Prioksko-Terrasnyy Zapovednik, Danki, Moscow Oblast, Russia

Prioksko-Terrasnyy Zapovednik, Danki, Moscow Oblast, Russia 

June 19, 1945 , immediately after the Victory in the Great Patriotic War, the Moscow State Reserve was established , which included five sections: the Volga-Dubna, Gluboko-Istra, Upper Moskvoretsky, Verkhne-Klyazmen and Prioksko-Terrasny.

The territory of the Prioksko-Terrasny site was allocated because in 1861 the botanist, professor of the Moscow State University Nikolai Nikolayevich Kaufman, discovered here a unique community of southern steppe plants, which are completely uncharacteristic for these places. It has received the name “Oka flora” . A great deal of effort to preserve and study this plant community was made by the outstanding botanist, Professor of Moscow State University Pavel Alexandrovich Smirnov.

April 3, 1948, each of the sites of the Moscow Reserve was granted the status of an independent reserve .

HX8_CTpKiX8In 1951, by order of the Government of the USSR, two-thirds of the existing reserves were closed. Among them were four reserves, located in the Moscow region. Terraced Oka State Reserve preserved only by the fact that in 1948 the outstanding Russian scientist Mikhail Alexandrovich Zablocki it was organized by the Central bison nursery for the revival of this almost extinct species. Thus, the bison rescued the reserve from closure.

Over the years of existence in the Central Bison nursery more than 600 thoroughbred bisons were born , a large part of which was settled in the flat and mountain forests of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania within the former range of this species. They have already given several generations of offspring in conditions of natural freedom.

In the early 1950s , the building of the Nature Museum of the Reserve was built on the Central Manor of the Reserve , which was created by Vladimir Flegontovich Arseniev, and later supported and supplemented by Sergei Dmitrievich Kuligin.

In 1966, the area of the reserve was expanded to 80.9 hectares.

Since the beginning of the 1970s, ecological monitoring at the ecosystem level has been organized in the reserve. On February 19, 1979 the reserve received the UNESCO certificate and the status of the biosphere reserve . In July 1983, a complex background monitoring station was opened .

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