Bashkiria National Park

Bashkiria National Park, Russia

Sunlight streams through the dense spruce and fir forest of Bashkiria National Park at golden hour, illuminating ferns and a winding track.

Bashkiria National Park is a forested stretch of the southern Urals, with river gorges, a summer reservoir and quiet karst country.

The place

Bashkiria National Park (Russian: Национальный парк «Башкирия»; Bashkir: Башҡортостан милли паркы) is protected forest in the Republic of Bashkortostan, on the south-western flank of the southern Urals in Russia. Founded in 1986, it is classed as a national park of Russia and as a protected area of Russia. Westward the country sinks toward plains that carry more factories and towns. East and north, the woods meet higher, quieter reserves: Shulgan-Tash, and Altyn-Solok, the entomological reserve whose name means Golden Bee Tree. The Nugush flows through the park and widens into the Nugush Reservoir, a shore used for summer leisure, while the Belaya runs along the southern side. Limestone has dissolved into karst: steep valley walls, caves, and a rock arch spanning the Kuperlya. The land belongs to the montane taiga of the Urals, where European and Asian forest types meet and steppe is not far off. Fir, Siberian spruce, and both Siberian and Russian larch are the conifers named for this belt. Köppen labels the climate humid continental with a warm summer, class Dfb. Frost and thaw sit close on the calendar: a mild summer day can be followed by a sharp night, and snow defines the long winter. The park runs through the Meleuzovsky, Kurgachinsky and Burzyansky districts. Bashkortostan takes its name from the Bashkir people. They are Muslim, and their language belongs to the Turkic family. Bashkirs, Tatars and ethnic Russians are the republic's main communities. Meleuz is the town where basic services gather. Practical notes sit on the park website, http://www.npbashkiria.ru/.

Its story

Bashkiria National Park stands on country people have used for a very long time. Just outside its boundary, the Shulgan-Tash reserve holds a cave with Palaeolithic paintings. Laboratory dating puts the paintings at roughly 13,000 to 14,000 years old. The Bashkirs are the indigenous people of this republic. For a long time they moved with their herds, and family memory still reaches back toward the communities who painted in those caves. These woods fed a distinctive beekeeping. Keepers gathered honey from cavities in living trees, and they also settled swarms in holes they prepared. The craft is thought to be some 1,500 years old. Altyn-Solok, the reserve beside Bashkiria National Park, was set aside to protect the bees and that tree-hollow trade, so the park's forest is the edge of a living livelihood. Through the twentieth century the low country of Bashkortostan, between the Volga and the Urals, filled with factories, railways and large towns. The uplands around Bashkiria National Park and the reserves beside it stayed much quieter. That quiet is why the forest matters as open country for people and as land kept from building. The park received its present status in 1986. Summer at the Nugush Reservoir is when local swimmers and boaters come. Horseback groups, walking parties and rafts on the rivers carry people past the shore, and the caves of the karst draw others underground. Meleuz and the reservoir shore are where beds and basic services cluster.

What to see

Culture

Bashkiria National Park lies in Bashkortostan, a republic that takes its name from the Bashkirs. They are a Muslim people, and the language they speak is Turkic. Bashkirs, Tatars and ethnic Russians share the republic, and that mix is visible in Meleuz and in the park's villages: Russian and Turkic speech side by side, and honey still treated as a serious product of the woods. Daily public life does not run on religious rules, unlike the North Caucasus republics further south, yet many Bashkir and Tatar families are observant Hanafi Sunnis, and conservative Russians live in the same streets. Hijabs, tied scarves and older styles of men's cap are a normal part of town, not a performance for outsiders. Ufa, the capital, trains Islamic scholars and is known for that role inside Russia. The craft that belongs most closely to these forests is wild-hive beekeeping: honey taken from tree cavities is food and a point of pride, and the neighbouring Altyn-Solok reserve exists to look after the bees. Village hospitality is unhurried, and a working apiary is someone's livelihood. At a mosque, cover your shoulders and knees, take off your shoes where others have left theirs, and ask before you photograph anyone.

What to wear

Around Bashkiria National Park, traditional dress comes out for weddings, festivals and dance ensembles, while the trails themselves see coats and boots. A Bashkir woman's festive gown is long and full, in a strong colour, often with an embroidered apron and a chest ornament of silver coins and coral; a shawl or scarf covers the hair. Men wear a loose shirt, trousers, a woven sash and a cap: a light skullcap in warm weather, a fur hat once snow has settled. The cloth is wool or linen, velvet for celebration, with metal and beadwork carrying the pattern. In Meleuz the everyday clothes are jeans, trainers and padded jackets, and among observant women a hijab or a tied headscarf with a long coat. A traditional cap, when a man still wears one, sits with an ordinary shirt. Visitors should dress for a continental swing. A summer day by the Nugush can be warm while a gorge stays cool and damp, so a shell, a warm layer and shoes fit for limestone and mud beat city sandals. Winter in the park is snow and calls for a coat, hat and boots. For a mosque, choose sleeves and a scarf that cover, and shoes that come off easily.

What to eat

Plan it

Best time. Bashkiria National Park is at its easiest from June to September, when the Nugush Reservoir is the local summer shore and the forest tracks are free of snow. The climate is humid continental with a warm summer: days can be mild and pleasant, then swing cold by night, and winters are long, snowy and hard on trails. May and early October can still work for walking if you accept mud and changeable skies.

How long. 3–4

Getting there. Fly into Ufa International Airport, which takes international flights and domestic services from Moscow, Saint Petersburg and other Russian cities. Ufa station sits on the Trans-Siberian where the line crosses the southern Urals; trains also come from Orenburg, Samara, Chelyabinsk and northern Kazakhstan, and a direct train from Moscow runs daily and spends 26 hours on the way. The M5 and the M7, the federal roads, both reach Ufa. From the city the last leg is a road transfer toward Meleuz and the Nugush shore. Check the park website, http://www.npbashkiria.ru/, before you travel, because onward connections change.

Budget. mid

Tips

Etiquette

Nearby

Sources