Visited this site in July 2025 (exactly on the day when it was inscribed). For a proper visit decided to go for the original paintings. The number of visitors to the originals is limited to 10 per months. The price is 8,600 Roubles or approximately 90 Euro. In order to book such visit for a summer weekend I started to call to the director general of Shulgan-Tash starting from February and somehow finally managed to reserve 4 people as we went in a mini-group.

The visit to cave requires 380-km driving though scenic forest landscapes and rare villages from the regional center Ufa. I read reports about awful road, but at the time of research the whole road was in very good state (probable with the view of heritage status).

There is a big brand-new museum complex in situ, access to the cave requires something like 2 kilometers of walking along the river with some information panels on the road. Site guards generously provided us boots for a small tip, and these were extremely helpful due to wet mud inside the cave (the temperature is +7 inside). 99% of visitors can only see the copies of paintings located soon after the entrance. In order to visit the originals the guide takes the key and flashlight and opens the steel gate deeper inside the cave.

The paintings were only discovered in 1959 and are located in two halls (floors). There are approximately 200 paintings which are 16,000-20,000 years old. Primitive pigment applications without clear outlines, represents the majority (66%) of documented images. 24% - various simple symbols (like trapezoids and triangles). Only 10% represent zoomorphic and anthropomorphic depictions. Most frequent are mammoths, all but one facing leftward. Horses represent the second most common category. There are also two bisons, two woolly rhinoceroses and famous camel discovered only in 2017 – the oldest known depiction of camel globally. The paintings are quite visible, as they were cleaned from calcite deposits and the water seepage itself is not causing damage to the paints.

To summarize – very interesting site, visiting the originals is expensive and difficult to arrange – but still possible.