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GEF Project

The Barguzin reservation is one of the maiden ancient reservations founded in our country. It's wide known due to the famous Barguzin sable almost extinct by the beginning of the 20th century, and subsequently restored. The reservation situated on the shore of the fairy Lake Baikal always attracted the explorers, travelers and lovers of unique corners of nature. It's written a lot about Baikal and it's neighborhoods and still appearing essays, books, the colorful albums that give the precise idea of this unique region, are always met by the invariable interest.

The picturesque landscapes of the Baikal region with its fauna and flora have been preserved almost untouched only because until quite recently these places remained hard-to-reach. The reservations and other specially protected areas create the conditions handicapping to fast technogenic process, which blasts the biosphere.

The present project acquaints with the unique landscapes, fauna and flora of the Barguzin reservation, demonstrates the life of nature in all its season changing. There are a lot of wonderful photos in the album, which are very hard to make even for a professional. The professionally made photos of the most interesting and hard-to-reach places in the most unfavorable seasons of the year and also the professionally and vividly written text make the project not only interesting, but also very cognitive.

The Barguzin reservation as the constituent of object of World-wide natural heritage "Lake Baikal".

The international sociability realizes with the increasing degree, that the damage or the disappearance of any outstanding natural or cultural monument is the irreciprocal leaning of world nations property.

The objects can be recognized as the segments of world natural heritage if their outstanding value corresponds any of the proposed criteria:

1. Reflection of the main epochs in the history of the Earth evolution;
2. Outstanding examples of geological processes, biological evolution and interaction of a man and the environment;
3. Existence of amazing (judging on the beauty) natural phenomena or regions of exclusive natural beauty;
4. Preservation animals and plants which have been under the threat of disappearance.

On the 5th of December 1996 Lake Baikal with its adjoining territories was included in a list of World-wide natural heritage objects. Baikal corresponds to this list on all 4 criteria.

The territory of the Barguzin state natural biosphere reservation is bodily included in a structure of object of World-wide natural heritage "Lake Baikal".

Now the Barguzin reservation is a complex, that is all natural objects - animals, plants, the communities of organisms and natural complexes - are guarded and studied on its territory. The ecosystems of the reservation have never been exposed to anthropogenic factors except for the hunting of local population until 1916. There were no economic activities except hunting on the adjoined territories either.

The reservation has received an international admittance: in 1986 by the UNESCO resolution it received the biosphere status and was included in the inernetwork of biosphere reserves.

The primary goals of reservation:

1. Preservation of natural complexes;
2. Management of long-time monitorial researches;
3. Analysis of the influence of restricted anthropogenic effects;
4. Ecological education of the population;
5. Assistance in training of the specialists in nature protection.

The central farmstead placed on the territory of the reservation in Davshe village till 1998, and now it is in Nizhneangarsk village. The distance between Davshe and Nizhneangarsk villages is 200 kms. The transport communication with the reservation is possible only through Lake Baikal: in summer it's by a motor-ship, in winter - on an ice road.

The reservation is situated on the northeastern coast of Lake Baikal including the western slopes of the central part of the Barguzin ridge. In the West the reservation is limited by the Baikal coast and the adjoining 3-kilometers water area, in the South it flanks to the Transbaikalian National park. The northern border passes two kilometers to the South of an ostium of the Shegnanda River, the eastern one - along the main Barguzin ridge. The length of the Baikal coastline is about 100 kms. The northern part of the reservation includes the biosphere polygon that corresponds to the bumper zone of biosphere reserves. The area of the reservation is 374 thousand hectares including 15 thousand ha of water area of Lake Baikal and 111 thousand ha of the biosphere polygon.

Turned to Baikal slopes of the Barguzin ridge consisting basically of gneiss and granite mount up to 2652 meters above the sea level at the sources of the Bolshaya River. They are indented by a dense net of valleys among which there can be distinguished the valleys of 4 large rivers: Sosnovka, Tarkoolik, Bolshaya and Kabanya which take the beginning in the goltsis. In total there are 17 rivers flowing into Baikal in the reservation. Their drainage basins are situated completely on the reserved territory.

The numerous circuses in which the lakes place, pendulous valleys with benches, large pileups of rocks testify to the giant activity of the ancient glaciers. The results of activity of thawed and rain waters, avalanches, mudflows, downfalls, landslides and other natural phenomena are especially visible here. The availability of the step fractures of the drain line of valleys, making the thresholds and collar beams is also typical.

The thermal springs with the temperature of water in some of them above 70'C are situated on the valleys of the Ezovka, Bolshaya, Talamush and Davshe rivers. There is no solid permafrost on the territory of the reservation, but in some places, especially on peat bogs at the depth of 1 meter the lenses of focal frost can be found.

The climate in the reservation is extremely continental with marine features that appear most brightly at the period when Baikal is not covered with ice. The temperature schedule moderates the proximity of Baikal - lowers the summer temperatures and winter frosts. The air average annual temperature in the reservation is below zero - -4,4'C, that is the lowest for all Baikal coast. The coldest month is January (-24'C), the warmest one is August (+12'C). The winter on the coast lasts 167 days on the average, the summer - 75 days. About 400 mms of precipitations fall on the average in the inshore belt for a year, in the mountains it's up to 1000 mms. The snow coverage height on goltsis exceeds 2,5 m, that is in 5 times more than on the Baikal coast. The reservation is situated in several high-altitude belts. The coast of Baikal is skirted by a rather narrow belt of the Baikal terraces (460-600 m bsl) in which deciduous forests prevail, there are also cedar sites, pine forests, birch forests and places with glue moors and meadows. Mountain taiga forests occupy the lower and midrange of the ridge (600-1250 m bsl). The upper bound of the forest consists of the park birch forests and fir-groves of the undergoltsis belt with the potently developed high plants and dense bushes.

A high-mountainous goltsis belt occupies about 32% of the reservation territories. The largest part of the goltsis belt is covered with high-mountainous Alpine meadows, almost impervious dense cedar dwarf and birch and willow bushes. The considerable areas take insipid rocks and bare gravel mines.

In the Barguzin reservation 212 species of lichens, 147 species of glues are found, more than 1500 species of algae and above 880 species of vascular plants.

From the precinctive plants of the reservation it's necessary to mark астрагал трехранноплодный, луговик Турчанинова, мятлик Смирнова, черепоплодник щетинистоватый. The neighborhoods of thermal springs are rather rich in infrequent species. From 214 species of plants found near the warm springs 55 are infrequent for the reservation and 30 of them can be found only in the region of thermal areas.

The fauna of the Barguzin reservation is typical for taiga, but it has some features caused by the mountainous relief and the proximity of Baikal. The fauna includes 41 species of mammalian, 274 species of auks, 6 species of reptiles, 3 species of amphibians, about 50 species of fishes and above 1200 detected species of hexapods.

The number of the majority of animals is not big owing to the severe natural climatic conditions and it changes on the natural causes. Its rises and decays are conditioned first of all by the state transition of a food supply, the dynamics of the productivity of a cedar, cedar dwarf and berry sites. The depth of a snow cover and the accessibility of forages in winter limit the number of ungulates. The brown bear, the moose, the reindeer are usual here. The red deer and the kabarga (small musk deer) are not often met. The settlements of black-capped marmot can be found on the highlands. This kind is introduced in the Red data book.

The ornitofauna of the reservation includes 274 species, mainly the Siberian ones. The density of the population of birds is insignificant. It seldom exceeds 200-300 specimens per 1 sq.km in the forest belt during the female season. In the alpestrine belt in the separate localities it can reach 400-450 specimens per 1 sq.km.

The value of the reservation in preservation of the biovariety of the region is great – 2 species of birds – a sea eagle “white-tail” and a black stork, nesting on the guarded territory, are included in the International Red data book. 3 species of lichens, 5 species of flower plants, 16 species of birds, 2 species of fishes and 2 species of hexapods are included in the list of the rare and disappearing plants and animals of the Russian Federation; 6 species of lichens, 38 species of flower plants, 6 species of mammalian, 49 species of birds, 3 species of reptiles, 1 kind of amphibians, 3 species of fishes and 2 species of hexapods are included in the Red data book of Buryatia

The fundamentals of scientific researches in the reservation were laid down by the expedition under the supervision of G.G. Doppelmair in 1914-1915. Till 1938 the main attention was given to the studying of the trade species of animals – first of all to the Barguzin sable. The all-round researches of the reservation natural complex started in 1937. The Annals of the nature was made according to the results of the annual observations. The first volume was prepared during 1936-1940. By now 50 volumes of the Annals are published. In total above 450 scientific works are published on the materials of the scientific researches in the reservation. For the whole period of the Barguzin reservation existence about 50 scientists in general worked on the territory. Eleven of them became the candidates of science, three of them – the doctors of science.

The main place in the scientific researches in the reservation has always belonged to the studying of the Barguzin sable. The subjects of the scientific works of the reservation are varied enough. Apart from ecology and biology of the sable, geomorphology and some problems of the parentage and the development of the Barguzin ridge are elucidated, the description of the climate is given, the geobotanical description of plants is completed, the geobotanic and edaphic cards are prepared, the list of vascular plants of the reservation is also prepared and being expanded periodically, the inventory of the fauna of terraneous backboned animals is conducted, the studying of the fauna of hexapods and invertebrates-hydrobionts, the flora of lichens, glues, algae and mushrooms.

The modern scientific researches in the reservation are directed, first of all, to the fulfillment of the long-time programs of monitoring of the conditions of the natural complexes in the northeastern Baikal region. Apart from the inventory of different groups of animals, plants and their communities the large attention is given to the perennial control on the constant sites and routes: the dynamics of the number of mammalian, birds, dwelling in the on-soil layer hexapods, the count of the productivity of the berry sites, the fixed observations of the seasonal development of plants.

The Barguzin reservation has old traditions of cooperation with the research organizations of Russia.

Since 1982 the station of background monitoring, executing the control of the degree of the environmental pollution, functions on the territory of the reservation.

The stuff of the supervisors on nature protection of the reservation guards the preserved territory. The part of the supervisors still lives in Davshe village and on the two cordons, but the majority of the guardians come to work by the watch method from Ust’-Barguzin and Nizhneangarsk villages.

The effectiveness of the work of the inspection is determined by both the sizes of the preventive work with the population and its provision with transport and communication facilities.

Owing to the inaccessibility of the territory the total number of the infringes is insignificant and they produce no harmful effect on the condition of the preserved natural complexes except for the illegal harpoon fishing in the reserved water area of Baikal.

Baikal is invariably popular among Russian and foreign tourists and many of them aim to get to the Barguzin reservation. The Museum of Nature set up in the central farmstead of the reservation – in Davshe village in 1953, and two ecological routes receive the visitors. The first from the existent ecological routes passes along the Baikal coast and allows acquainting with the coastline flora, history of formation of the lake trough and the widespread representatives of the fauna. On the second route (the valley of the Shoomiliha River, 14 km) the visitors get the opportunity to see by their own eyes all the high-altitude belts of the Barguzin ridge, to observe the change of greenery from the Baikal coast up to high-mountainous lakes. The organized ecotourism also exists on the territory of the biosphere polygon.