Conveniently located in the western part Central Asia the state of Turkmenistan borders immediately with four neighbors: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The geography of Turkmenistan is distinguished for the most part by the flat character of the relief, mountains and highlands are concentrated in the south of the country.
The boundless geography of Turkmenistan
In the very heart of Turkmenistan lie the majestic Karakum - black sands, whose boundless dunes excite the hearts of travelers and tourists. This is remarkable geography of Turkmenistan- most of the country is represented by a rocky-gravelly desert in the west and sandy from the east. In the west lies the deserted Krasnovodsk Plateau. The southern periphery of Turkmenistan crosses mountain system Kopetdag, whose emerald green foothills are a striking contrast to the endless waves of sand. From the west, the coast of the country is washed by the azure waters of the Caspian Sea.
Time of Turkmenistan
The time zone of the state is UTC+5. Time of Turkmenistan is not shifted by the transition to summer and winter periods.
Climate of Turkmenistan
Based geographical location country, characterized by arid continental character. Summer in Turkmenistan is hot and dry, with low rainfall, in winter the climate is mild, with temperatures ranging from -5 to +4 degrees. Dust storms and hot winds are frequent in the desert plains.
Turkmenistan weather
The most comfortable time to visit Turkmenistan- off-season. It is especially beautiful in spring and autumn: from March to May, the slopes of the foothills bloom with bright colors of greenery and a palette of flowers, the air is filled with the aromas of flowering trees. The proximity of the sea has a softening effect on the weather of coastal regions.
Nature of Turkmenistan
Surprising and original - the animal world of the country has more than 90 species of mammals. Geography The country is determined by the species diversity of the fauna: rare species of mammals live in the desert - gazelles, kulans, cheetahs, camels; millions of beautiful flocks of birds flock from the northern countries to the coast of the Caspian Sea, including graceful swans and flamingos.
The flora is represented by numerous shrubs, a rich species diversity of flowering plants, the low mountains are covered with carpets of high umbrella grasses. Tourism of Turkmenistan offers travelers the Khazar national reserve- a fairy tale in reality, bewitching with the beauty and grandeur of pristine nature.
Tourist in Turkmenistan vegetable world it will seem interesting: this riot of a spring carpet, when you are captivated by the smell of flowers, the palette of a spring meadow strikes you. But this riot happens only in the spring. Further, the southern sun will burn these spring colors of the Turkmen meadow. And all this is of interest to the researcher, who is attracted by the variety of forms in nature. That is why we invite an inquisitive tourist to visit Turkmenistan in order to see for himself the diversity of forms of plant life on earth. nature turkmenistan vegetation reserve
The proposed note on the flora of Turkmenistan will help to make a correct idea of the diversity of life forms, as well as their ability to adapt to various climatic conditions. Your visit to this wonderful country will leave a lasting impression. For most of the territory of Turkmenistan, even the very concept of "vegetation cover" in its usual sense is not suitable: there is no "cover", there is no continuous carpet of vegetation, as in most other geographical zones.
Here is a desert, and all vegetation is adapted to its main climatic feature - to an acute lack of moisture in the soil and in the air for almost half a year. It took tens of millions of years of evolutionary selection in order for nature to create plant organisms that can develop and bear fruit in such harsh conditions. The history of modern vegetation of Turkmenistan dates back to the Neogene period, when the ridges erected by alpine mountain building covered the plains of Central Asia from moisture-bearing southern winds. As a result, the climate of continental deserts began to form here. As it became drier and more continental, evergreens that inhabited these lands, close to those that now grow on the banks mediterranean sea gradually died out. Only those that proved to be more adapted to the changed conditions were preserved. They were joined by a few more newcomers from the desert territories of Asia Minor and Africa, whose seeds were accidentally brought here by a wind or a bird. Together they laid the foundation for new plant species, for which, over time, the Turkmen land became a home. At the same time, the heterogeneity of living conditions led to the formation of several types of vegetation on the territory of Turkmenistan: ephemeral-ephemeroid - in loess foothills, algae-lichen - on takyrs, psammophilous - on sands, gypsophilic - in rubble deserts, halophilic - on salt marshes. Each of them is a group of different plants belonging to different families and united in a single community by adaptability to one habitat determined by its properties. Thus, a large and very original plant community is an ephemero-ephemeroid type.
Its main constituent plants, which give the name to the entire community, do not have special adaptations to deal with their main enemy - drought, but they have the ability not to meet with it. During just some 5-6 fleeting spring weeks, they, greedily using heat and a short-term abundance of moisture, manage to go through all stages of development, form seeds, and then fall into a state of dormancy during the dry season. Such perennial herbaceous plants, among which desert and sandy sedges, bluegrass, tulips are especially numerous, are called ephemeroids, and their fellow countrymen-one-year-olds - various cereals, malcolmia, poppies - ephemera. The latter, in general, begin and end their entire moth-short life in one spring, leaving seeds from which the next generation will sprout. This type of vegetation in Turkmenistan occupies relatively small areas in the south, on loams and loess of foothill plains, where gray soils are developed. There, the lands, bleak at other times of the year, for a month and a half or two spring months turn into real meadows, completely incompatible with the usual idea of \u200b\u200bthe desert - on a dense carpet of juicy, delicate greenery, numerous flowers burn with bright colors, filling the warm air with a strong pleasant aroma. In the spring, ephemera and ephemeroids give livestock the first green fodder, and in the summer, when they dry out, they serve as “hay on the vine”. The economic importance of sandy sedge is especially great. In Turkmen it is called ilak. This nondescript thin-leaved grass is the main forage plant of the desert. Its rarely protruding small bushes cover vast areas of ridge and hilly sands. In general, the very vast lands of the ephemers adjoin in the north and west to an uneven and ragged strip of takyrs.
These are the habitats of a special algal-lichen type of vegetation, the least productive plant community in Turkmenistan, and perhaps even on the planet. It is made up of primitive, lower plants - blue-green algae and scale lichens. With their vital rhythm, they resemble ephemeroids - they also vegetate only in a short spring, while the takyrs are moistened. But the clayey takyr crust dries up, and with it the thin film of algae and the rough lichen thallus dries up. But the plants do not die, but only freeze, go into a dormant stage until the next spring.
One of the most characteristic types of Turkmen vegetation is the so-called psammophytes, sand-loving - herbaceous, and more shrubby and woody plants living on loose and even moving sands. Thanks to the evolution of a million years, everything in them - leaves and stems, fruits and roots, tissues and vessels - is surprisingly adapted to withstand many adverse environmental properties: heat and dryness of long summers, unreliability of soils, poverty of soils, complex variability of temperature and water regimes, frequent winds. Their 20-25-meter branched roots, several times the length of the above-ground part, reach through the thickness of the sand to groundwater, as, for example, in the suzen - sand acacia, or, spreading horizontally, collect moisture drop by drop from large areas in the upper layers of sand, as, for example, in the selina grass. In order to use scarce moisture more economically, psammophytes have small leaves, and some of these sand-loving plants, for example, a desert tree - saxaul, do not have leaf blades at all, the assimilation functions of which are performed by juicy jointed twigs - green stem shoots. Two types of saxaul - white sandy, but mostly black (which, however, cannot be attributed to typical psammophytes, since it lives on saline sandy-clay soils, and in sands - along depressions with saline soils) - form thickets - incomparable "forests" of the desert, especially extensive and dense in the southeast of the Karakum.
To the north of the main area of distribution of psammophytes, in the Northern Karakum, and mainly in Ustyurt, where hard, gravelly, gypsum-saturated kyr gray soils are developed, the community is formed by boyalich, biyurgun, tetyr in combination with the main pasture plant of these places - wormwood. All these semi-shrubs are not only xerophytes, but also necessarily gypsum-lovers, adapted to life on soils with a high content of calcium sulphate. They form a special type of vegetation, the so-called gypsophilic, and create the characteristic appearance of these places: a monotonous grayish-yellow desert, over which stunted, no more than half a meter, small-leaved, as if withered bushes are scattered rarely, rarely. If we descend from these elevated stony deserts into the inter-kyr basins, then in many of them we will find salt marshes. On their dirty yellowish crust torn by cracks, rare groups of small plants darken here and there - like dwarf groves. They are formed by undersized shrubs of saltpeter, seidlitia, sarsazan, saltwort, half-shrub potash, but mainly various herbaceous ones: soleros, swede, garak and other saltwort.
This is a type of vegetation of saline deserts, a community of halophytes - plants of extraordinary salt tolerance with a characteristic appearance: they have juicy fleshy leaves and stems tightly filled with brine. Some leaves are underdeveloped or even completely absent; they are replaced by green stems. Saline deserts are common (except for inter-kyr basins) along river valleys, along ancient, now dried-up channels, and also simply in depressions, especially in the west of the republic - on the coastal lowland. However, on the plains of Turkmenistan, groups that are not desert at all are developing well. These are tugai, primeval thickets in river floodplains, preserved mainly on the left bank of the Amu Darya. There are sections here where they stretch in a strip of 3 or even 5 km wide. In some places they form an impenetrable thicket, a real jungle, but usually they have a park appearance. Above all, at 12-14 m, it raises its dense crown of turanga poplar with hard, leathery leaves in them. Below it is a prickly and sprawling sucker with sweet-mealy fruits that are used for food and for making wine. And under the trees - bushes: tamarisk with panicles of bluish-green delicate stems that replace foliage, flexible shrub willows, a variety of almonds - bean, blackberry semi-shrub.
Braiding trunks and branches, climbs up, towards the light, a thick liana clematis orientalis. At the very bottom, the earth is completely covered with rich tugai forbs. Only in some places almost completely bare patches of solonchaks open up. In the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, thickets of erianthus, a giant 3-5-meter grass, rise up to the very water. Roofs are covered with its hard stems and leaves, ropes are made from them, mats are woven, and livestock eats young shoots. In a treeless country where the plant world is so poor, the wild oases of the tugai serve as the most reliable supplier of construction and fuel wood. Unfortunately, they occupy only 1% of the area of the Turkmen plains. In addition to tugai, we will find real woody vegetation in Turkmenistan only in the mountains. However, these mountains, as you know, are low, and therefore the influence of the desert affects almost to their very peaks. And yet, one can trace, especially in the Kopetdag, how on the mountain slopes along the altitudinal belts Various types vegetation. Up to 700 m above sea level, typically desert groups rise with wormwood, sedge-karailak, bluegrass-arpagan, saltwort-tethir. In summer, this vegetation burns out. The middle zone - between 700 and 1500 m - is occupied mainly by semi-desert or dry steppe species - a couch grass-forb cover with many feather grasses. This is the main belt of spring mowing and summer pastures. In it, small areas are occupied by fields where cereals are grown without irrigation. Even from a height of 400-500 m, juniper, or Turkmen juniper, appears in the Kopetdag - the son of gravel, dry mountains with a bumpy, uneven trunk 12-15 and even 20 m high. This tree forms characteristic light forests, in which there is also a low and crooked Turkmen maple. However, in some places along shady and damp gorges it grows in impenetrable forests. At all mountain gorges, especially in the south-west of Kopetdag, sheltered from cold winds, serve as a haven for more tender heat- and moisture-loving plants. Dense thickets of wild rose, hawthorn, blackberry, barberry, dogwood and yellow jasmine form there, as well as wild species of figs and pomegranates, walnuts and grapes, and, of course, the pistachio, which is widespread in the Turkmen mountains, is a tree up to 7 m high. In total, it occupies a considerable area in the republic - about 40 thousand hectares.
Especially a lot of pistachio groves on far south, in the area of Kushki and Serakhs. In the very highest zone, above 1500 m, and on the shady northern and windward western slopes above 2000 m, upland xerophytes are located - hard grasses, thorny and cushion-shaped shrubs. Among them is a plant very characteristic of the Kopetdag - gypsophila. It forms such a dense and elastic cushion that rain does not penetrate through it, and the horse, having passed, leaves no trace. Another typical Kopetdag upland dry-lover is a half-meter shrub, traga-kant astragalus. When cut, it gives a very valuable gum tragacanth, which is used in the confectionery, textile and leather industries, in printing, as well as for the manufacture of glue and watercolors. And besides this, astragalus, the natural flora of Turkmenistan is rich in species that serve or can serve a person in different ways: tanning agents are extracted from a desert shrub - tamarisk, dyes from sandy acacia, pistachio, in addition to tasty fruits, gives the medicine tenin, tannins, paint for fabrics, valuable carpentry wood. Since ancient times, the Turkmens have dyed the yarn for their famous carpets in a characteristic dark red color with a magnificent dye extracted from the rhizomes of the desert grass - madder: now Turkmen pharmacists, in addition, extract from it an extract against kidney and gallstone disease.
Alkaloids are extracted from the branches and leaves of the sand-loving shrub cherkez, which are good for lowering blood pressure. In general, plants of Turkmenistan, especially xerophytes, contain in their cells a large number of essential and fatty oils, alkaloids, tannins, with which they retain water and resist heat and dryness. Many of these substances have valuable medicinal properties. The lands of the oases are almost entirely occupied by cultivated vegetation: cotton, cereals, vegetables, fruits and grapes. Tamarisk, camel thorn, azhrek, licorice grow on unplowed, periodically flooded floodplain lands, and cattail and reed grow on the lowest floodplain areas of river valleys.
Alexander REBRIK continues his story about Turkmenistan, its history, nature and gardens on the eve of the Green Arrow's next trip to this wonderful country.
(Continued. Read the beginning )
“And shade and coolness in Turkmen gardens!
Roses don't wither here
(Makhtumkuli)
My first acquaintance with the nature of Turkmenistan took place in early childhood, when my mother once brought a bag of Kara-Kum sweets. At that time, I didn’t go into confectionery subtleties: walnut pralines, chocolate icing, etc., just chocolate sweets, delicious, and even with such a memorable pattern. It depicted an outlandish desert landscape with camels - both of them, along with other values that I happened to get to know later, were and remain the property of this very interesting republic.
The Karakum (“black sand”) is a desert that occupies most of the territory of Turkmenistan (350,000 sq. km out of 491,210).
I had to walk along them, drive a car, fly over them by plane and helicopter. They are impressive in size, abundance of sand, minimal vegetation, wild heat.
The Turkmens say: "when a bird flies through the Karakum, it loses its feathers, a kulan goes - it loses its legs."
Don’t worry, I didn’t conquer the “evil sands”, I just was there, so I didn’t lose either feathers or legs. At first glance, the desert seems monotonous - a plain, mounds, dunes. But after a while, the eye notices a variety of colors and shades of sand, flora and fauna. The desert is unexpectedly beautiful in spring, when everything is covered with ephemera and ephemeroids - tulips, ferulas…
And in the summer you rejoice at every saxaul you meet by accident. The most annoying thing is the heat. I was in Repetek, where, they said then, the heat pole in the USSR, where +53.2 degrees was once recorded in the shade. But there is no shadow, and the sand heats up to +80. I don’t like cold very much, I can easily endure up to +40 degrees, but anything higher is not healthy. There for the first time I realized that it is easier to escape from the cold than from the heat. And when, after a long drive through hot inferno, you suddenly find yourself in an oasis, you immediately understand that this is the same promised paradise. In dry air, it is enough to find shade and water, and you can already live well.
This is my emotional perception of the harsh reality. The English traveler A. Berne drank more of the desert, therefore, apparently, he was less restrained. He wrote that the Karakum is "an endless ocean of sands" and he "cannot imagine a sight more terrible than this desert." But those who were born and raised there love her wholeheartedly. Like the poet Seydi (XVIII century): “I’ll go out without a purpose to wander sometimes. / / They beckon along your roads, desert. Of course, he is talking about the spring desert, in the heat, I think, and he would not be drawn to wander.
High temperatures, poor rainfall, dry air, dust storms, sand movement are all serious problems. Scientifically, the National Institute of Deserts, Flora and Fauna of the State Committee of Turkmenistan for Environmental Protection and Land Resources (founded in 1962) is thoroughly involved in them. He studies deserts and develops a set of measures to transform them. After all, arable land occupies only 3% of the country's territory, forests - 8%, pastures - 63%.
Where there is water, oases are located, occupying 7% of the territory. The most extensive of them are located in the middle and lower reaches of the Amu Darya, in the valleys and deltas of the Tejen, Murgab, Atrek and Sumbar rivers, as well as a flat strip along northern slopes Kopetdag.
Since ancient times, oases have been centers of irrigated agriculture, occupied by arable land, orchards and vineyards. “After the desert, sandy or saline Turkmen steppe, the settlements of the Akhal-Teke seem to be fertile corners. Quite significant gardens near the villages are filled with peach, apricot, walnut trees and vineyards, ”wrote General A.N. Kuropatkin, who led the Transcaspian region in 1890-1898. By the way, the Ashgabat garden school with a garden, founded in 1892, was named after him, on the basis of which the botanical garden of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan was later created, which currently numbers over 3000 species, varieties and forms of plants.
And here are fresh (2014) impressions of Ashgabat and its environs by Georgy Gupalo, a journalist from Russia:
“In general, the whole city is in flowers and fountains. All this needs constant care and watering. And you won't believe it - the whole city is not just green, it's covered in drip irrigation pipes.
Okay, capital. We saw dozens of kilometers of forests planted in the desert, and every tree has a pipe with water! Imagine, a thousand square kilometers of a new forest with watering each tree!!! In 10-20 years, Turkmenistan will be a country of forests.”
Let me pause on that high note. Makhtumkuli's dreams come true that "The hoe will knock in the desert - And the moisture will finally come." It’s coming somewhere, but whether S. Niyazov’s dream of a future Turkmen Sea with flocks of birds, shoals of game fish, sanatoriums and rest houses on its shores will come true, or whether the Turkmen’s thought “to return the Uzboi that flowed into it to the Khazar Sea”, that is, to direct the Amu Darya to Sarykamysh, and from there along the Uzboi to the Caspian Sea, as it was once, is a big question. Very often, the environmental consequences far exceed the positive effect for which everything is started. A situation arises when more deserts we turn into gardens, the more gardens we turn into deserts.”
Water, by and large, is scarce in Turkmenistan.“A drop of water is a grain of gold” - this is what the proverb says, this is the name of the holiday, established in 1995. It is celebrated on the first Sunday in April. Water in the desert is found at great depths, sometimes 200-300 meters. About 20 thousand wells are scattered across the Karakum. They are fed by the Amu Darya. The largest Karakum canal, the “river of happiness”, leaves from it.
Its length is almost 1500 km. Along the canal is an ever-expanding, “desert-eating” band of oases. But after all, Uzbekistan also needs the Amu Darya, the shortage of water is noticeable, therefore they collect precipitation, desalinate salt. The sad fate of the Aral Sea and Sarykamysh Lake, formed by polluted drainage waters, make you think, weigh every step.
Flora of Turkmenistan rich, diverse and original, has more than 2500 species, 700 of them grow in the desert. You will see the riot of nature, the palette of the spring carpet. You will leave and, as if, you will take paints and smells with you, and the hot sun will soon put everything in its place. Here, as in the tundra, the Flora festival lasts only two months. Plants have adapted to an acute shortage of moisture in the soil and air for six months. Perennial herbaceous plants - sedges, bluegrass, tulips, ferulas and other ephemeroids effectively use heat and moisture in one and a half to two months and manage to go through all stages of development, form seeds, and then fall into a dormant state.
And annuals - cereals, malcolmia turkestanis, poppies and other ephemera, during the spring they manage to live their whole lives, leave seeds that will give life to others.
People admire and rejoice in the spring greenery and flowers, and the animals for whom this food is also rejoice, first green, and then, as it were, “hay in the vine”.
Sandy sedge especially helps them out - ilak. In the spring, lichens appear on the surface of takyrs, which also serve as food. But there are also sand-loving plants - plants that have adapted to get water from a depth of 20-25 meters - white and black saxaul, sand acacia (suzen), kandym, on the dunes - selin or triostnitsa Karelina. They have not only roots, but also leaves, and stems, tissues and vessels are able to withstand heat, dry air, and soil poverty. Saxaul, for example, does not have leaf blades, their functions are performed by green stem shoots.
In the north there are many salt marshes with their own vegetation- shrubs of saltpeter, seidlitia, herbaceous saltwort. On the left bank of the Amu-Darya, a strip of 3-5 km. Tugais stretch - thickets of turanga poplar, sucker, tamarisk, shrub willow, bean, eastern clematis, blackberry. Camel's thorn, licorice or licorice root grow on the floodplain lands, also known as buyan.
Especially rich flora in the mountains of Kopetdag. N. I. Vavilov considered it to be the world center for the distribution of wild fruit species in the dry subtropics. For many Caucasian and Iranian species, the Western Kopetdag is the eastern boundary of distribution, and for some Pamir-Alai species it is the western boundary. The lower belt is covered with couch grass-feather grass forbs. In the spring they mow hay there, in the summer they graze cattle. There you can meet the legendary poisonous Turkmen mandrake, the leaves of which are like those of tobacco, the flowers are greenish-white and a bunch (up to 30 pieces) of yellow spherical berries with the smell of melon. Blossoms in May, ripens in July.
Above are upland xerophytes - hard grasses, thorny and cushion-shaped shrubs, first of all - gypsophila and astragalus. From a height of 500 m, juniper appears in the Kopetdag - Turkmen juniper with a tuberous trunk, 12-15 m high. In the light forests formed by it, there is also Turkmen maple with crooked trunks. Forms whole groves of pistachio - a tree up to 7 m high. In total, pistachio occupies tens of thousands of hectares in Turkmenistan.
In the shady and humid gorges of the southwestern subtropical part of the Kopetdag, wild rose, hawthorn, blackberry, barberry, dogwood, wild species of figs, pomegranates, persimmons, walnuts, grapes, Blinovsky cherries form. Only wild pomegranate covers an area of 6 thousand hectares. The pomegranate collection of the Center for Genetic Resources of the Institute of Botany includes 890 samples - 94 natural forms and 42 varieties. The collections of grapes are also rich - 1010 samples, pistachios - 53 samples (the largest in the world), apple trees 273, pears 127, apricots 517, figs 180, olives 200, persimmons 106.
A number of ornamental species grow in Turkmenistan, which are used to produce horticultural hybrids. Among them are stock-roses Karakalinsky and fig-leaved, badkhyz curly-rose, Kamein and Popov corydalis, Kopetdag eremurus, Radde hazel grouse.
Found in Turkmenistan and wild-growing orchids - Turkmen and hellebore dremliki, Roman and Georgian palmate roots. A lot of ferul from the umbrella family. In some places they form a kind of herbal forest. The Turkmens call the ferula “keik okarasy”, which means “jeiran cup” in translation. The stem leaves of the plant are large and hold water well after rains. According to the observations of local residents, gazelles come to drink it. A lot of water is stored in the thickets of such plants. One plant in its cup-shaped leaves can hold almost two liters. People use ferula as a medicinal plant. In addition, its young juicy flower-bearing stem is eaten, and a kind of thick honey “chomuch” is boiled from the tubers. Dry plants are used to fire furnaces and feed livestock. Resin, gum, essential oils are extracted from some species.
Suffice it to say that only in the arboretum of the Ashgabat Botanical Garden there are 157 exotic species and 67 highly decorative forms of pine, juniper, cypress. In recent years, the specialists of the Botanical Garden have introduced many plants into the landscaping of the country's cities: Lankaran albizia, or silk acacia, Gillis caesalpinia, Caucasian carcass, large-flowered magnolia, which tolerate urban conditions well.
From coniferous plants for a long time already in gardening - Arizona and evergreen cypresses, pines - Eldar, black, Crimean, mountain. Ashgabat parks are also decorated with chaenomeles, horizontal cotoneaster, Syrian hibiscus, mahonia paddubolista, three-lobed almonds, Indian lagerstromia.
There are olive plantations, even olive oil is produced. So the image of an olive branch on national flag justified not only in connection with the declaration of permanent neutrality. With respect they say: "Archa does not dry, the plane tree does not rot."
Cotton and wheat are shown on the coat of arms because they have been grown for a long time and a lot. Cotton, especially fine-fiber cotton, is produced in the hundreds of thousands of tons. Read about how long the Turkmens have been growing white wheat in Ruknama.
More than other gourds are common melons. Growing them is elevated to the rank of art. A holiday is dedicated to them - the Day of the Turkmen melon. It is celebrated on the second Sunday of August. More than 200 varieties are grown on the Golden Age melons (there are more than 1,000 Turkmen varieties in total, and the world list includes more than 1,600).
Gardening is one of important industries agriculture of Turkmenistan. The most common crops apple (44%), apricot (19%), plum, pear, pomegranate, peach. Viticulture is widespread.
9 thousand hectares are occupied, 60% are occupied by a variety ‘Terbash’, 22% - ‘Kara Uzyum Ashgabat’. The sugar content in berries is about 30%. The Republic annually harvests 50-60 thousand tons of berries (70% of wine varieties, 7% of sultanas and raisins and 234% of table varieties, produces more than 3 million decaliters of wine and 1.5 million liters of alcoholic beverages and cognac products.
Knowledgeable people advise: from dessert and strong wines look for "Turkmenistan", "Kopetdag", "Terbash", from red dry - "Oguzkent", "Destan", from white - "Nyazik". The culture of agriculture is ancient here. This is even evident from the proverbs - “Earth is dough, fertilizers are leaven”; "Waiting for fruit from the tree - take care of the seedlings."
I must say that in Turkmenistan they care about the conservation of nature. This is also evidenced by the attitude of people, expressed in the proverb "Cut down one tree - plant ten." And the adoption in June 2016 of the law "On Plant Protection". And the instruction of President Berdimuhamedov to create branches of the capital's botanical garden in all velayats, moreover, "their work should not be purely scientific, but also applied." And his own decrees on planting millions of trees in the country, only in 2014 - 3 million, and only three-year-old seedlings of deciduous, coniferous and fruit trees. All this with the aim of "turning the country into a flowering garden and further enriching its beautiful nature in an era of power and happiness." Responsibility for the fulfillment of planting tasks is assigned to ministries, departments, administration, control - to the Ministry of Nature Protection.
It is worth recalling that Ashgabat owes much to the tradition, which was initiated by Russian generals, with its lush green outfit. In particular, the predecessor of the same A. N. Kuropatkin - Lieutenant General Alexander Vissarionovich Komarov (1830-1904), head of the Transcaspian region and commander of the troops in 1883-1890. He issued a decree according to which every inhabitant of the city was to plant one tree. Those who did not comply with the decree or poorly looked after the trees, on Sundays, on central square flogged publicly. The method proved to be very effective. By the way, Komarov not only took care of the landscaping of Turkmen cities, but “peacefully” conquered Merv, won at Kushka, annexed 196327 square miles to Russia, conducted ethnographic research, archaeological excavations, was engaged in entomology, found, in particular, in the vicinity of Ashgabat a rare species of butterflies - hawk moth Komarov.
The Red Book has recently been republished, which includes 109 plants, including 64 endemic species. Since 2009, volumes of the fundamental encyclopedia of medicinal plants of Turkmenistan have been published. Its authorship is attributed to President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedov, a dentist by education. The author, recently presenting the 8th volume, stated that "this work is not only a tribute to the talent and wisdom of Turkmen scientists of past eras, but also a practical guide for the modern generation of doctors." It was in June, but it was already the fifth book of the president in 2016 alone. In January, his "Source of Wisdom" was released, in March - "Tea - Medicine and Inspiration" and "Swift Walk of a Horse", in May - "Arşyň nepisligi" about Turkmen carpets. I am surprised when the workers manage to read and assimilate all this.
I won't go into too much detail about Turkmen fauna. Everyone knows about the camel.
We have heard about Akhal-Teke horses. We will not remember about efa, gyurza, cobra, looking at night. About poisonous scorpions and especially the sinister karakurt, from the bite of which, it happens, horses and camels die, we will not say a word more. Gophers, jerboas and other rodents are of little interest to us. Worthy of mention are beautiful animals - leopard, cheetah, antelopes (gazelle and saiga), wild horse - kulan. I know that many birds can be seen, especially migratory ones. These are gray geese, and various ducks, pheasants, flamingos, swans. In the Amu-Darya and the Karakum Canal, catfish, asp, ide, thorn, silver carp, grass carp are caught, and in the Caspian Sea - carp, pike perch, roach, sturgeon. More about the latter.
My first trip to Turkmenistan started in Krasnovodsk. The wonderful Russified city was remembered by bright people of different nationalities, participation in the city's Turkmen wedding, dashing song "Oh, Odessa" in the repertoire of the wedding ensemble. And also bad red tap water, and that for several hours a day. I thought that "red waters" - in the sense of "wonderful", "prominent", but it turned out that they are problematic. I discovered that sturgeons are found not only near Astrakhan, in Krasnovodsk both fish and black caviar are available. In the market, however, from under the floor. There for the first time I managed to try sturgeon shish kebab. I was treated by my friend aksakal, a Turkmen man of the city flood. We sat on the shore, and he spoke beautifully, as Eastern people can, about the problems of the city, judged and judged about life, talked about the past. “Is this a fish,” he said, pointing to his catch. When I was little, my father took me on a felucca, put me on a mast, and I had to look out for shoals of sturgeon in the sea. That's when they caught, and now there are more poachers than fish. It was a wonderful day, an interesting conversation, a delicious kebab, almost forty years ago, on the shores of the then shallow Caspian. Now my friend is gone, instead of Krasnovodsk - Turkmenbashi, drinking water in the city has not become better, however, water has increased in the sea.
In connection with the conversation about the animal world, I recalled a hilarious story of my old friend, today a prominent specialist in the history of state and law, and in the 80s he decided to please the desert workers with his lectures. conscientiously and selflessly, regardless of high temperature air and some language barriers between him and the listeners, my friend talked for hours about the international and domestic situation. While he was talking, the lamb grew up, was slaughtered and put on a barbecue. The kebab cooked on juniper wood was fragrant and tasty. The collective farm displayed as many other wonderful dishes, vegetables and fruits as there were words incomprehensible to the listeners in the lecturer's dictionary. The peasants, with obvious signs of mental fatigue, driven to despair by speech, did not know how to thank my friend for the fact that their torment was over. At the table they felt much better. What can not be said about the lecturer. He pounced on the Turkmen delicacies, but soon realized that he was not at ease. And then he just got carried away, he jumped out from behind the table and dashed off into the saxaul. Just sat down, when suddenly someone big, heavy and cold leaned against him. He looks around and sees a terrible crocodile. He ran, forgetting his pants. It's good that you decided to take a look. “I see,” he says, “the crocodile is running away from me, I can at least take my pants.” In fact, it was a curious monitor lizard, not a real one, but just a “sand crocodile”, “zemzen”, the largest of the lizards - up to one and a half meters long. Such is the exotic.
Mountains with relict forests and shady gorges, subtropics with a set of endemic rare plants and animals, picturesque corners with a natural centuries-old flora give a peculiar look.
Geological monuments of nature
alt="Nature of Turkmenistan" border="1" hspace="5" src="http://www..jpg" vspace="5" />Формируясь под воздействием различных природных процессов в течение длительного времени, они имеют самые различные формы и виды. Каждый геологический памятник природы является своеобразным свидетелем древней эпохи, а некоторые - древней жизни на Земле. Уникальны хорошо сохранившиеся !} Fossilized footprints of Upper Jurassic dinosaurs on the western slope of the Kugitan ridge near the village of Khodzhapilata of the Charshanginsky etrap. Here, on the surface of limestones, which have an absolute age of about 140 million years (Jurassic period), about 500 dinosaur footprints have been preserved. Such a quantity and variety of traces in the Upper Jurassic deposits was registered for the first time in the world.
Traces of vertebrates of the Neogene period(about 20 million years ago) - camels, goitered gazelles, predators, various birds, found within the Western Kopetdag. Several localities are known here, the largest of which are: Gyaurli on the Western slope of the Ezzet-Kargez ridge and Akoba, located about 45 km. south of the first. Until now, such traces of camels within Eurasia were not known.
In Turkmenistan a large number of caves. Famous monuments of nature are the famous Karlyuk caves on Kugitangtau. The total length of the passages and galleries of the Khashimoyik cave is 5300 m. There are about 30 of them in the Karlyuk cave system. Many caves have not yet been explored. In terms of richness of decoration, the Karlyuk caves have no equal in Eurasia, and they are rightfully included in the List. world heritage UNESCO.
In the Kushkinsky etrap of the Mary velayat, near the territory of the Badkhyz reserve, in the endorheic depression of Eroylanduz, beautiful andesite-basalt remnants- weathered volcanic stocks. This area has attracted the attention of geologists, archaeologists, paleozoologists, and paleobotanists for many years. The monuments of the Quaternary period of the history of the Earth located here are unique. In ancient geological epochs, the vast Tethys Sea stretched in these places. The finds of the Middle Eocene flora, which allowed scientists to restore the history of the development of the Earth's vegetation, the shells of ostrich eggs, fragments of the skeletons of ancient animals should be taken into account and declared natural monuments. Of undeniable interest are active mud volcanoes Geokpatlauk and Boiling hillock in Gasankuly etrap. On east coast Caspian Sea are numerous and extinct volcanoes : Kurendag - south of Nebitdag; Aligul - in the central part of the Chokhrak plateau on the Cheleken peninsula.
Water monuments of nature
Rational use of the most valuable natural resource- Water is a major economic problem. Springs, waterfalls, lakes and other water bodies are found in various parts of Turkmenistan. popular salt lakes in Mollakara, near railway station Jebel, with changeable water horizon. 6 km north of Cheleken, there is crater lake Pink Porsygel of mud volcanic origin. It is known primarily for the fact that it covers the mouth of the ancient mud volcano pink colored water. Next to it, on the western slopes of the Chokrak plateau, is the Western Porsygel crater lake, with dirty gray salty and hot water. The nature of Turkmenistan has not stinted on balneological riches. She gave such outlandish thermal springs , as Archman (Bakharden etrap), Parkhay, Ovezbaba (Karakalinsky etrap), Khodjakaynar (Charshanginsky etrap), subthermal spring Edzheri (Kazanja etrap).
One of the most beautiful waterfalls countries - Big Nokhur in Bakharden etrap. From a height of 30 m, a water stream overthrows here. No less beautiful are the Koshtemir waterfalls in the Karakalinsky etrap, the Umbadere and Kyrkgyz waterfalls near the village of Murcha in the Bakharden etrap. There are waterfalls in the north of the country. For example, the Kyrkdeshik threshold with a canyon to the north of Lake Sarykamysh.
Botanical monuments of nature
More than 2.5 thousand species of higher plants grow on the territory of Turkmenistan, including about 700 in the Karakum Desert. Of the most valuable, juniper (or Turkmen juniper) aged about two thousand years, growing on the hard-to-reach peaks of the Kopetdag, should be noted. There are many age-old juniper trees in Kopetdag. Their average age in the Ashgabat forestry is 400-500 years. In the country's only grove, Unabi (Kugitang), the age of the trees exceeds 200 years. In the Karakal region, in the Aydere gorge, the famous 500-year-old Shakhoz (King Nut) grows. A valuable walnut grove in good condition is located in the Ipaikala tract of the Bakharden etrap. On Kugitang, in the Khodzhaburdzhibeland tract, a pistachio grove has been preserved, the age of the trees of which is very significant.
Of the desert flora, valuable individuals-old-timers of black saxaul have been preserved in the Eradzhinsky reserve, north of Repetek, and in the town of Imamkyzym in the Turkmen-Kalinsky etrap.
Unique in its beauty and uniqueness pistachio savanna of Badkhyz with old trees. Mount Boyadag, whose rocks shimmer in the sun, is known as a museum of nature. There are about 40 hot, warm and cold springs with different composition of water. The landscape of the slopes of Mount Syunt is peculiar, in places completely covered with vegetation. There are similar places in the Central Kopetdag and Kugitang. The Yerburun landscape of subsidence phenomena to the north of Lake Sarykamysh is interesting. An amazing combination of relief, fauna, flora and other components of the landscape is noted in the area of Lake. Eroylanduz. A peculiar landscape monument of nature is a rocky desert in the area of the Karlyuk cave in Kugitang. There are abundant karst funnels, sinkholes with steep banks and underground voids.
The nature of the Dashoguz velayat is many-sided and unique. Sands, steppes, lakes, rivers, chinks, gorges, Kaplankyr and Ustyurt plateaus, ancient settlements and minarets, long-lived trees give a special flavor to the northern etraps of the country. Amazing creation nature - the Mergenishan gorge, located along the southeastern coast of Lake Sarykamysh, in the lower part of the largest channel of the Daudan collector system. The gorge was formed at the end of the 13th-beginning of the 14th centuries. as a result of the discharge of water from the Tunyuklu Lake to Sarykamysh through a flat sandy-loamy alluvial plain. It is a winding canyon with a flat bottom from 15 to 70 m wide and sheer walls up to 35 m high.
According to the materials of the Ministry of Nature Protection of Turkmenistan and the Committee for Tourism
The article describes the magnificent nature of Turkmenistan, as well as the main monuments of nature.The nature of Turkmenistan is beautiful and unique. The picturesque corners with centuries-old plant fauna, subtropics with rare animals and plants, mountains with shady gorges give it a unique look.
The country is unusually rich in diverse fauna and flora. Tugai thickets and the boundless sea of desert sand will introduce you to the amazing wildlife. In the spring you will be captivated by the riot of colors of the spring meadow, the smells of flowers will delight you. Every season is distinguished by its natural splendor.
Here you will discover a new fascinating and extraordinary world of nature. The Karakum desert will delight everyone. It is one of the largest deserts on our planet and occupies almost ¾ of the territory of Turkmenistan. Its area is more than 350 thousand km2, which exceeds the size of countries such as Italy, Norway or the UK.
There are marvelous monuments of nature in Turkmenistan. In striking underworld In the Kopetdag Mountains you can see the huge Bakharden Lake, which became famous for its life-giving properties. This miracle of nature is the most visited and favorite place among tourists.
The famous Kugitang plateau also attracts many travelers. Its territory is huge. To get acquainted with the reserve, you will need to spend about 10-15 days. Here you will see ancient traces dinosaurs. Millions of years ago, today's mountains were under water, and dinosaurs came here to drink. Their giant paws sank into the clay, after which traces formed. Over time, the water subsided, and these places turned into rubble and stones.
Another picturesque place is the Darwin Gorge, which is 26 km long. It grows almonds, figs, walnuts, Turkmen maple, juniper. The depth of the gorge is 600 m.
Kugitang plants are very diverse. 837 of their species were identified, of which 10% grow only here. Animal world no less wealthy. In Kugitang it is not difficult to meet goitered gazelles, mountain goitered rams.
The seen nature of Turkmenistan is impossible to forget. This delightful region will give you many bright memories and indelible impressions.
