Elk Island Biosphere Reserve. Reserved Russia

Moscow region, Moscow city

Founding history
"Elk Island" is unique territory. Here, close to the multimillion-dollar city, the nature of Central Russia in all its diversity has been preserved in its natural state: coniferous, birch and broad-leaved forests, areas of meadows and raised swamps, the sources of the Yauza with lakes and floodplains. Ten kilometers from the Kremlin live beavers, wild boars and moose, many birds of prey, and rare plants in the Moscow region grow.
National Park Elk Island" is one of the first in Russia, created in 1983 on the territory that from ancient times served as protected hunting grounds of grand dukes and tsars.

Physiographical features
Geographically, the park is confined to the junction of the Meshcherskaya lowland and the Klinsko-Dmitrovskaya ridge, which is the watershed of the Moscow and Klyazma rivers. The most picturesque area is in the southwest of the park. On the territory of the park are the sources of the Yauza and Pekhorka rivers, there are several ponds: Alekseevsky, Golyanovsky, Kazenny and others. All these reservoirs are located in the recreational area of ​​the park. The swamps in the park occupy a fairly large area. The Verkhne-Yauza wetland complex with an area of ​​about 1000 hectares is of particular value.
The climate of the region is moderate continental. The coldest month is January ( average temperature-10ºС), the warmest is July (average temperature +19.5ºС).

Diversity of flora and fauna
Forests occupy about 80% of the area national park. These are birch, coniferous, and broad-leaved forests.
The flora is dominated by forest species, with a relatively large number of weeds and alien species, since the park is surrounded by settlements, highways and agricultural land.
Rare species of herbaceous plants that are subject to protection in Moscow and the Moscow region are quite widely represented in the park. Here you can find common wolfberry, lily of the valley, European swimmer, nettle-leaved bell, bifolia, and club moss.
Exclusively interesting object park - Alekseevskaya Grove, on the territory of which a reserve regime was maintained for a long time. This is a unique area of ​​forest almost 250 years old, the main forest-forming species of which is pine.
Very diverse animal world parka. In the last 15 years, thanks to the restoration of a large wetland complex in the upper reaches of the Yauza River and the allocation of a significant protected area, a very interesting ornithocomplex of shorebirds and meadow birds has formed here, and spawning grounds have emerged.
In the forest area, surrounded on all sides by cities with a population of millions, sika deer, moose, wild boar, mink, squirrel live or appear during migration, muskrats build their huts, beavers build dams.
13 species of diurnal birds of prey and owls nest in the park, including the falcon and lesser spotted eagle, which are rare in the Moscow region. The most common fish are pike, crucian carp, perch, roach, bream, and burbot.

Cultural heritage
The long history of development of the region and the proximity to the “white stone” explain a large number of cultural monuments on the territory of the park. During archaeological excavations burial mounds of the Vyatichi people (11th–12th centuries) and ancient settlements were discovered. During excavations in Alekseevskaya Grove, the remains of a palace building from the late 17th century were found.
The history of the Mytishchi pumping station is closely connected with the construction of the first gravity water supply system in Russia during the time of Catherine II. Once upon a time in these parts there was a chapel on the famous Thunder Spring, the most abundant source of water for capital city. And the Belokamennaya station on the first Moscow district railway- a rare monument of industrial architecture.

What to watch
The Losiny Ostrov NP preserves not only the forests that once surrounded the Kremlin, but also the history of the rural way of life of our ancestors. In the “Russian Life” museum, located in the Losinoostrovsky forestry estate, you will see both archaeological finds of the origins of the Slavs and everyday objects of the 19th-20th centuries. In winter, after a walk in the forest, you can warm up in the hut by the stove and drink hot, fragrant tea. On hot days the house provides coolness. From here you can organize horseback riding around the park: in the summer in a tarantass, in the winter - in a sleigh with bells.
The ecological trails of Losiny Island are one of the opportunities to combine recreation with knowledge of the nature and history of the Moscow outskirts. The most visited route is the “Such a Familiar Forest” trail. You can walk along it either independently or accompanied by a guide. Dense thickets of fir trees create the feeling of a fabulous dense forest and it’s hard to believe that you are within Moscow, 2 km from the Yaroslavl highway and only 15 km from the Kremlin.

Based on materials from oopt.info and zapoved.ru

Losiny Ostrov National Park is located in Moscow and the Moscow region. Losiny Island consists of two forest parks - Yauzsky and Losinoostrovsky - within the capital and four forest parks located in the Moscow region.

Work on sowing pine trees has been carried out on the territory of Losinoostrovsky Park for more than 115 years, since then amazing place turned into a real coniferous forest.

The idea of ​​​​creating a national park in this area was proposed more than a century ago, however, the park itself was created only in 1983. Losiny Island included protected hunting grounds that once belonged to the last of the Romanovs.

This is one of the first national parks our homeland and the largest forest area within the capital of Russia.

Flora and fauna of Losinoostrovsky National Park

Large area The national park is occupied by vast coniferous forests, birch forests, broad-leaved forests, meadows and swamps. This pristine nature in its natural state in the recreational area of ​​the park is complemented by tree plantings, meadows and ponds. The most unique object on the territory of Losiny Island is Alekseevskaya Grove. It is a section of forest, most of which is coniferous trees, about 250 years old. On the territory of Alekseevskaya Grove there is a historical and archaeological complex called “Tsar’s Hunt”.

The fauna of this protected corner of nature is also amazing. Rare animals live here: moose, sika deer, beavers and many others. Birds nesting on the territory of Losiny Island are considered to be among the rarest in the Moscow region.

Attractions

A national park is not only protected forests and recreation areas. This place preserves a piece of Russian rural life. In a picturesque old manor There is a museum “Russian Life”, which presents archaeological finds and household items of people who lived in the 19th-20th centuries. The exhibits of the Tsar's Hunt museum introduce visitors to the historical complex to the life and characteristics of various types of Russian hunting: hound, falcon, etc.

To make exploring the nature of Losiny Island more interesting and exciting, there are several routes throughout the park. excursion routes, by following which you will unravel all the mysteries of the local nature, and also learn the history of Muscovy. The most popular route among others is the “Such a Familiar Forest” trail. The dense spruce forest creates the atmosphere of a dense fairy-tale forest and it is impossible to believe that civilization is in full swing nearby. After all, from here it’s only two kilometers to the busy Moscow highway (Yaroslavskoye Highway).

Elks are the main attraction of the national park.

The Elk Biological Station is located next to the ranger section of Losiny Ostrov. Here you can meet the living

In ancient times, the forests northeast of Moscow were a favorite place for royal hunting and falconry. The first sovereign of All Rus', Ivan the Terrible, loved to go bear hunting here. A little later, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich established the “Government’s Hunting Path” on these lands - a hunting area with a special, reserved and protective status. Mere mortals here were forbidden to catch animals and birds, cut down trees, pick berries, or build houses.

And at a time when there were almost no animals left in other forests near Moscow, elk still lived in these places. This fact partly explains the wonderful name “Losiny Ostrov”. Why an island? It’s just that in the old days this was the name given to forests located between villages and fields; moreover, Losiny Ostrov was surrounded by a deep ditch filled with water.

The territory of Losiny Ostrov remained royal possessions until the revolution; even the Yaroslavl railway line laid nearby in 1860 did not disturb the natural balance of the reserve, and all the diversity of flora and fauna was preserved.

In 1842, when the territory of the park was just over 6 thousand hectares, the beginning of organized forestry was laid. All work here began to be carried out according to the rules of “forest science”.

Forest audits carried out in the period 1842-1912 led to the division of Losiny Ostrov into 4 parts:

• a park;
• suburban village;
• reserve;
• operational zone.

State national park“Losiny Ostrov” received its status only in 1983 and has retained it to this day, remaining a most valuable natural monument.

Today it is divided into three zones:

1. Reserve, where nature is preserved in an untouched form. It is a habitat for rare wild animals and birds, so it is not only closed to visitors, but also protected;

2. educational excursion, through which several environmental and tourist routes, which you can go through accompanied by a guide. There are 4 visitor centers here;

3. Recreational, serving as a place of mass recreation.

Losiny Ostrov stretches from Sokolniki Park to the cities of Balashikha, Shchelkovo, Korolev and Mytishchi, occupying 12 thousand hectares, only two-thirds of which are outside the Moscow Ring Road. It is only 8 km from the Kremlin to the southwestern border of the park. Its length from north to south is 10 km, and from west to east – as much as 22 km.

In the very center of Losiny Ostrov, not far from Mytishchi, there is a swamp; it is from here that the Yauza River takes its source, the floodplain of which is often flooded. In addition to the Yauza, many rivers and streams flow through the reserve, forming an entire water network. Once upon a time, canals with a total length of more than 100 km were laid here. Now many of them are abandoned.

Even in the pre-war years, the largest one was built - the Akulovsky Canal, connecting the Volga with the Yauza and Pekhorka rivers. It serves to supply Volga water to the capital.

Even during the most difficult war years, trees were planted on Losiny Ostrov. Many enthusiasts worked here - foresters and landscape designers who put a lot of effort into preserving and enhancing natural wealth this reserve.

The modern flora of Losiny Ostrov includes:

• more than 700 plant species;
• 90 types of mushrooms;
• 36 species of lichens;
• 150 types of algae.

Here you can find plants listed in the Russian and Moscow Red Book.

Losiny Ostrov is a real pearl of Russian nature. Centuries-old pine and lime forests, oak groves and taiga spruce forests have been preserved here. The pine trees growing in the famous Alekseevskaya ship grove, which are neither more nor less than 250 years old, amaze the imagination and impress with their beauty!

The grass cover of the national park consists of forest grass, buttercup anemone, lungwort, goose onion, bileaf, green grass, sedge, and wintergreen. There are also a lot of berries here: lingonberries, blueberries, sorrel, strawberries.

The fauna of the park is also very diverse. More than 280 species of animals and birds are found in Losiny Ostrov, including:

• 180 species of birds;
• 40 species of mammals;
• 4 types of reptiles;
• 8 species of amphibians;
• more than 20 species of freshwater fish.

As in the old days, moose live here.

In the post-war years, sika deer were brought into the park, the beaver population was completely restored, and wild boars proliferated.

Fur-bearing animals also live in the reserve: mink, ermine, marten, and black ferret.

At night, bats circle over the forest, and their eternal enemies are owls.

Thanks to a significant forest area and long-term restrictions on forestry activities, the Losiny Ostrov National Park, even today, against the backdrop of the urban panorama of a multimillion-dollar city, remains one of the richest and most interesting among the forests of the Moscow region in terms of the richness of flora and fauna.

Losiny Ostrov is one of the first national parks in Russia (along with Sochi), located on the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region (Balashikha urban district, Korolev urban district, Shchelkovsky district and the urban settlement of Mytishchi, Mytishchi municipal district).

The largest forest in Moscow and the largest among forests located within cities (Moscow part of the forest).

The total area of ​​the national park in 2001 was 116,215 km². The forest occupies 96.04 km² (83% of the territory), of which 30.77 km² (27%) are located within the city of Moscow. The rest is occupied by reservoirs - 1.69 km² (2%) and swamps - 5.74 km² (5%). An additional 66.45 km² has been prepared for the expansion of the park.

The park is divided into three functional zones:

Specially protected zone 53.94 km² (47%);

Walking and sports area, 31.30 km² (27%), open to limited visits along established routes;

A recreation area of ​​29.81 km² (26%) is open to the public.

It includes 6 forest parks: Yauzsky and Losinoostrovsky (located within Moscow), as well as Mytishchi, Losinopogonny, Alekseevsky and Shchelkovsky near Moscow. Geographically, the park is located at the borders of the Meshcherskaya Lowland and the southern spurs of the Klinsko-Dmitrovskaya ridge, which is the watershed between the Moscow River and Klyazma.

The terrain is a slightly hilly plain. The height above sea level ranges from 146 m (floodplain of the Yauza River) to 175 m. In the central part of the park the terrain is flattest. The most picturesque is the southwestern part of the park, where the terraces above the Yauza floodplain have fairly steep slopes.

The sources of the Yauza and Pekhorka rivers are on the territory of the park. The natural bed of the Yauza was significantly destroyed during peat extraction in 1950 - 1970; The riverbed of Pekhorka changed greatly during the construction of the Akulovskaya hydroelectric station. On the territory of Losiny Ostrov, several small rivers and streams flow into the Yauza, including Ichka and Budaika.

History of the park

Losiny Ostrov has been known since 1406. From the 15th to the 17th centuries. the lands were part of the Taininsky palace volost, the lands of which since ancient times served as hunting grounds for Russian princes and tsars. So, in 1564, Ivan IV hunted bears here.
In general, the reserve regime was maintained for Losiny Ostrov. In 1799, the forests were transferred to the treasury department and the first topographic survey was carried out; the forest is divided into quarters, the area of ​​each is equal to a square verst.
The first forestry was founded here in 1842, at the same time senior taxator Yegor Grimme and junior taxator Nikolai Shelgunov completed the first forest management. According to its results, the dominance of spruce (67%) was noted in the forest fund, which was subsequently replaced by pine and birch.

In 1844, forester Vasily Gershner began the creation of man-made forests on Losiny Ostrov. Active silvicultural work, mainly sowing and planting pine, was carried out for 115 years. These plantings are still resistant to intense anthropogenic impact.

In the middle of the 19th century, the Losinoostrovskaya forest dacha (Pogonno-Losino-Ostrovskoye forestry) was organized, and the period of systematic forestry began.

The idea of ​​creating a national park was put forward by the head of the forestry, collegiate adviser Sergei Vasilyevich Dyakov, back in 1912. In 1934, Losiny Ostrov was included in the 50-kilometer “green belt” around Moscow.

Alexey Savrasov. Losiny Island in Sokolniki, 1869

Most of the forest was cut down during the Great Patriotic War. In 1979, by a joint decision of the Moscow city and regional Councils of People's Deputies, Losiny Ostrov was transformed into natural Park, and on August 24, 1983, by decision of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR, a national park was formed.

In September 2006, Moscow Mayor Yu. Luzhkov sent a letter to the Russian Government with a request to reduce the area of ​​the national park in Moscow by 150 hectares (it was planned to lay the Fourth Transport Ring route on this territory, as well as to build cottage village- “Embassy town”). It was proposed to compensate for these territories at the expense of the Gorensky forest park of the Balashikha special forestry enterprise (Moscow region). In January 2007, the Russian Government refused to change the boundaries of Losiny Ostrov to the Moscow mayor.

New Forest Code Russian Federation 2006 (adopted in January 2007) transferred the Forest Park Protective Belt of Moscow to a federal body - Mosleskhoz (a division of Rosleskhoz), which has a meager budget, while its officials are constantly caught selling forests for large bribes. Special forestry enterprises were gradually liquidated and the staff of foresters was disbanded. All this had extremely negative consequences: essentially no one is taking care of the forest, the trees are getting sick, and the number of fires has increased significantly.

Park composition:

Alekseevsky forest park

Mytishchi Forest Park

Yauzsky forest park

Losinoostrovsky forest park

Losino-Pogonny forest park

Shchelkovsky forest park.

Boundaries and illegal development

On December 14, 2009, the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region, at the request of the regional prosecutor's office, made a decision to declare partially invalid the general plan of the Balashikha urban district, where the boundaries of the Losiny Ostrov National Park were incorrectly displayed. Federal arbitration court The Moscow District left this decision unchanged.

The developed master plan for the Balashikha urban district, approved by the Council of Deputies and personally by the head of the urban district V.G. Samodelov in December 2005, contained unreliable information about the boundaries of the National Park and partially provided for its development. The park boundary indicated on the plan retreated from the established boundary in some areas up to 400 meters.

Thus, in violation of the current legislation, the document was not submitted to the department of Rosprirodnadzor for the Central Federal District and was not approved and was adopted in violation of the Federal Law “On Specially Protected Natural Areas.”
This law provides that issues of socio-economic activities of economic entities, as well as development projects settlements located on the territories of the relevant national parks and their protected areas are agreed upon with the federal executive authorities.

“During the construction of the new Shchitnikovo microdistrict in August 2008, the developer Construction Company Kifo-N unauthorizedly fenced land plot, located in the 49th quarter of the Alekseevsky Forest Park and carried out work on arranging a foundation pit and trench.
As a result, the soil was damaged over an area of ​​3,764 square meters. meters and destroyed forest crops on an area of ​​1 hectare. The damage amounted to over 62 million 792 thousand rubles,” stated the Prosecutor General’s Office.

A criminal case was opened regarding the illegal cutting of trees with unauthorized seizure of territory, which is being investigated by the investigative department at the Internal Affairs Directorate for the city district of Balashikha.

Flora and fauna

The national park is located in the subzone of broad-leaved spruce forests of the Valdai-Onega subprovince of the North European taiga province of the Eurasian taiga region. More than 500 species of vascular plants grow in Losiny Ostrov, including 32 tree species and 37 shrub species.
Forest-forming tree species are birch (46% of the forested area), pine (22%), spruce (16%), linden (13%), oak (3%). The share of other breeds is insignificant. There are a wide range of species of herbaceous plants classified as rare and subject to protection on the territory of Moscow and the Moscow region (common wolfberry, lily of the valley, European swimmer, peach-leaved bell, nettle-leaved bell, green-flowered lyubka, bifolia lyubka, true nesting plant, etc.) Here is the only place in the near Moscow region, where liverwort nobly grows naturally.

The fauna includes more than 230 species of vertebrates, including more than 160 species of birds, 38 species of mammals; 15 species are represented by fish, 10 by amphibians and 5 by reptiles.
According to the staff of the maintenance and improvement service of the national park, at the beginning of 2013, 70 moose, 300 sika deer, 200 wild boars, 300 hares lived on the territory of Losiny Ostrov; There are also foxes, American minks, raccoon dogs, squirrels, hazel dormouse, beavers, muskrats, bank voles, wood mice, goshawks, white-tailed eagles and many others.

Extermination of fauna by stray dogs

At the beginning of the 21st century, wild fauna is being exterminated by packs of stray dogs living in the park. According to the Izvestia newspaper, packs of 10 to 15 dogs in the park hunt young wild boars and deer, knocking them away from their parents, destroy the ground nests of birds, and catch squirrels, stoats, ferrets and other animals.
The huntsman service systematically shoots stray dogs. According to the editor-in-chief of the Red Book of Moscow, Boris Samoilov, stray dogs have almost completely destroyed the sika deer in the park.

Deputy Director of the National Park Vladimir Sobolev reported in 2009 that the previous winter there were 5 incidents involving the death of animals as a result of attacks by packs of dogs: deer, elk and wild boar died.

According to the newspaper Moskovia, which cites employees of the national park, 17 Far Eastern deer were brought to the protected part of Losiny Ostrov in the 1960s.
At the beginning of the 21st century, the herd numbered about 200 individuals. However, since 2005, employees began to find gnawed skeletons of deer that were victims of attacks by stray dogs. In just one winter, 2008-2009, 17 deer died as a result of dog attacks, which is about 10% of the herd, the publication claims.

Employee of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution named after. A. N. Severtsov RAS, ecologist Andrei Poyarkov expressed the opinion that the reasons for the decline in the population of wild animals lie in the human factor. In his opinion, information about the cruelty of stray animals is exaggerated: (inaccessible link)

“Stray dogs do not kill any fallow deer or sika deer. It's been 20 years since deer have appeared in the city. Until recently, they were fed near Abramtsevo, but then the animals were taken deeper into the region. The reason is the Moscow Ring Road and poachers. As for the fallow deer, the Muscovites themselves pitted them against the guard dogs. A stray dog ​​will not attack such large animals. »