsk is a depressive municipal village located on the shores of the Pechora River and is the closest large inhabited point to the Pechoro-Ilychskiy Nature Reserve. The only accommodation option is Pechora hotel – very basic and tough place to stay, for example, there was no hot water during our stay. However, it has the only café in the village with no menu and strange operating hours – it closes at 6 p.m. and afterwards you are only left with noodle soup and snacks from nearest supermarket as dining options.  
We were unlucky with the rainy weather and were sitting in the hotel whole Saturday waiting for green light from the flight control – but it was rainy and foggy in the Plateau and the flight was finally postponed to Sunday. On Sunday after additional couple of hours of waiting, we were finally given ok to fly. Tour operator is using old Soviet helicopter with additional fuel tank inside. It takes about 80 minutes to fly 160 km over never-ending Komi forests and swamps. On the Plateau, there is small house where reserve’s inspector is controlling tourist access and then guides to the stone giants. There are 7 weathering pillars with the height from 30 to 42 meters being result of 200 million years of erosion. There is a marked pass through the site and it is strictly advised not to leave it. Each stone formation has its own name depending on phantasy of the authors. The area is very atmospheric and unusual. The Plateau is believed to be the sacral center of ritual ceremonies by local shamans and is still said to keep negative energy.    

The whole area is very popular among backpackers thanks to Manpupuner Plateau and infamous Dyatlov Pass. It takes approximately 8 days and 85 km to walk between these two points of interest with helicopter drop-ins and drop-offs. The pass is equipped with mountain shelter modules providing basic amenities.

Due to weather delays, we missed our flight back from Ukhta on Sunday evening and in order to get back before Monday morning we decided to take shared taxi to Syktyvkar (additional “funny” night driving of 350 km). Despite the tour only takes place from June to September it is still highly weather dependent (like Michael Skellig) and you need to decide whether to be flexible with return days (sometimes people wait for good weather for 4-5 days in order to catch the flight). Only 1,500 people visit the Plateau annually on average.

In overall – the place is a natural wonder among wild nature and it is still quite difficult logistically and financially to get there. The wilderness of the area (largest forest area in Europe) can be appreciated from the helicopter. I hope that there will be continued efforts to improve tourist infrastructure (sometimes very disappointing currently) and measures to protect the reserve area from human intervention.