В 1919 году Конгресс США принял решение превратить Гранд-Каньон в Национальный парк

“Just imagine the following. We take a tremendous mountain range, cut in at the root, turned so that the peaks are upside down, and pressed into plot of land with smooth surface covered by forests. Sort of inverted mountains. It is how Grand Canyon looks like – gigantic fracturing of earth surface.” This wonderful observation belongs to Soviet classics Ilf and Petrov. Their book One-Storied America is a travelogue, a vivid painting of their impressions. “We were standing near the edge of this enchanting abyss. We saw a bird flying beneath. It looked like a fish. Even deeper beneath, Colorado River was running."

“Grand Canyon is an enormous national park with the area of hundreds of square miles. It is very well organized, like all American national parks. Hotels and roads, supplies of printed publications and photo albums, as well as maps and guides… – everything on a very high level.” Let us pass from belle-lettres to facts and figures. Russian writers visited Grand Canyon in autumn 1935. The first European conquistador saw Grand Canyon in 1540. The US Congress adopted the decision to turn it into a national park on February 26, 1919. 2 million tourists visit this place annually. The canyon 365 km long and over 1.5 km deep is a place of interest very gainful for American treasury. It is the only mountain gorge on the Earth that can be seen from the Moon.