
In numbers.
70m
Height
May–Jun
Sep–Oct
Best months
1,500m
Elevation
The water at Polikarya, month by month
It roars from October to May.
The fullest months: from October to May.
- 92%Jan
- 90%Feb
- 100%Mar
- 94%Apr
- 79%May
- 57%Jun
- 45%Jul
- 32%Aug
- 55%Sep
- 83%Oct
- 85%Nov
- 85%Dec
Best months to go, with plenty of water and pleasant days: from May to June and from September to October.
Estimate from rain, snowmelt and evaporation month by month (NASA POWER, 1991–2020) around the falls. Dams upstream can change the real flow.
Polikarya is a waterfall in Russia. The water falls 70 m.
Getting there.
- Krasnaya Polyananearest town · 6.2 km in a straight line
- Parking 1,960 m awaynearest car park in OpenStreetMap, straight line
- Sochi International Airport (AER)nearest airport with scheduled flights · 34 km in a straight lineCar hire at KUT airport (Kopitnari)Discover Cars · Affiliate link↗
- From May to June and from September to Octoberbest months to go (estimate)
Plan your visit
Stay, explore and get there
Some links above are affiliate links: if you book through them we may earn a commission, at no extra cost to you. It never changes what the data on this page says.
How big is it?
How big it really is.
Height of the drop from Wikidata. Buildings and the person are drawn at the same scale.
Seen from the sky.
8 × 8 km of cloud-free satellite image, with what OpenStreetMap knows around the falls.
N
2 km
Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 (EOX, CC BY 4.0), 8 × 8 km, north up. Points © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The line follows the river as mapped in OpenStreetMap; heights from the 30 m Copernicus model, which smooths narrow drops — the published height of the falls is the one above.
Around the falls the river drops 1,239 m in 3.4 km. Here the river runs about 157 m below the lower rim of its valley.
What is around.
- 18viewpointsвид на долину розы, Красивая панорама, Видовая мансарда кафе and 15 more
- 12waymarked walking routesРеликтовый лес, Водопад Поликаря, Тропа здоровья and 9 more
- 11car parks
- —swimming spots
- 1picnic sites
- 4toilets
- 7information boards and visitor centres
- —bus stops within 1 km
- 9other named waterfalls within 4 kmФермерский, Водопад "Надежда", Водопад "Медвежий" and 6 more
- —caves
- 4campsitesКемпинг ЕНДЕМИК and 3 more
- 254hotels, B&Bs and huts within 6 kmГала-Альпик, Фламинго, Утомленные солнцем and 251 more
- 62restaurants and cafés within 3 km
Counted in OpenStreetMap, the map anyone can edit, up to 2 km around the falls (unless noted). A low number may just mean nobody has mapped it yet. © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL).
Towns nearby
- Krasnaya Polyana6.2 km in a straight line
Weather
The weather, month by month.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Afternoon °C | -1 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 13 | 17 | 20 | 21 | 17 | 12 | 6 | 1 |
| Night °C | -5 | -5 | -3 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 13 | 14 | 10 | 6 | 1 | -3 |
| Rain & snow (mm) | 136 | 116 | 119 | 84 | 90 | 84 | 87 | 64 | 116 | 139 | 124 | 126 |
| Wet days | 16 | 13 | 14 | 11 | 11 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 14 |
| Sun h/day | 2.4 | 3.4 | 3.9 | 5.6 | 7.0 | 8.4 | 8.7 | 8.6 | 6.9 | 5.4 | 4.1 | 2.7 |
| Snow on the ground (cm) | 22 | 25 | 21 | 8 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 16 |
Long-term averages 1991–2020 (NASA POWER) for a cell about 55 km wide, with temperatures carried to the height of the falls (1,500 m) at −6.5 °C per 1,000 m. Not a forecast.
Photos
Through visitors' eyes.
Recent years
Wet years and dry years
Rain of each month as a share of the 1991–2020 average. A wet season above 100 % usually means a fuller waterfall.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 88% | 138% | 47% | 27% | 108% | 45% | 67% | 44% | 75% | 33% | 82% | 51% |
| 2021 | 123% | 112% | 109% | 149% | 89% | 92% | 187% | 190% | 148% | 86% | 83% | 98% |
| 2022 | 159% | 88% | 108% | 122% | 117% | 95% | 138% | 41% | 139% | 118% | 68% | 92% |
| 2023 | 38% | 173% | 130% | 209% | 116% | 84% | 145% | 13% | 48% | 50% | 196% | 143% |
| 2024 | 145% | 80% | 77% | 11% | 109% | 40% | 57% | 113% | 339% | 88% | 118% | 137% |
| 2025 | 50% | 81% | 70% | 148% | 100% | 150% | 52% | 82% | 116% | 165% | 25% | 170% |
130% wetter than usual 70% drier than usual
Compare with the waterfalls nearby.
About these numbers
| Names, height, width, river | Wikidata (Q4369959) · CC0 |
|---|---|
| Climate | NASA POWER, 1991–2020 |
| Relief, river profile, 3D model | Copernicus DEM GLO-30 · © DLR e.V., © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH, Copernicus/ESA |
| Paths, viewpoints, parking | © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL |
| Images | EOX Sentinel-2 cloudless 2016 · CC BY 4.0; Wikimedia Commons |
Every figure is an average, an estimate or a count from a public dataset. Licences and methods: data sources.
The family
Do you prefer beaches, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, islands, rivers or canyons?
Same idea, other landscapes: field atlases built on open data, month by month, in seven languages.






