The lands of Russia are famous for their natural beauty. To protect them from the negative influence of man, protected areas are created at the state level. One of these places is the Zeya Nature Reserve, whose employees managed to preserve nature almost in its original form.
Location and relief
So, where is the Zeya nature reserve? Its territory belongs to the Far Eastern Federal District and is located near the border of the Russian Federation with China. Administratively referred to as the Amur Region.
The reserve occupies the eastern part of the ridge with the mysterious name Tukuringa, where the mountainous area is crossed by a narrow valley of the Zeya River, after which the object is named. Not far from it is the town of Zeya, which has an ancient history.
The area of the reserve is a little more than 82 thousand hectares. Its relief is characterized by steep slopes (up to 70 degrees) and flat watersheds, which rise above the bottoms of river valleys by 400-600 meters. Riverbeds are characterized by great depth, an abundance of rapids, hanging mouths and waterfalls.
History of the creation of the reserve
The Zeisky Reserve was created on the initiative of the outstanding Soviet geologist Alexander Stepanovich Khomentovsky. In general, the question of creation was still in the twenties of the last century, but the matter got off the ground only in the sixties. The year of birth of the reserve was 1963.
The main goal of the creators was to protect the reference section of the mountainous area and study it. In addition, scientists here are monitoring the impact of the Zeya reservoir on natural complexes.
Work in the reserve is carried out by foresters, forest rangers and their assistants, who on foot, on horseback, on boats or boats regularly inspect the territory entrusted to them and keep order.
Climatic features
The climate in the reserve is moderately cold. The average annual temperature is minus four to six degrees. In winter, the thermometer drops to thirty degrees below zero, and in summer it rarely rises above eighteen.
Winter here is clear, windy and dry. Little snow falls, but since the low temperature is stable, it does not melt and lies all winter, from October to April. The height of snowdrifts on flat and foothill areas reaches twenty centimeters, but the closer to the sky, the more snow. With each kilometer, the height of the cover increases by thirty centimeters.
In spring, winds intensify on the territory of the reserve, but there is also little precipitation. The air temperature is quite cool. SummerThe Zeisky Reserve surprises its guests with a striking phenomenon - bird cherry blooms in the upper reaches of the rivers against the background of unmelted ice. In general, the summer period in most of the territory is characterized by warm and humid weather. Autumn is dry and windy. October has the least rainfall.
Soils in the reserve
The soil cover in the reserve cannot be called fertile. The eastern part of the range borders on the permafrost zone, and this affects the soils. The frozen layer does not allow water to pass through, as a result, the cover of the mountain slopes is overdried and rocky. And the soils of hollows and hollows, on the contrary, are oversaturated with moisture, which also does not contribute to fertility.
Reservoirs
All rivers crossing the territory of the reserve belong to the basin of the Zeya River, on which the Zeya reservoir was built.
Before the creation of the man-made sea, the river had a stubborn character. Movement along it was almost impossible due to the huge speed of the current and the large number of rifts and rapids. The danger of traveling along the river is evidenced by the names of its sections: Big and Small Cannibals, Devil's Pechka, etc.
Once in the summer, Zeya overflowed its banks, and nearby settlements were under water. Through the construction of a reservoir, a man managed to tame the obstinate. Today Zeya is navigable and brings much more value than before.
The total area occupied by reservoirs in the reserve is 770 hectares. Mostly rivers. There are swamps.
Plant world
The vegetation zones of the reserve are a mountain-tundra-boreal complex. In the lower part of the ridge there are light larch forests with a cover of wild rosemary; a little higher there are dark coniferous forests interspersed with rare interspersed with mountain ash, woolly and stone birch (the ground here is covered with green moss); and at the very top an impenetrable wall grows cedar elfin.
Those slopes of the ridge that face the reservoir are characterized by Manchurian flora. Plateau-like watersheds are poor in tree vegetation - they are patches of tundra covered with shrubs and grasses.
The Zeya Reserve is famous for its thickets of Ayan spruce, which is amazing in its size. Trees reach thirty meters in height and a full meter in girth. They live for four hundred years. Some places where there used to be spruce destroyed by fires are now overgrown with Gmelin larch.
There is little meadow vegetation on the territory of the reserve, and it is also often the result of fires, when purple reed grass and Sugawara appear on the site of the burnt thickets of Ayan spruce.
Tukuringra Ridge can be called a real kingdom of mushrooms. There are as many as 158 species here. Some of them decompose dead wood. Of the edible varieties, the following are found: porcini mushroom, common boletus, red boletus, larch and yellow butterdish, real mushroom, camelina, white wave.
155 varieties of lichens were found here, twenty-one species are also foundbryophytes. 637 varieties of vascular plants can be found in the reserve.
Shrubs are dominated by wild rosemary, Daurian rhododendron, blueberry, wild rose, medium and winding spirea. In swampy and damp forests and spruce forests, there are various sedges, Lyubarsky's aconite, common oxalis, Labrador mytnik, Asian Volzhanka, two-leaved mullet, wintergreen, and fern. In dry forests, feather grass, Japanese buttercup, Amur carnation, palmate violet, several types of geranium, mountain goatweed, Tatar aster, and radiant goat grow.
Zeya nature reserve: animals and birds
Before the creation of the Zeya reservoir, the diversity of fish species in the lower and upper reaches of the rivers differed quite a lot. After the Zeya river was blocked, the stocks of taimen, grayling, whitefish, and asp rapidly decreased. However, the number of minnow, chebak, rotan and minnow has increased.
The territory of the reserve serves as a transit point for many species of animals. Representatives of the fauna of Eastern Siberia move along the highlands from north to south. And the river valleys, turning into slopes, let thousands of individuals of the Amur animals pass through them, moving, on the contrary, to the north.
The Zeisky Nature Reserve is famous for its birds, namely the order of chickens, which are better represented here than anywhere else in the Far East. Among the most numerous species are hazel grouse, capercaillie, tundra and ptarmigan, wild grouse, etc.
But there are not many ungulates here. You can name only elk, roe deer, red deer andmusk deer, and sometimes a wild boar comes in.
Sable, ermine and some other representatives of mustelids are ubiquitous on the territory of the reserve. Sometimes there is a lynx. On the banks of mountain rivers, wolves live in families of 3-5 individuals. In all high- altitude zones there is a brown bear. In general, the fauna on the slopes of the Tukuringra ridge is purely taiga.
Protection of rare species
Work in the reserve is aimed at preserving as much as possible rare species of animals and plants, of which there are quite a lot.
If we talk about flora, then the Red Book of the Russian Federation includes, for example, a lady's slipper (true and large-flowered), a leafless chin, an obovate peony, a bulbous calypso, etc.
Among the birds rare are the above-mentioned Siberian Grouse, as well as the Lesser Swan, Kloktun, Mandarin Duck, Eagle Owl, Gyrfalcon, Black Stork and others.
From rare mammals one can single out a predator for which the Amur Region and the Far East in general are famous. This is the Amur tiger. Another endangered animal protected here is the solonggoy.
Tourism
It cannot be said that the Zeya Reserve is overflowing with tourists. Still, this is a protected area, and the presence of people here should be limited. But for those who were lucky enough to get here, an excursion to the reserve will bring a lot of pleasure.
The museum of nature, opened in 1991, deserves the attention of travelers. You can also order a one-day walking or water excursion route with a visit to the loaches.
The loaches are called the middle part of the Tukuringra ridge, covered with mountain tundra forests and elfin cedar. From this point of the hill, breathtaking views of the Zeya reservoir, picturesque plains and the Stanovoy Range open up. In clear weather, the area is perfectly visible at a distance of 150 kilometers.
Clean mountain air, pristine forests, the opportunity to meet a wild animal on your way, as well as view magical panoramas make the Zeya Reserve very attractive for a tourist who is looking for strong emotions and longs for aesthetic pleasure.
