Yugyd Va National Park

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Yugyd Va National Park (Komi, Russian: Югыд ва) is a national park in Komi Republic, a constituent republic of Russian Federation, in the North-Eastern Europe. It is Russia's largest national park.

1 Location
2 History
3 Wildlife
4 Tourism
5 Footnotes
6 External Links

[edit] Location

The Yugyd Va park covers 18,917 square kilometers (7400 square miles) in the Northern Ural Mountains Mountains and adjacent foothills and flatlands. The entire park is within the Pechora River basin, i.e. west of the Europe-Asia continental divide; this means that all of it is geographically in Europe.

Administratively, the park is located in the south-eastern part of Komi Republic, on the territory of the Vuktylsky, Intinsky and Pechorsky districts of the republic. The park headquarters is in the town of Vuktyl; branch offices operate in Pechora and Inta

In the south, the national parks is adjacent to a much older Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve.

[edit] History

The park was created by Russian Government on April 23, 1994, with the goals of protection and recreational use of the taiga forests of the Northern Urals.

In 2005, the forest area including the Yugud Va National Park and the nearby Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve were recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, Virgin Komi Forests.

[edit] Wildlife

More than half of the park is covered with the taiga boreal forest; the rest is mostly tundra, found at higher elevations. There are also some 20 sq. km of meadows, both alpine ones and those in the river valleys.

Some 180 bird species live in the park, some of them quite rare. Twenty fish species are know to inhabit the park's rivers and lakes. There are also five amphibian species and one reptile species in the park.

Among the mammals common in the park are the mountain hare, flying squirrel, raindeer, ermine, otter, Alces alces (known as the moose in North American English and elk in British English), wolf, fox, wolverine, bear, pine marten, weasel, arctic fox.

[edit] Tourism

Recreational uses of the park include rafting, boating, and hiking in the summer, Nordic skiing in winter. Limited hunting is allowed too, but permits have to be applied for several months in advance.

Due to the remote location of the park, the amount of tourism there is still quite low. According to the park's management, it is currently visited by some 4,000 tourists every year, which is much less than the park's potential recreational capacity. The management was concerned with the fact that the user fees (some 2.4 million roubles (US $100,000) a year) did not cover park expenses (some 5 million roubles (US$200,000) a year).^[1]