It is a unique natural complex combining rich and diverse flora, as well as being a geological, geomorphological monument and a landmark associated with various historical events.

The first mention of it can be found in the diaries of the artists Chernetsov brothers for 1838: “Not without difficulty we reached the top of Lysaya Mountain; here the guide pointed out to us on a small stone rock carved words, which time has already smoothed out; no matter how hard we tried to find out the content of the inscription, but could not make out anything: many letters had been eradicated, and those that had stayed, those no longer had their present form.“ — Чернецовы Г. Г. и Н. Г. Путешествие по Волге.

Далёкое близкое In the essay "Жегули и Усолье на Волге" published by Sadovnikov Dmitry Nikolayevich in 1872, a more detailed description of the inscription is given:“ — This very Petrov stone is it," replied the guide.

— But I can't find a real inscription, and it was not long ago... A lot of such things were written, but it seems that our men beat off on lime... On the big grey stone, nothing was visible.

Samara local historian Petr Alabin, however, believed the author of the inscription was not Peter I, who was attributed a similar act on the left bank of the Volga, on the Tsar's barrow, but Prince Dimitrie Cantemir,[9] who left an inscription on 11 June 1722 while accompanying the tsar on the Persian campaign of Peter the Great.

He left an entry about it in his journal:“Prince Dmitry... on the 11th of June came near the village (on the Volga river) of Morkvashi, not reaching 40 versts to Samara, saw a large mountain called Lysaya, climbed it, carved his name and the year on a stone“.

In 1936 the ancient settlement was inspected by archaeologist Grozdilov, G. P.[13] However, full-fledged excavations were not carried out until 1970, when an archaeological expedition of Samara University led by Matveeva, Galina Ivanovna worked on the mountain.

On the slope of the mountain there are remains of a rampart, which presumably served as a defence of the middle part of the hillfort, enclosed between the two fortification systems.

[14] The occupation debris of the settlement is thin and extremely poor, consisting of dusty forest loams, saturated with angular rocks and stones.

[14] Some of the pottery samples are made of clay with limestone crumbs, round-bottomed, with a high neck decorated with rectangular impressions.

[15] The second type of ware — rough, with knobby surface, with notches decorating the corollas, belongs to the Imenkovskaya culture, widespread in the Middle Volga Region in the V—VII centuries[14] and indicates that the settlement was inhabited repeatedly.

Besides archaeologists, Lysaya Mountain has long been actively studied by scientists of other specialties: the calcareous outcrops of the mountain and its nature have been investigated by geologists Pavlov Alexei Petrovich, Noinsky Mikhail Eduardovich, paleontologist Stukenberg Alexander Antonovich,[2] geomorphologists Barkov Alexander Sergeyevich, Obedientova Glafira Vitalievna.

In the summer 1868, the Kazan Society of Nature Testers sent here Baum, Otton Ottonovich (1842–1892) to collect a herbarium on the mountain.

His collections included such species as Hedysarum grandiflorum, Astragalus rupifragus, Scabiosa isetensis, Gypsophila juzepczukii, Veronica incana, Sedum acre.

[19] In 1889, botanist Zhilyakov, Nikolai Pavlovich counted 124 species of plants while compiling a summary of the flora of Lysaya Mountain.

[19] In 1926, Sprygin Ivan Ivanovich was exploring the mountain during an expedition to select the site of the Zhiguli Nature Reserve.

Several relict species are also represented here: Aster alpinus, Clausia aprica, Ephedra distachya, Helianthemum nummularium, Helictotrichon desertorum, Krascheninnikovia ceratoides, and others.

The field layer is composed of non-moral mesophilic species: European wild ginger, hairy sedge, Viola mirabilis, the sweet woodruff, the Solomon's seal, the American milletgrass, the spring pea, Pulmonaria mollis, ground elder, and others.

[4] The foot of the northern slope is a narrow (30–50 m) abrasion terrace, a remnant of the Volga floodplain, flooded during the rise of the Saratov Reservoir.

[4] The transition between the upper part of the abrasion terrace and the driftwood is occupied by the common alder with a similar floristic composition.