Like ancient Arctic warriors on the march, suddenly petrified by a magic spell

The eerie images shown here were taken from a helicopter by biologist and photographer Alexander Krivoshapkin during a trip to count wild reindeer herds around the Ulakhan-Sis mountain range in the north-east of the giant Sakha Republic.

Other examples of these striking granite buttes - known as the Sundrun Pillars - have never been photographed, it is believed. 

Now Moscow photographer and traveller Segey Karpukhin wants to visit the site, so remote that it is around 3,000 kilometres north-east of the republic's capital Yakutsk, itself one of Russia's most secluded locations.

His aim is to return by land not air with his colleague Alexander Krivoshapkin to properly record these lonely sentinels which guard these expansive landscapes above the Arctic Circle between the Soviet-era GULAG region of Kolyma and the Sundrun River.

'Right in the middle of the bare tundra were buttes some 10 to 20 metres high, standing in groups and alone, like some warriors on march, who were suddenly petrified with malicious intent of a local shaman centuries ago,' said Sergey Karpukhin, describing the 2012 fly-past by Alexander Krivoshapkin.

'Or like the ruins of an ancient city, which was inhabited by a hitherto unknown people. At the time, Alexander could only take some pictures through the porthole. It was not a photographic expedition, but only for aerial counting. And when I saw these these pictures, I was fascinated.

'Ulakhan-Sis is quite elongated and those relict buttes - vividly reminiscent of the idols of Easter Island, but of natural origin - which can be seen in the photos, are common in the eastern part of the range. '

But similar sights are believed to exist in the western part of the this range which stretches some 160 kilometres. 'Locals too cannot tell anything about this landscape, although the western part seems more accessible, as it is closer to the Indigirka River.'

They plan to travel there in April, approaching the rock pillars by snowmobile from far-flung Chersky settlement. The weird shapes are believed to be sculpted by relentless freezing and thawing of the granite and surrounding more eroded Devonian sandstone. 

In the local Yakut language, these warrior lookalikes are known as 'kisilyakhi', from the word 'kisi',. meaning man. The journey is likely to involve hundreds of kilometres on the Indigirka River. 

They need to raise some 700,000 roubles for the trip - around $9,700.

The link to the fundraising campaign is: https://planeta.ru/campaigns/karpukhins