Kamchatka. Natural sights

There hardly can be a place in the world that can be compared in beauty with Kamchatka. Specially protected lands occupy more than 27% of its territory. Here there are:

• 2 state natural preserves – Kronotsky and Commandorsky;
• 5 nature parks – “Nalychevo”, “Yuzhno-Kamchatsky”, 
• “Bystrinsky”, “Klyuchevskoy”, “Golubiye Ozera”;
• 1 federal wildlife refuge;
• 23 regional wildlife refuge;
• 105 natural monuments;
• 2 recreation zones.

On the territory of Koryaksky Autonomous Okrug there are 66 specially protested nature territories including Koryaksky nature preserve, 7 federal wildlife refuges and 58 natural monuments.  

Kamchatka is a fiery and lively land; almost every tourist's route goes through either thermal or mineral springs or through the crater of one of the active volcanoes. There hardly can be a place found with such a great amount of volcanoes. They erupt every year and one can see it.

The pearl of Kamchatka is a world-famous Valley of Geyser.

It is a rare natural phenomenon, where on the limited territory all the forms of volcanism as geysers, hot pulsatile springs and cistern are concentrated and create conditions necessary for the development of thermophilic organisms.

Another peculiarity of Kamchaka is considered to be larch, fir, pine and stone birch forests. Stone birch, also called “Erman’s birch” is an unpretentious tree. Growing in the valleys and mountains (that’s why it is called “stone”, i. e. “mountanious”) it covers almost the third part of the total area of Kamchatka.

The peninsula is rich in berries. The most valuable, tasty and healthy berries are honeysuckle, blueberry, red bilberry, ash tree and also sweet-scented arctic bramble, cloudberry and waterberry.      

Kamchatka’s flowers gladden the eye with abundance and a great variety of colours. In the mountains one can see rhodedendrons and edelweiss

The uniqueness of Kamchatka’s fauna is represented by a great amount of brown bears, which gather along the rivers during the spawning of salmon. Its total amount is the biggest in Russia.

In the seas which wash the peninsula there are more than 400 species of marine animals of different kinds.                                                                                         

Here exist such marine mammals as walrus, sea lions, northern fur seals, common seals, sea hare (lakhtak), larga seal, antur (insular seal) and (sea) otter.

Colonies of birds located on the rocky islands and shore precipice is an unforgettable sight, they number hundreds of thousands of birds. Tufted puffins, slaty-backed gulls, cormorants, pigeon guillemots and sea gulls nest there in big mixed colonies.  In shoaling water one can see albatross, mutton-bird and sooty shearwater. There are also some rare species of the birds of the prey, included into the  List of Rare Species: white-tailed eagle, Steller’s sea eagle, golden eagle, gyrfalcon, peregrine, falcon.

Cisterns of Kamchatka are the main natural resources of the peninsula: clean, impetuous rivers, the most beautiful lakes, a wide offshore sea strip. Here there are more than a dozen of salmon species.

Every year in the middle June the main event for Kamchatka’s rivers and lakes begins, it is salmon spawning. Millions of salmons return from the sea to the streams where they broke their berry-shell and where now they have to die.