“Tunguska” State Nature Reserve

Far Evenkia is a wild land of cuspate bald mountains and lodgings and today it still remains underexplored region of planet Earth. Mysterious celestial body, which has destroyed and burned out evenk taiga’s calm and wonderful tide of life in 1908 near Vanavara, has transformed an ancient and enigmatic land of Tungus people into a place where scientists and travelers from all around the world are craving to get to. The unique “Tunguska” State Nature Reserve was founded in 1995 (296,562 hectares) and allows people to try to find out what Tunguska phenomenon is and take a sneak peak at exotic life of evenk people (population is approximately 3000 people).

225 days of cold (-67F°/-55C°), snow cover which reveals slumpy soils in permafrost, all this affects East-Siberian taiga and lets the bush which covers the plateau with lots of berries and mushrooms to grow freely. More than 100 species of drug plants grow inside the Nature Reserve, among them are snowdon rose and heliotrope, calypso orchid, lady’s slipper orchid.

Fauna of the region (40 species of mammals) includes wolves, foxes, ermine, brown bears, gluttons, squirrels, chipmunks and mooses. But deers and sables are those animals which from the ancient times help evenk people to survive in severe climate conditions of the North. There is no such a perfect and practical animal as deer, because it can give food, clothes and can be used as a transport. That is why in evenki language the word “argish” means not only deer carts but also a way how evenk people has been developing through centuries. There is a subspecies of wood deer living in the nature reserve, its abundance is constant and they seasonally migrate across 100-150km. For a long time ermine was not an equivalent of money for Tungus people. Ermine fur was used to make blankets and bedcovers. Today the nature reserve provides comfort conditions for this specie to reproduce.

“Tunguska” Nature Reserve travel tours include a visit to the Tunguska explosion spot, observing noctilucent clouds, a walk through evenk taiga and fish soup made of Chamba river fish, a trip to abandoned mine where the Icelandic spar has been procured, rafting on Chamba river and fascinating fishing. There are several ways to get from Vanavara to “meteorite” (that is how locals call the spot of Tunguska event). The fastest and easiest one is to take a helicopter, which can pass 66km to the final destination in 20 minutes. The second route is for those who prefer backpack tourism. Tourists will have to go 28km down Podkamennaya Tunguska by launch to the River Chamba entry, then go upstream to the place where the river crosses the Kulik’s path near Chamba winter hut (45km) and then take a 40km walk to Quay with remarkable sigh where the tourists can find an arrows pointing the directions to different places in the world including the place where the Tunguska meteorite had crashed (7km by foot).

The third popular route (1960-80s of 20^th century) goes through the famous Kulik’s path. The leader of expedition after 20 years of his quest was the first who has found a place where the celestial body has crashed – a lifeless plain with burnt and scattered trees. In 3 days a tourist will have to cover 80km across taiga, by-passing numerous swamps, old fire-sites, pine woods, rivers and creeks and only brave and strong can manage it. A lot of poems and songs of romantic researches of 60-80s are dedicated to the Kulik’s path.

Nature Reserve science division has conducted particularly promising entomological researches of mirmicological profile together with a cycle of paleobotanic and palinological researches of beat-bog and low moor development history. Also a map of region soils paleomagnetism has been elaborated. The scientific research also has been launched in the nature reserve in the fields of pedology, botany, zoology and ecology. There is a lot to do in future for ecological monitoring and exploring of biotic communities of East Siberian northern taiga zone in conditions of their fixed development and recovery after natural space and terrestrial catastrophes.

Administration address: 663490 Krasnoyarsk krai, Evenkiysky District, Varnavara, 8 Moskovskaya str.

Tel.: +7(39177) 2-27-59

Web: http://tunzap.ru/text/news.html 

E-mail: zap@vanavara.kras.ru