On the mountain, visitors can see the famous Sami Seids of Vottovaara. These are large stones standing on small "legs" (3-4 small stones). Some sources say that there are more than 1,600 seids on Vottovaara, but this is a clear exaggeration.
The scientific explanation of the appearance of the Seids refers to the period of glaciation. The glacial masses moved huge boulders and according to the laws of physics, large boulders always turned out to be on top of small stones. This is easy to check if you put stones of different sizes in the basket and shake it. All the large stones will be on top, and all the small ones will be at the bottom.
After the glacier retreated, small stones turned out to be under large stones. Over time, the ice and soil were washed away, but the big stone continued to stand on small stones. There are many of such natural seids around the world, many of them are on Vottovaara as well.
There are also versions about the anthropogenic origin of the Seids on Vottovaara. According to these sources, seids were installed by ancient Sami tribes for religious purposes. There are two dozen seids on Vottovaara, the origin of which really looks more like artificial than natural.
The weight of these seids is from 3 to 10 tons. They are installed on larger boulders (weighing tens of tons), and the leg-stones are very sharp between them. It does not seem at all that these stones moved together in the glacial masses.
Systematic studies of Vottovaara began to be conducted only in 1978 by a local researcher Sergey Simonyan. He says that in those years there were much more Seids on the mountain. Alas, employees of forestry enterprises destroyed most of them just for fun in the following years. Sergey Simonyan also says that at that time there was a geodetic tower on the mountain, since Vottovaara is one of the highest mountains in Karelia. From this tower, it was clear that the seids were not installed randomly, geometric shapes were traced among the groups of seids. This may also be a confirmation of their anthropogenic origin.
Sergey Simonyan also says that when he first saw the seids of Vottovaara in 1978, many of them had small stones lying in pyramids. The glacier could not make it for sure.
At the same time, it was not possible to find traces of settlements or any human activity on or near Vottovaara. If there really was one of the largest Sami cult complexes in Karelia on Vottovaara, then why any traces of people`s household activity was not find here? If some rituals or sacrifices were held here, then some traces would have been preserved. Moreover, the soil cover here is very small, so large-scale excavations would not be required to search for traces of human activity. In general, there are many riddles on Vottovaara, and it is unlikely that you can get an unambiguous answer to them.
