Электронная библиотека
публикации о музее-заповеднике «Кижи»

The Island of Kizhi is one of the numerous islands of the Kizhi Archipelago. It is home to the world famous Historical and Architectural Kizhi Museum. More than 150 thousand tourists visit the museum every year. About 800 cruise ships and 450 hydrofoils bring tourists to the island annually.

A lot of tourists together with maintenance and restoration activity cause the most acute and serious ecological problems on the island. The island is facing the most urgent problem of waste treatment. At present the museum has several biotoilets, compost pits and plastic waste containers. The museum administration plans to develop a waste-recycling project and to construct a waste treatment and recycling unit.

Another serious ecological problem is the pollution of the Lake Onega water around the Zaonezhie peninsula with oil products and phosphorous compounds. The pollution was revealed by an ecological monitoring. The ecological service of the museum is going to find sources of the pollution and to develop some measures for its reducing.

Breaking coastline by waves produced by cruise boats and overpressure of visitors on the vegetation of the island also pose serious ecological problems. The Kizhi museum together with officials controls violating the ecological rules and regulations made up at the local and federal levels.

One of the primary concerns of the museum is to preserve the historical landscape and first of all the meadows of the island. For this scrub clearing is regularly carried out.[текст с сайта музея-заповедника "Кижи": http://kizhi.karelia.ru]

The presence of ticks and snakes on the island can pose a threat to visitors. That’s why every year the territory of the museum is treated with a special insecticide. Museum guides warn tourists against poisonous snakes and other threats.

The research study conducted together with the Karelian Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 1986 provided the information about the nature of this region and the Island of Kizhi. Since 1994 the museum has initiated the annual ecological monitoring and survey of the Kizhi environment. These produced some data of the composition of flora, fauna and insect species as well as of the air and water pollution. The radiation map of the Island of Kizhi has been compiled. (No dangerous points were detected).

The general ecological situation on the Kizhi Island and other islands of the Archi-pelago is favorable. This increases the responsibility of the Kizhi reserve, other environ-ment protection agencies, and every visitor of the island for the preservation of the unique nature of the Kizhi Archipelago.