Щербаковская балка, Natural monument in Volgograd Oblast, Russia.

Shcherbakovskaya Balka is a ravine in the Kamyshinsky District of Volgograd Oblast, covering about 140 hectares within the Shcherbakovsky Nature Park. It runs along the Shcherbakovsky Fault, where a stream has cut a gorge roughly 200 m deep, with slopes up to 100 m high. Exposures of opoka, a light siliceous rock made of diatom shells, form the crags.

The site gained official protection status in 1988 and preserves geological formations that are 50 to 60 million years old. These ancient rock layers sit along a major fault line and record a long geological past.

Until 1937, Germans lived in the Shcherbakovskaya Balka; they had moved here in the 18th century at the invitation of Catherine II. Their houses collapsed after the residents were evicted, but cellars, building foundations, remnants of a German settlement house wall and diversion earth banks that directed spring meltwater from the slopes remain.

Visitors can walk through the area and use observation points located throughout the site to view the landscape. Information and guidance are available at the visitor center in Verkhnyaya Dobrinka for those seeking more details.

The rock layers contain ancient diatom algae fossils locked within opoka stone, a type of sedimentary rock. A distinctive area called the Speaking Scree regularly releases large fragments from its slopes in a natural process.