Main

One of the Siberian writers, Valentin Rasputin, once said: "Baikal is one of the most popular words in the world". And those, who have ever been to Baikal, say: "The Zabaikalsky National Park is the most beautiful place at Baikal".

Historically it shaped so that the conception of creation of protected nature areas accepted in Russia was essentially different from the one, developed abroad.
Reserves (zapovedniks) turn up to be the basis of the russian system. These are strictly protected nature areas, referring to the 1st according to the classification, adopted by the International Union of Nature Protection (IUNP). The network of the russian state reserves (of the national status) had been arising for 80 years: during this period of time there was created a unique system, acknowledged all over the world. The notion about the status of the reserve became firmly determined.
Creation of suchlike reservates abroad started much later, with National Parks being the most popular a widespread type of protected nature areas. For instance in America the history of the National Parks over 100 years. They refer to the second category according to the IUNP classification.
In the USSR National Parks began to appear only in 1972, when the National Park "Lachemaa" (Estonia) was organized. At the same time the Lengiprogor Institute arranged the project of the Chivyrkuy National Park, that was situated an the territory of the present Zabaikalsky National Park - the first National Park of the russian Federation.
Establishing the park at Baikal, the government understood the importance of nature protection in the Baikal region. Its being unique, fragile and attractive for people. But national parks were a new form of the territorial nature protection. It's due to this fact that mistakes were unavoidable when the Chivyrkuy National Park was being projected. Relying upon the experience of town-building, building of health-resort establishments the specialists of the Lengiprogor Institute carried out the project using sometimes ideas and technologies incompatible with nature protection. Besides in order to fulfill the project there should be spent it was planned to carry out the project at the expense that seemed unreasonable even at that period of time and finally it was decided to cancel the project. No doubt that this decision had a positive meaning for nature protection in the Baikal region. The experience acquired during the ensuing decades, makes it possible to solve several tasks all together: to protect nature and cultural heritage; to develop tourism and to search for the means of the stable territory development. The new form of protected nature areas allows preserving both the unique nature complexes and the objects of historical-cultural importance. At the same time national parks provide quite a number of people with opportunity to visit them, to get acquainted with the sights of nature, history and culture, to enjoy picturesque landscapes.
In 1995 in the russian Federation there was adopted a specific law of federal significance - "About the protected nature areas" - settling the key questions concerning organization and functioning of the national parks.
Types of activity carried out through and by the national parks are numerous. But the development of a network of national parks in our country occurred at the time of great political and economical changes. The overall economical crisis couldn't but influence financing of the national parks; that, in its turn, influenced the development of all types of activity carried out by the parks and in the parks. Today by no means in all the parks there are scientific departments, environmental centers and the sphere of tourism service is being developed.
The system of the national parks in Russia undergoes the initial state of its development; national parks are not yet popular.
There are still quite a number of points of view on the ways their further development. The system of the normative standards is far from developed, there is not enough specialists dealing with the problems of the national parks. There are a lot of other problems to be solved.
The Zabaikalsky National Park was established by decree of the russian Government №401 on September 12, 1986 on the territory of the Republic of Buryatia with the purpose to preserve a unique natural complex of the Baikal Lake basin. The park's territory covers 270,000 hectares, including such beautiful natural complexes as the Svyatoy Nos Peninsula, the southern part of the Barguzin region up to the territory of the Barguzin Natural State Preserve, the Chivyrkuisky and the Barguzinsky Bays, the Ushkanyi Islands and many others.
The Zabaikalsky National Park is one of the few national parks of Russia that entirely satisfy all the recommendations of the UNESCO, required of this category. "Its natural ecosystem and landscape are unique and well-extant they are situated on a large but compact territory.
There are two informal ways of development and functioning of the national parks: the park where the sphere of tourism is highly developed and the parks of wild nature.
The Zabaikalsky National Park refers to the category of the Parks of Wild Nature. There isn't any industrial object, the local population, directly living on the territory of the park is not numerous.
The entry to the park is limited by means of the only road; the latter makes it possible to control the quantity of the visitors. The park is quite far from big cities and highways. The most numerous category of its visitors are those who want to get away from the goods of civilization and have a rest, to get acquainted with the unique object of wild nature, to enjoy the wonderful sights of Baikal, to get healthy, to feel and soak in energy of Baikal - that's what you are sure to find in the Zabaikalsky National Park.

Post address: 671623, Russia, Buryatia,
Ust-Barguzin, per. Bolnichny, 3r
tel/fax (231) 91-5-75
E-mail: zabaikal@burnet.ru