The Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve

The huge area of the Berezinsky Reserve - 131,785 hectares - covers the territories of several administrative districts: Lepelsky and Dokshitsky Vitebsk region and Borisovsky - Minsk.

Today these pristine places are inhabited by: 56 species of mammals, including the Big Five of Europe - bison, elk, bear (one third of the Belarusian clubfoot population lives here), wolf and lynx; 234 species of birds; 34 types of fish; 16-17 species of amphibians and reptiles.

The rich flora of the reserve includes more than two thousand species of plants, including 88 rare species listed in the Red Book of Belarus.

The Berezinsky Biosphere Reserve is also a special hydrographic territory: the watershed of the basins of two seas ─ the Baltic and the Black ─passes here, and the longest river, located in Belarus throughout its entire course, one of the largest tributaries of the Dnieper - the Berezina, which gave the name to the reserve, takes its source in the local swamps .