How many national parks are in Russia?
Russia has 71 national parks, covering more than 150,000 square kilometres. They span the country from the Caucasus Mountains in the south to the Arctic Ocean in the north.
Questions about National parks of Russia
Short answers, pulled from the story.
Who first proposed national parks in Russia?
Innokenti Gerasimov, director of the Institute of Geography at the USSR Academy of Sciences, was the leading advocate. After visiting Yellowstone National Park and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1961, he proposed a Lake Baikal nature park in 1965 and co-authored a public argument for a Soviet park system in the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in 1966.
What is the oldest national park in Russia?
Sochinsky and Losiny Ostrov are jointly the oldest, both established in 1983. Losiny Ostrov, whose name translates as Moose Island, is located within Moscow and ranks as the third largest city forest in the world, behind parks in Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro.
Which Russian national park is dedicated to protecting the Amur leopard?
Land of the Leopard National Park, in Primorsky Krai, was created specifically to protect the Amur leopard. About 50 Amur leopards remain in Russia, and more than half of them live within the park's 80,000 hectares.
What is the significance of Beringia National Park in Russia?
Beringia National Park in Chukotka protects the Asian side of what was once a land bridge connecting Asia and North America. Until approximately 11,000 BCE, early humans used that corridor to move between the two continents. The corresponding American protected area is the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve in Alaska.
What does the name Kytalyk mean in the context of Russia's national parks?
Kytalyk is the Yakut-language word for the Siberian crane, a critically endangered migratory bird. Kytalyk National Park protects the crane's breeding grounds on the tundra of the Indigirka River delta in northern Russia, where a significant portion of the species' sites on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway are concentrated.