Nadsan Regional Landscape Park — delight, amaze, heal.
The idea of creating the Nadsan Landscape Park has been in the air for a long time. Back in the early XX century Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky called to preserve the nature of the Nadsan mountains. But it was only after Ukraine gained independence that the countries bordering Ukraine had the opportunity to create a common complex to preserve the nature of the Eastern Carpathians.
Three countries — Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine — created the world’s first tripartite landscape park «Eastern Carpathians» based on the relevant UNESCO program. It included the following structural units:
1. Bieszczady National and 2 landscape parks — «Cisna Wetlina» and «Sana Valley» in Poland;
2. Poloniny National Park in Slovakia;
3. Uzhansky National and Regional Landscape Park in Ukraine.
Specific talks about the possibility of such an international reserve of Carpathian nature began in 1992, and in 1998 a single protected area with an area of 2010 km² was created.
The landscape of the «Nadsan» park is determined by its location. It is the extreme west of Ukraine, ridges and intermountain hollows of the Eastern Carpathians. In the Ukrainian geographical literature, this particular section of mountains refers to the Outer Carpathians, and more precisely to their structure, called the Eastern Beskids. The peculiarity of these ridges is that they are the watershed between the rivers of the Baltic Sea basin and the Black Sea basin. The main watershed ridge of the Eastern Beskids has the Yablonka River, which carries water to the Stryj-Dniester-Black Sea system, and the Reka River, which flows into the San and from there into the Vistula and the Baltic Sea. Those who are on vacation in Turk can see the Yablonka, which flows into Stryj. But the hydrographic fate of the San is better studied when traveling through Poland.
51% of the territory of the «Nadsan» park is occupied by forests. 42% is agricultural land. 7% are water bodies, roadways and 8 settlements. The main object, for the sake of which UNESCO started this whole conservation «cheese», are the forests. Firstly, indigenous beech forests, which in Ukraine are called «buchiny». Secondly, fir-beech natural communities. Thirdly, unique biocenoses of green alder. The fourth group includes meadows. Here grow sedge, wheatgrass, tonkonog, fescue and stokolos. The fifth group is represented by peat bogs overgrown with mosses, plaunas and ferns. Therefore, your vacation in the Carpathians in this area will be surrounded by unique plants that exude, like ambrosia, pure oxygen. No one will recommend you to collect herbariums and floral compositions. A significant part of plants is included in the Red Book of different levels. One hundred percent are lilies, belladonna, lunaria, crocuses and snowdrops.
In such Red Book Carpathian plant communities, if you behave quietly, you can observe a spotted salamander or a viviparous lizard basking in the sun. You may see a forest cat trying to pull a grayling or trout out of the water. After the formation of the landscape park, lynx, deer, roe deer, wolves and bears, which had not found rest in other regions of the Carpathians, began to flock here.
The peculiarity of the Ukrainian part of the «Eastern Carpathians» is that a viable «population» of boycats has survived here. Just like their ancestors, modern gazdas are engaged in breeding cows and sheep. In summer they graze them on the meadows, and from the milk of sheep they make their specialty cheese — Budz. Local carpenters, blacksmiths, stelmakhs and even molfars have become a kind of attraction of Ukraine. Their ladies — gazdyni, in addition to farming, cope with the manufacture of logs, blankets made of sheep’s wool, and can easily embroider a towel or a shirt with a delightful ornament.
In the territory of the «Nadsan» park there are traditional Boykovo long huts. Andriy Sheptytsky saw such a construction in the village of Shandrovets and did his best to make sure that it survived to the descendants. Most of the local wooden churches did not survive the pre-war cleansing of the territory and forced Sovietization, but in some villages one can still find miraculously preserved churches.
Such a natural and ethnographic attraction of Ukraine can easily be seen by those who travel by autobahn or train by rail from Lvov to Uzhgorod. The «Nadsan» park is also accessible to those who are on vacation in Turka or on treatment in sanatoriums and private resorts in Truskavets, Shodnica and Boryslav. An important advantage of such a vacation in the Carpathians is that it is economical, broadens your horizons, is available all year round and is healing, unlike a number of foreign resorts.