Meshchyora National Park

The Meshchyora is a lowland of sand, peat and water between the Oka and the Klyazma, left by retreating ice - flat pine forest on dry sand ridges, sphagnum bogs, shallow lakes strung along old channels, and slow rivers. It is not dramatic country and it was never meant to be; its reputation comes from Konstantin Paustovsky, who spent much of his working life here and wrote about it repeatedly, most directly in Meshchyora Side, in a way that fixed the landscape in Russian literature as the archetype of quiet middle-country nature. The national park protects about a hundred thousand hectares of it, with walking and water routes, birdwatching in the bogs, cranberry and mushroom picking in autumn, and villages with wooden houses. Peat extraction damaged large areas in the twentieth century and rewetting programmes are under way, partly because drained peat burns.

History

The painter Abram Arkhipov lived in a village in the area and painted its peasant life in the late 1800s, and the writer Konstantin Paustovsky also lived here and wrote about its nature. The park protects a section of the Pra River, Lake Beloye and the wetlands and forests around them (Wikipedia, Meshchyorsky National Park).

Highlights

• The flat mosaic - pine on sand ridges, sphagnum bog and shallow linked lakes.
• The Paustovsky landscape - the country he wrote into Russian literature.
• The autumn picking - cranberries and mushrooms across the bogs and forest.
• The rewetting - programmes reversing twentieth-century peat drainage.

When to go

May to September for walking and water routes; September for berries and mushrooms. A day to several. Winter brings skiing on flat ground.

Things to know

Mosquitoes and horseflies from May to August are severe, and ticks here carry encephalitis. The landscape is subtle rather than spectacular - visitors expecting mountains will find flat forest. Boggy ground and few marked paths in places. Facilities are minimal.

Nearby

Spas-Klepiki has a Yesenin museum; Ryazan is south.

Key facts