For thousands of years, travelers fascinated by wanderings were looking for the mysterious Shambhala in the mountains of Tibet - a mystical paradise on earth. They say that a few of them, after many years of ordeals and hardships, reached it …
And few people know that in the center of Siberia, among the endless plains, washed by the southern waters of the great Lake Baikal, one of the most ancient mountain ranges of our planet, Khamar-Daban, is deceivingly peacefully sleeping.
Khamar-Daban is so large and huge that it has the status of a "mountainous country".
It is not surprising, because these mountains stretch for more than 350 km from west to east, with a width of about 60 km.
Not every country in the world can boast of such a territory!
The highest point of the mountainous country - 2371 m - Mount Khan-Ula, which translates as "king mountain", "lord mountain". A little lower is the peak of Sokhor ("motley") with a height of 2316 m and the peak of Chersky - 2090 m.
The vegetation of Khamar-Daban is mountain-taiga, with a pronounced altitudinal zonation. Most of the vegetation in all belts is coniferous: spruce-cedar, fir-cedar forests with an admixture of larch forests, the upper border of the forest is formed by cedar.
In addition, a number of shrubs (cedar dwarf, golden rhododendron, heather) and subalpine meadows (tall grasses with numerous flowering plants) grow here.
Promotional video:
The variety of natural landscapes determines the richness of the animal world. Elk, red deer, roe deer, reindeer, musk deer, wild boar, brown bear, lynx, wolverine, sable, Siberian weasel, ermine, otter, fox, squirrel, flying squirrel, chipmunk, many birds live in the forests of Khamar-Daban.
The Baikal Biosphere Reserve is located in the central part of Khamar-Daban. To the west of it, in the Zakamensk region of Buryatia, there is the Snezhinsky biological reserve. The western part of Khamar-Daban, within the Tunkinsky region of Buryatia, is part of the Tunkinsky National Park.
Yuri Vizbor's song "Khamar-Daban" is dedicated to the Khamar-Daban ridge …
… a huge mountainous region, a whole country consisting of peaked peaks, a harsh climate, wild animals that have never met a person, clean air and ringing rivers - perhaps our native Shambhala is more real than the one that has been looking for so many years somewhere in Tibet? …
Natalia Nekrasova