On January, 11^th  Russia celebrates the day of reserves and national parks. This holiday has being celebrated since 1997 on initiative of Protective Centre of Wild Nature and World Wide Fund.

As the project “Calendar of events” informs, January 11^th  is chosen specially for one particular reason – on this day in 1916 the first state nature reserve was established - Barguzinskiy one.

Since the beginning of time protected areas in Russia were considered to be groves, religious places, wildlife preserves, which were used by noble people for hunting. In spite of this fact the first protected area was established in 1916. The aim of the reserve was preserving of the population of Barguzinskiy sable and other rare animals.

In 1986 UNESCO called this reserve biosphere one and it became one of the biosphere preserves of international net. Today it is a part of world nature heritage named “The Lake Baikal” together with other reserves and national parks, which are constituent parts of so called  “ protected necklace” – Barguzinskiy, Baikalskiy, Baikalo-Lenskiy reserves and Zabaikalskiy national park.

The total number of reserves in Russia is about 100 with the total area is more than 33 millions hectares (1,58% from the territory of Russia) and   35 national parks with the total area about 7 millions hectares (0,41% from territory of Russia). National protected areas help to protect up to 80% of flora and fauna.