Rock Chalpan situated in the city of Abaza is a sheer stone massif 147 meters high, resembling an animal fang. From the top of the rock, one can see a breath-taking panorama of the city, the cedar forest and the Abakan River. In 1981, a film based on A. Chmykhalo's story "Don't Set Traps for a Wood Spirit" was shot here.
There are several legends about the origin of the name of the rock. According to one of them, in the old days, under Mount Chalpan on the banks of the Abakan, there lived a great shaman named Chalbart. The great shaman Chalbart had a large family. He had nine married sons. One day, when a hungry year came, Chalbart decided to save his family. He seated numerous relatives in the yurt and began the ritual. Before that, he warned: “Pine cones will fall from the sky through the smoke hole of the yurt, but no one should touch them until my ritual is over!”
When the cones fell down and the yurt was filled with them, the youngest daughter-in-law could not stand it and surreptitiously took the big cone. She hid it under the skirt, furtively pulled out a nut and bit it quietly. At the same moment, a whirlwind burst into the yurt, spinning the shaman and all the cones in a wild cycle. Taiga gifts, along with Chalbart, flew out through the smoke hole. When the shaman flew over the roof of the yurt, his angry voice sounded gloomily: “You must not violate the prohibitions of the spirits. The tragedy was not my fault, but yours.” Chalbart himself with a tambourine and a wand was violently pressed into the rock, where his imprint is still visible. Now this rock is called Chalbart, in Russian it sounds "Chalpan".
