Overview of the Karalar Natural Park in Crimea

Traveling is the pursuit of endorphins, new experiences and inspiration. There is a saying: "Going for a walk, you go to it with one person, and you come a little different." What can we say about full-fledged travels, which are sometimes the best way to reboot. And you don’t always need to go to places with a high influx of tourists and a top line in the ranking of the most popular places to travel.

There are areas, zones, territories that many have never heard of, but once there, once there, they fall in love with them with all their heart. And such a definition perfectly describes the Karalar Natural Park.

To get to the regional landscape park, you need to come to the north of the Kerch Peninsula in the eastern part of Crimea. The reserve is located not far from ancient Kerch, and if you already have a rest there or came to the city for “eventual” tourism, find the opportunity to visit the reserve too. Getting from Kerch by car is very simple and convenient. Organized excursions to this place are not provided, but this is more a plus than a minus.

Karalar Park is a good natural reservation for solo or family trips. Many people go there in order to be alone with their thoughts, to do a psychological reboot. The territory is the best suited for this - the landscapes are calm, lyrical, cinematic. Payments for visiting the park will not be taken from you. Apparently, until centralized excursions are organized, it will not be.

Meanwhile, even if we assume that the place can be visited by bus, there will be little sense in this, and you simply cannot see half the beauty of the reserve. Because the car is the only good option. You can, of course, by public transport, taxi to get to the village of Kurortnoe, but then only on foot. But not everyone can go on foot, because it is 21 km, stretching along the coast.

Get directions in advance on the navigator, google map. By the way, when you zoom in on the map, you will see a peculiar announcement of a future trip - it’s hard not to notice how many bays the Karalar Park includes.

It does not fit my head, but for several decades the territory of the current reserve was a training ground for military trials. For 50 years in these beautiful, unique places, weapons of wide destruction were tested. Almost immediately after the Great Patriotic War, a training ground was formed and the entire arms race existed. But there is no need to be afraid: there were no explosions, in fact the training ground belonged to the Bagerovsky military airfield, and there, according to reports, they were engaged in the degassing and decontamination of aircraft.

However, terrible things did not pass the nature park. The airfield was closed in the early 70's, the landfill became a nuclear repository where contaminated radiation equipment and machinery were buried (and, in addition, another 6 thousand tons of soil contaminated with harmful substances). And only in 1998, the local authorities realized the mistake: the unique nature was finally appreciated and allocated an area of ​​5900 hectares, which became the base of the reserve zone.

It became a regional landscape complex in 2007, then expanded by another 900 hectares. For the fourth year, Karalar Park has been considered a protected reserve of regional importance.

In addition to the land area, the reserve includes 360 hectares of the Azov water area. The reserve included almost the entire northern part of the Kerch Peninsula. The place is not just picturesque: hills, and plains, and rocks, and quarries, and rivers, and ponds, and beautiful beaches made up one common natural zone.

Not without historical objects: for example, the remains of ancient settlements (Bronze Age) were included in the natural landmark. Of course, to someone they will seem like nothing more than a pile of stones, but an educated and knowledgeable person can give a real assessment of these stones.

In the north-west, the reserve is washed by the waters of the Sea of ​​Azov, its coastline is characterized by a rocky structure - not the most initial ledges, deep cliffs and sharp peaks. Rock formations seem to be riddled with grottoes, old quarries. Deep into the Kerch peninsula goes the steppe, which astonishes the traveler, especially in the spring. She can boast of impressive vegetation, rare types of flowers this season.

In the east of the reserve you will see Chokrak Lake, which is distant from the Sea of ​​Azov in a narrow embankment. The lake is one of the largest reservoirs of its type in the Crimea. Further - Osovinsky steppe massif, a place of solitude, very conducive to philosophizing, rethinking your life. Some tourists compare it to the end of the world: so the steppe seems mysteriously lifeless.

In the south of the park is a large-scale Artesian tract. And all this diversity in one territory. Fans of the so-called civilized holiday with beaches, rides and other entertainment facilities clogged with tanning enthusiasts are unlikely to like the lonely, eternally visible desert of the Karalar Natural Park. But this place, figuratively speaking, is not for the “wide, but for the deep spectator”.

Great if you manage to be here in the spring. In the summer, the steppe is dusty, gray, it seems, shrunk from the ruthless sun. Another thing is spring.In the season of awakening, everything blooms and smells here. Here you can see rare birds listed in the Red Book. And the flowers here are not scarce in their diversity. What are the famous Crimean tulips, similar you will not find anywhere else!

This is what attracts the tourist in the first place. Yes, it’s hard to forget the pink blooming swell surrounding Lake Chokrak. This is soleros, a plant used to living on the shores of salt lakes and seas. But still, the deserts of the coasts, which line up in some kind of endless, sad and grand broken line, will surely still be a dream for you. Beyond Lake Chokrak, the road rises to a plateau along which you can move along the coast. Very beautiful landscapes open already behind the first bend in the road.

It’s interesting that when you initially plan a route, you’ll learn from the maps and the navigator that the route takes only an hour. But at the hour you definitely can’t meet it! You will definitely want to stand there, take a picture here, sit here, and in that place collect a full bag of shells, of which there are billions.

Each bay that opens to your eyes is beautiful in its own way. And what are their names: Fox, Pontonnaya, Lilac, Silk, Lady, Monkey. But the most famous bays of the park are General and Wide.

One of the most interesting is Barynya Bay. She is the bay of Nefertiti, she is the rock of Virgo. From a distance, the rock is like a girlish silhouette. Someone sees Assol waiting for his prince, someone a sad widow who has lost her beloved in the depths of the sea, someone is a lonely wanderer. You can come up with your own version: the place is conducive to creative thinking and romanticization of what you see.

It’s theoretically possible to go down to some bays by car, but departure will not be easy. Therefore it is better to walk. On the territory of individual bays are arbors. I want to sit in them with thermoses and delicious pastries, but a squally wind can disrupt your plans.

When, it seems, there will be no end to the beaches and bays, as well as your immersion in yourself and dialogue with nature, signs of civilization begin to be seen. The navigator will show that having traveled a large territory, you have crept to the village of Zolotoe. And it corresponds to its name, especially if the weather comes up to it - golden sand, sunlight poured along the coast, quickly replaces a little gloomy ascetic beaches.

Indeed, one can hear such a definition from tourists. Probably worth explaining this with the hypnotic self-sufficiency of the place - not disturbed today by human activity, noise, vanity of the territory, general detachment with internal ordering, dominance of the elements, and not the “crown of nature”. Someone compared Caralar Park to the best of the proposed psychotherapy tools.

Even if you are visiting this place as a small company, you will get the impression that nature is talking personally with you. People are even advised to come here during periods of reflection, making responsible decisions. They refer to the fact that certain gravitational forces, the forces of the elements well influence the intuition of a person, and he chooses the right solution. It is definitely worth a visit to Caralar Park for those who:

• He loves traveling with a feeling of solitude, a silent conversation with nature;
• He loves the rapid changeability of natural objects - lake, sea, steppe, bays;
• loves to walk along the romantic coasts, blown by the sea wind, rustling seashells underfoot;
• I have long wanted to admire the steppe vegetation.

A video overview of the Karalar Natural Park from the air, see the next video.