Ishimbaiskiy region, near Makarovo village, 53 km to the north-east from Ishimbai
These are very solid quartz sandstones of Takatinskaya suite of Eifelian layer of the middle Devon. They are 400 million years. They obliged for their birth to the waters of the ancient ocean, which were on the place of the Urals. «The Orenburgian Province News» from 23th of January of 1860 wrote how they had got those stones: ‘The inhabitants of the Bashkir villages: Makarovoy, Isiakayevoy, Sharipovoy, Taneevoy, Ibrayevoy and Iskisiakaevoy – are involved in breaking stones. In the nearest distance from these villages millstones are wide spread, often on the surface and sometimes deeper up to 1 arshin. The best stone with blue colour is mined near the village Makarovoy… The Bashkir mine the millstone by breaking up… The final finishing to the millstone is made in the villages themselves… The total number of the millstones in Sterlitamak province is from 300 to 400 in a year’. A pair of small millstones with their diameter of 5 vershok weighted 100 poods, the biggest ones – with the diameter of 10 vershok(an old Russian measure of length, equal to 1 3/4 inches or 4.4 cm)– to 400 poods(a pood is equal to 16 kg or 36 lbs). Further they were brought to Tabinsk along the Belaya, and then they were sent to Kazan, Nizhni Novgorod, Samara, Saratovand Astrakhan. They cost pretty much. And now near Makarovo village in the trench with its deep 1.5m one can see the dark-grey «backs» of the huge stones.