Trip to Gorge Berkara.

“I love tulips better than any other spring flower; they are the embodiment of alert cheerfulness and tidy grace, and next to a hyacinth look like a wholesome, freshly tubbed young girl beside a stout lady whose every movement weighs down the air with patchouli. Their faint, delicate scent is refinement itself; and is there anything in the world more charming than the sprightly way they hold up their little faces to the sun. I have heard them called bold and flaunting, but to me they seem modest grace itself, only always on the alert to enjoy life as much as they can and not be afraid of looking the sun or anything else above them in the face.” 

Elizabeth von Arnim, Elizabeth and Her German Garden.

 Botanical walks in gorge Berkara.

The Natural Botanic Reserve in the Berkara tract was founded in 1971 to preserve endangered plants. Its area covers 17,500 hectares. Неге you сап meet over 50 varieties of very valuable trees, bushes and grasses that аге listed in the Red Book.
You сап also see there such animals as argali, Indian' porcupine, heavenly sundews, wild boars, deer, hares, partridges, pheasants, wolves, foxes, etc. The gorge Berkara is in mountains Karatau in the advanced ridge Western Tien-Shan.
Flora Berkara reserve totals 1666 kinds of plants, from them 153 kinds - endemic (kinds which meet only in the given region). In river head and gorges poplar Berkara - endemic a kind which does not meet anywhere in the world grows.
On gorge unique groves of valuable trees grow: an ash Sogdianskii (a relic kind), a skeleton Caucasian (an iron tree), maple Semenov, apple-tree Siversa, a pear of the Regel, a hawthorn, a pistachio, wild grapes.
Mountain meadows are rich with rare plants: tulips Greigii and Kaufman, onions Karatavskiiriver head elecampane, everlasting sandy and others. The fauna reserve includes 100 kinds of birds, 26 kinds of mammals, 12 kowtowing, 2 kinds amphibious.
Among fauna there are rare and disappearing kinds: karatavskii argali, the Indian porcupine, a golden eagle, a black stork, an eagle owl and others. The gorge is a part Aksu-Zhabagly of national natural reserve. In gorge Berkara and vicinities especially protected natural territory - Berkara state complex reserve Zhayly official body on protection of woods and fauna chief Zhambyl areas is organized.
The territory reserve makes 17 109 hectare of woods and лесо-steppe landscapes.

Authority and photo
Alexander Petrov.