Gone are the days when the whole planet was one big nature reserve. Mankind did a good job and reshaped the Earth in its own way, adjusted it to suit itself. And the farther, the more valuable are untouched, pristine corners for us, where nothing has changed for many thousands of years…
Famous reserves of Russia: list
On the territory of the Russian Federation, fortunately, there are many such corners. They attract the attention of tourists and are carefully protected by the state. There are hundreds of them, and each one is unique in its own way. The most famous nature reserves in Russia:
- Barguzinsky State Biosphere Reserve - occupies the entire northeastern shore of Lake Baikal, as well as the central part of the Barguzinsky Range. The purpose of its creation: the preservation of fur-bearing representatives of the fauna.
- Ussuri Nature Reserve - located in the Primorsky Territory. The goal is to conserve coniferous and broadleaf trees.
- Great Arctic Nature Reserve - located onislands in the Arctic Ocean and the Taimyr Peninsula. The goal is to conserve rare bird species.
- Reserve "Stolby" - located on the right bank of the Yenisei. The goal is to preserve rare species of flora and vertebrates.
- Baikal Nature Reserve - located around Lake Baikal. The goal is to preserve rare species of plants, animals, birds and fish.
- Altai Reserve - located in the mountains of the same name. The goal is to preserve a unique complex of lakes, wild mountain vegetation and a rare animal - the snow leopard.
- Valley of Geysers - located in Kamchatka and is one of the seven wonders of Russia. The goal is to preserve geyser fields, which have no analogues in Eurasia.
- Caucasian Reserve - located in the south and north of the Western Caucasus. The goal is to preserve the rarest animals: aurochs and bison.
- Sayano-Shushensky Nature Reserve - located in the southern part of the Krasnoyarsk Territory, in the Yenisei River basin. The goal is to save cedar trees and snow leopard.
- Far Eastern Marine Reserve - located in the Gulf of the Sea of Japan. The goal is to preserve rare marine and coastal flora and fauna.
Reserve "Ubsunur hollow" - the pearl of Russia
It is about this place that we will tell in our article. The names of the reserves from the above list are mostly well known to Russians and not only. These places are popular tourist sites and many tourists have had the good fortune to visit them.
The situation is somewhat different with the Ubsunur basin, located on the veryborder of the Republic of Tyva (Russia) and the Mongolian People's Republic. This reserve is a real pearl of the planet, a place of rare beauty, but not everyone can get to it. After all, the “shell” of mountain ranges reliably hides the basin from prying eyes… But only those who managed to get here can say that they have seen everything in life!
Description of the basin
Ubsunur hollow shocks even sophisticated travelers. Her versatility is simply incomprehensible. The blinding sun, the endless blue overhead, the dune desert, encircling the lake with a golden ring. On the shore of the lake - lush thickets of reeds. Around the desert - sagebrush steppes, and above - mountains with alpine meadows and forests. Crystal rivers flow from top to bottom. The ridges close the space, and it seems to the person below that he has fallen into some kind of magic jewelry box.
The uniqueness of the reserve
The reserve "Ubsunur Hollow" is truly unique. Every sane person, for sure, will ask himself the question: how can mountains, and steppes, and deserts, and lakes be in one place ?! But this is the uniqueness of the Ubsunur basin, that it combines many different ecosystems and is a "collection" of almost all natural zones of a temperate climate. Here, sandy and clayey deserts, dry and tall-grass steppes, forest-steppe, deciduous and cedar forests, dry and marshy barrens and tundras adjoin each other.
And all this "parade of landscapes", all this model of the Earthball - in a relatively small area!
Geographic characteristics
The Ubsunur Hollow Reserve lurks in the heart of the Asian continent. The bowl, surrounded by mountains, stretched for 600 kilometers in length and 150 in width. On its bottom (in the western part) there is a fairly large (80 by 70 kilometers) lake Ubsu-Nur, which probably gave the name to the basin. Scientists say that once it was a piece of the sea. The water in the lake remains s alty to this day, despite the fact that all the mountain rivers of the basin flow into the Ubsu-Nur.
From different sides of the outside world, the reserve is fenced off by the Sangilen highlands, the Eastern and Western Tannu-Ola, Bulnai-Nuru, Khan-Khuhei ranges. Tsagan-Shibetu, Turgen-Ula and Kharhira massifs.
Deserts located in the basin are the northernmost in Eurasia, and the permafrost "oasis" is considered the southernmost on the planet in terms of plains.
The past of the basin
Today, the Ubsunur Hollow is the Republic of Tuva, and once upon a time it became a battlefield for nomadic peoples who fought for their place under the sun. Huns, Scythians, Mongols, Turks and other legendary tribes that have long sunk into oblivion passed here. All of them left a memory of themselves in the form of burial grounds, mounds and ritual stones, which harmoniously fit into the local landscape and are of great historical value.
And in times of peace, the peoples who lingered at the bottom of the basin grazed sheep in the steppes and meadows, built yurts, and the smoke of fires rose into the bottomless sky…Thousands of years ago, in hoary antiquity, a typical Central Asian climate developed here, which has survived to this day.
A place shrouded in legends
The hard-to-reach location of the Ubsunur hollow makes it mysterious and mysterious even in the eyes of people living very close by. At all times they composed legends, parables and myths about this unique corner. One of the most interesting legends that the Republic of Tuva can boast of is the legend of a naive camel. The protagonist of the work loaned his magnificent tail to the horse so that he could drive away annoying insects. Deer - chic antlers for the duration of the wedding ceremony … And so on. And the poor man stands on the top of the mountain, looking out for his debtors either in the forest or in the steppe … And they were gone. And no one is going to give anything to a gullible beast.
Fauna of the Ubsunur Hollow
It is not for nothing that one of the most popular legends associated with this place tells about animals. The reserve "Ubsunur Hollow" is a unique place with unforgettable nature. The fauna here is the richest! Lake Ubsu-Nur is home to a fish called the Altai osman. This species is found nowhere else in the world! And around the lake there are thickets of reeds, and in them there are a huge number of birds, many of which are listed in the Red Book.
On the plains, among the ancient mounds, you can often meet wild camels. Ground squirrels, haystacks, tarbagans and others live in the steppe.rodents. Bears and deer roam the forests. And the greatest asset of the Ubsunur basin and the entire Republic of Tyva is the snow leopard and musk deer. The rarest animals, over which the threat of extinction hangs for more than one century in a row, are being tried to be preserved here.
History of the creation of the reserve
The unique natural characteristics of the Ubsunur basin make this place extremely attractive in the eyes of scientists. Still would! After all, you can study different types of landscapes and ecosystems without traveling thousands of kilometers and without wasting valuable time! Only the Republic of Tyva, the nature of which is so diverse, will give answers to many questions. There are very few places like this in Russia.
The Russians set themselves the goal of creating a state biosphere reserve here quite a long time ago - back in the eighties of the last century. True, at first the project of an international reserve was considered - a common brainchild of Russia (then still the USSR) and Mongolia. But the lack of a legal framework for objects of this status put an end to the dream.
And then the Russian side in 1993 created the reserve "Ubsunur Hollow", which is under the auspices of UNESCO. And exactly the same work was done by the Mongols, when they created the reserve "Ubsunur basin" a year later. Formally, the object is divided between two states, but in fact it is a single organism, with a common flora, fauna and ecosystem.
Symbols of the reserve "Ubsunur Hollow"
Names of nature reserves are a common, obligatory attribute thateveryone. But not everyone has the symbolism. The reserve, located in the Ubsunur hollow, boasts its own flag, pennant and emblem!
The flag features blue, green and blue stripes (water, earth and sky), as well as scarlet rays symbolizing the sun. The emblem of the reserve speaks of infinity - it is round, with the corresponding symbol inside. From the icon of the source of life "yin" and "yang" colored stripes diverge in different directions. Each of them is responsible for a specific landscape. Brown-yellow - for the desert and steppe; green - for the taiga; violet-blue - for the tundra, etc. The pennant depicts an emblem, inscriptions, and also a figure of a deer - a deer with chic horns.
