Dancing Forest at the Curonian Spit

The Dancing Forest at the 37th kilometer of the Curonian Spit is the most famous and most popular tourist route. Many believe it to be a mystical place. When on the Curonian Spit you should visit the Dancing Forest. 

The Dancing forest (also known as the Drunk Forest) is a small part of a pine forest one kilometer away from the main road. The forest dates back to 1961. Near the highway the trees have normal straight trunks but as they approach the «mystical» square their trunks begin to twist. At the outer side of the area trees twist quite a little but in the center of the Dancing Forest they have very strange twists, and some of them are even loop-shaped. And with that the trees look quite healthy and continue to grow in spite of fantastic twists.

Scientists explain this unusual phenomenon by the fact that it was in this place that the young pines were bitten off by the caterpillars of pine-shoot moth. They bit off upper and lateral buds and shoots but the tree continued to grow at the expense of lateral sprouts acquiring a bizarrely twisted shape. There are such trees in the Dancing Forest, you can see them at once. But it is not clear why the butterflies chose to eat only a small part of the forest plantation while the surrounding trees are quite intact.

However, there are at least as many trees with a smooth trunk, obviously grown from the main shoot, while the trunks are not just twisted, but twisted into rings, spirals and even around their axis. It doesn’t look at all that the caterpillars could do it. 

According to another version, this phenomenon is due to the fact that this place is an anomalous zone with the strongest cosmic energies making the trees twist. Some people believe that a portal to a parallel world with energy bands is located in this place. Naturalists also have noticed that there have never been any bird in this place. 

There is still another explanation of the anomaly. According to it, the soil in this square was poisoned by some substance, when in the 30th of 20 century a German school of hang gliding was located there. You can see the foundations of its buildings at the entrance to the Dancing Forest. This version could be either confirmed or rejected with the help of a chemical analysis of the soil. But it is not known whether it was carried out.

The version related with a special movement of the Kruglaya (Round) Dune seems very likely. It was still partially shifting in the 60th of 20 century when young pines was planted in the forest. In this square the sand was resting on a clay pad and it was more shifting than in any other place. For this reason young shoots of pines changed the angle of growth. They were also affected by strong winds. Eventually the root system of the trees got stronger and sand was bound, but the their trunks remained twisted. 

In 2007 young pines were planted in the anomalous square to see if they would twist as those that were planted in 1961. So far they grow straight but much slower than pines in the other places.