The Dancing Forest on Curonian Spit

At the top of the hill, called the "Kruglaya" Dune (Rundeberg in German) is a picturesque forest area with fancifully bent trunks of the pine trees.

This forest became known as "dancing", sometimes it is also called "drunk". In Russian it sounds like "Tantsujuschiy les"

Many people think that these trees are hundreds of years old, in the first half of the 20th century there were Sands overgrown with bushes, the forest was planted in 1961 to fix the dune, changing its configuration under the influence of winds.

Exactly the same forest planting was carried out throughout the Curonian spit, but only here this phenomenon appeared.

There are several versions about the cause of abnormally twisted trunks, from mystical to deeply scientific.

Fans of mysticism explain the appearance of the "dancing" forest by the fact that this place was allegedly a pagan sanctuary of the Western Balts, and on top of the dune burned sacrificial fires.

There is a version that this is the result of constant strong winds. This phenomenon is called "crooked forest", and occurs on mountain slopes or in the tundra, however, in this case, the height of trees does not exceed 10 meters.

Theories were put forward that this place has an unusual composition of the soil, or there are some underground anomalies.

But everything is much simpler: the seedlings were damaged by forest pests.

Young pines growing on the ground with low humidity, typical for the upper part of the dunes, are subject to invasions of pine shoot moth.

Caterpillars eat the upper buds of young trees, as a result, the development of the trunk goes towards the side buds.

There is an ecological trail around the top of the dune.

Particularly bizarre trees have separate fences.

Does it remind you of anything?

You can get here from Kaliningrad by bus N593 or from Zelenogradsk by bus route 210. Travel time is two hours and an hour, respectively. The stop is called "Танцующий лес", then you need to go about half a kilometer.