Who has not been to Dalny, has never seen Taganay!
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Alexey Yakovlev
Director of the Taganay National Park
10-12-2020
# Russia

Who has not been to Dalny, has never seen Taganay!

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The Taganay National Park covers the northern part of the mountain ranges of the Southern Urals, in the Chelyabinsk Region, just half a kilometre away from the city of Zlatoust. Here lies the border of Europe and Asia, and the open spaces of the Park are like a multicolored site connecting the north and south of Eurasia. From the north, along the ridges, the zone of the Arctic Ural flora goes down, and from the other side, along the eastern mountain uplifts of the Southern Urals, the steppe flora of the south comes to make rare interpenetration and mixing of fauna. Traveling along one ecotrail only, you can alternately meet the species of animals and plants characteristic of the central zone of European Russia, the Russian North, the Volga area, the Urals, Western and Central Siberia, as well as Kazakhstan. Director of the Taganay National Park Alexey Yakovlev told EcoTourism Expert about this unique ‘natural attraction’. 

The Taganay National Park was created on March 5, 1991 at the initiative of the local people to protect the unique nature from illegal logging, poaching and unorganized tourism. This area has always been very popular with hikers, and since the second half of the 20th century, one of the most beautiful places in the South Urals began to develop as a Mecca for hiking. People came here with backpacks and tents and conquered the mountain peaks. The large cities nearby such as Yekaterinburg and Chelyabinsk, Ufa, and the city of Zlatoust quite adjacent to the Park make the Park even more popular, and in Zlatoust alone, the population is almost 170 thousand, that is, the region is very densely populated.

- Do visitors come from other regions, too?

- Among our visitors, the local people account for only about 30%, the million-plus cities of the Region provide about 40% more, the remaining 30% come from all over Russia. There is also a trend towards an increase in the number of foreign tourists - about 1-1.5 thousand foreigners come every year now, and although this number is very small in the total tourist flow, we are glad to see these travellers as well, because few of them used to get to this Park before. The geography is vast, the guests from Venezuela, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany visit the Park.

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- Do you have English speaking guides in the Park staff?

- Unfortunately, not many. Of course, we are working on this. But we have a lot to be proud of. Much was done earlier to improve our infrastructure. It is now in two languages, all the navigation signs, information on the trails and in the central part are given also in English.

- What attracts your tourists coming from afar off?

- The nature here is rather typical for the Southern Urals, but it is unique for Russia and the entire planet. The main attractions of the Park are our high-mountain tundra, and the prevailing high-mountain landscapes, taiga and a combination of ecosystems that are in different areas around the Park. In the southern part, there are steppe areas; to the north, there is dark coniferous taiga that occupies the main part of the Park; in the western part, there grows broad-leaved forest. And this combination of ecosystems - the Park's ‘patchwork quilt’ - is its landmark. As our guides say, when they take the groups to our shortest tour - the Black Rock, “We are making a landscape journey, as if we are going by foot from Orenburg to Vorkuta”. And all this is in Taganay!

The Park’s area is 586 sq. km, 93% are covered by forests, 3% are a stone field, and 0.2% - wetlands. The total length of routes is over 65 km. There are many points of attraction, and if you want to see everything, a three-day tour will be the best for visiting all these places.

The Kruglitsa Mount is the highest in the Taganay Range (1,171 m) with a 360-degree panoramic view. In clear weather, the visibility can be over 100 kilometres. The Otkliknoy Greben (Echoing Crest) is a favorite place for climbers.

Bolshaya Kamennaya (Big stone) River is a 6-km long stone ‘stream’, up to 500 m wide, consisting of boulders weighing 9-10 tonnes each. One of the largest stone fields in the world and the largest aventurine (flamboyant quartz, goldstone) deposit. The employees of the National Park calculated that there is enough material in it for four pyramids of Cheops. One of the shortest trails, 5.5 km one way, leads to it, the tour there can take one day only.

But the longest route to Dalniy (Far) Taganay, 25 km long one way, can take five days. The tourists have a saying ‘Who has not been to Dalny, has never seen Taganay!’

- What animals can you come across there?

- Bears, elks, wolves, hares, ermines, martens. Although very many people visit the Park, the bears walk very actively, and you can often see their footprints near the hiking trails.

It should be noted that there are usually not so many animals in the shadowy coniferous taiga, they are rather timid, this is not the Serengeti Park or even Orlovskoe Polesye (woodlands) where you can see a large herd of bison in winter walking in the fields. The problem of the parks that are visited lies in damaging large areas, constantly disturbing the animals, which affects the biological diversity.

The reserve system of Russia faces a big challenge - we need to work very seriously to restore the specially protected natural areas. We have created the national parks in the areas that have already been damaged or exposed to human impact, or have a sad legacy of unorganized tourism. First of all, this has an impact on the wildlife, it is scarce, poor, the species are few in number. We often hear that we should follow the example of Europe, where deer graze near the road, but for some reason, they do not do this near our roads. This aspect required additional efforts, however, it is not possible everywhere. It is necessary to eradicate poaching, one of the main troubles, which excludes any human interaction with wild animals. After that, we can begin to get them stop being afraid of people, and sooner or later, we will be able to watch them in the wild. I assure you - this is much more interesting than watching blockbuster movies!

Now, our main task is to concentrate the tourists on the main tourist trails, so that they could interact with the ecosystem and do not interfere with the animals. About 60 thousand people walk along the trail to the 700-metre long Black Rock, which is a very impressive figure. And around it, there are a lot of tracks of bears, elks, hazel grouses and other species of forest birds, hares and various small rodents.

And I'll tell you a little secret. There exists such a serious thing - anthropophobia, that is, animals are afraid of people. So, we are now deliberately starting to put the salt licks and place feeding grounds closer to the trail, and the visitors can watch, for example, an elk from the viewing deck at 4 o’clock in the morning.

- How is the environmental education of tourists carried out?

- We start with children, tell and explain them how important it is to take care of nature and preserve the biological diversity. We regularly give eco-lessons, perhaps, they are the most grateful audience. We explain to the adults that they are just guests in Taganay. We were once asked a question on a ВКонтакте social networking site - why don’t you chase the bears away from the trails? Our answer was that ‘they should chase you away, you interfere with them’.

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The main problem is the unwillingness of some people to perceive the ideas that we are trying to convey to them, we are trying to curb consumerism in the attitude to the environment. And the best environmental education is the volunteer movement helping to preserve the nature.

We have an extensive volunteer programme, we post a work plan for the year on our website, and this is not only garbage collection. In fact, the work is very diverse, there is even remote work during the lockdown. We offer scientific volunteering, for example, taking part in the annual careful accounting of orchids. There are 28 types of orchids in the Taganay, 80% of which are in the Red Book. We monitor their ‘well-being’. An orchid is a very capricious plant, picky about the conditions, and if something is wrong, it stops blooming and does not grow altogether.

We also invite the volunteers to hold public events. The two most famous ones include mountain marathons, Running higher than the clouds - in summer, and Skiing higher than the clouds - in winter. The athletes who sprint to improve their results also take part in the events, but there are also many people who want to just walk 42 km through the mountains. In winter, there is a very dangerous area where we ask people to take off their skis, because walking is the only way to move.

Many volunteers have been helping us for many years, some of them come alone, others come together with families or teams. And recently, corporate teams - the employees of various companies - have begun to visit us.

The protected area system and nature protection need public support, and one of our main tasks is to form it. If volunteering, tourism, interaction with children, holidays, mountain marathons are done with the right information and support, these events are effective. People begin to love and appreciate the nature, and they give a piece of their soul as volunteers to the specially protected natural areas.

- Do you feel that this support is growing from year to year thanks to your efforts?

- I personally can say not without vanity that we feel this in Zlatoust area and the Chelyabinsk region. For 10 years, the tourist flow and order have improved. We managed to curb poaching, it is simply impossible to meet a man with a gun, although, of course, we have not eradicated poaching 100%, there are individual cases. There is no illegal logging in the park either. The tourism is now organized, people come to visit-centres, register and follow the trail. Most visitors accepted these rules and followed them, and, of course, we are very pleased with this, and we do our best to take care of our guests having ‘good manners’ so that they could have a lot of amazing impressions and experiences while visiting us.

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- How do you establish the relations between the park and business structures?

- Our experience shows that the business and the park should interact actively, but in a specific way. The business must operate outside the park, build a tourist infrastructure such as hotels, rental centres, catering points, and souvenir shops. But these should be minimum in the park itself, it is a landmark and an attraction. Our concept assumes the minimal-comfort accommodations in the Park where, if necessary, you can stay overnight, dry your clothes, charge your phone, and keep on your trip in the morning. No scrambled eggs are offered in the morning or taking a cup of coffee there. You can enjoy all this after leaving the Park. 

By the way, this is not just a picture that I have in my mind - it is already being implemented, several good-quality hotels have already been built next to the central area of the Park, cafes are near the Park, in general, we are developing rather well in this.

Inside the park, we work closely with the tourism business, which brings tourists from other cities, or our partners show demand for our organizational system, and they enjoy certain preferences.

- How did you get through the quarantine period? What did you do when you had no visitors?

- We were busy protecting our territory from illegal visitors - those who did not comply with the quarantine restrictions. We worked remotely or in the Park on our infrastructure projects, some of the personnel were not under lockdown, they were allowed to carry out their work.

The main problem of the park now is too many tourists on the trails. The tourist flow is increasing, the recreational load is getting higher, and it’s not even about the overload, but about the inconveniences for the visitors. You wanted to enjoy the wildlife, but groups of tourists are walking behind and in front of you along the trail, and several groups meet the tourists or their halfway. Our task is to develop and offer additional trails, to create an infrastructure that will bifurcate the tourists. There is nothing wrong with that. The trails for tourists occupy no more than 5% of the park, nobody visits the remaining 95%.

About 5 thousand of unorganized tourists a year go wherever they want and even burn fires and, as a result, bring great harm.

- How many people a year come to Taganay and what tourist flow are you striving for? Will there be too many of them? Would your active environmental education work lead to a number of requests for visiting the Park significantly higher than you can accept?

- In 2019, we had 151,422 visitors, and this year, we expect about 180,000, even despite the quarantine, the tourist flow will not decline. Moreover, over the past 5 years, it has been increasing by 10-15% annually, we are among the leaders in Russia. And it's only the beginning, as I have already said, we can make more trails. It is necessary to make not one, but three, five paths, equip them, make boardwalks, stairs, which will help increase the tourist flow. Any guest walks without a boardwalk at a speed of 2.5 km per hour, and on a boardwalk, the tourist goes twice as fast. In addition, a guest will not have a desire to leave a convenient path and will not spoil the neighbouring area. Using such simple ways, it is possible to ensure the preservation of the ecosystem, increase the traffic on the trail, and, in the future, increase the number of visitors to 250,000 per year.

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We increase not only the number of paths, but also short ecological trails, which are the most popular now. People have lost the habit of going to nature for a week, they come to us for 2-3 hours, and after enjoying the wildlife they take a shower and go shopping. 

The tourist flow we calculated is not the limit at all, which is clearly shown by the Yellowstone National Park that receives 1.4 million visitors a year - 10 times more than we do now. In fact, we shouldn't be afraid of many visitors, we need to prevent their number from being uncontrolled. The trend will not change, the tourism will continue to develop, the tourist flow will grow. And our task is to preserve the ecosystem by creating an infrastructure, making more trails and offering them to our visitors, otherwise, we can lose our protected areas.


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