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'Białowieża Primaeval Forest', known as '''Belaveskaya Pushcha''' (Белавеская пушча) or '''Belovezhskaya Pushcha''' in Belarus and '''' in Poland, is an ancient woodland straddling the border between Belarus and Poland, located 70 km north of Brest. It is the only remaining part of the immense forest which once spread across the European Plain ^[1].
This UNESCO World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve lies in south-western Belarus, in parts of the Brest voblast (Kamianiec and Pruzhany districts) and Hrodna voblast (Svislach district), and near the town of Białowieża in the Podlachian Voivodeship (62 km south-east of Białystok and 190 km north-east of Warsaw) in Poland. On the Polish side it is partly protected as '''Białowieski Park Narodowy''', or 'Białowieża National Park', and occupies over 100 km². On the Belarusian side the Biosphere Reserve occupies 1,771 km²; the core area covers 157 km²; the buffer zone - 714 km²; and the transition zone - 900 km²; with the National Park and World Heritage Site comprising 876 km². The border dividing 2 countries runs across the forest and it is closed for big animals and tourists as well, for the time being.

Contents

Belarusian part

Polish part

History

Named oaks

In culture

See also

External links

References

Belarusian part

The 'Belovezhskaya Pushcha' headquarters at Kamieniuki, Belarus include laboratory facilities and a zoo where wisent (reintroduced into the park in 1929), konik (a semi-wild horse), wild boar, elk, and other indigenous animals may be viewed in their natural habitat. There is also a small museum, restaurant, snack bar and hotel facilities, built during the Soviet era and currently in a state of disrepair. Due to the lack of facilities and internal tourist regulations (special registration in Brest, Belarus is needed in the Visa office of the Ministry of the Interior Affairs, or in the Intourist hotel) few foreign tourists visit the Belarusian Pushcha annually.

Polish part

On the Polish side, in the 'Białowieża National Park', one finds the Białowieska Glade, originally built for the tsars of Russia — the last private owners of the forest (from 1888 to 1917) when the whole forest was within the Russian Empire. The Glade is equipped with a hotel, restaurant and parking areas. Guided tours into the strictly controlled areas of the park can be arranged by horse drawn carriage. Approximately 100,000 tourists visit the Polish part of the Forest annually. The village of Białowieża lies on the edge of the forest.

History

The entire area of eastern Europe was originally covered by virginal forests like the Białowieża Forest. People traveled along river routes until the 14th century; roads and bridges appeared much later. Limited hunting rights were granted throughout the forest in the 14th century. In the 15th century the forest became a property of king Władysław Jagiełło who used the forest as a food reserve for his army marching towards the Battle of Grunwald. A wooden manor in Białowieża became his refuge during the 1426 plague. The first recorded piece of legislation on the protection of the forest dates to 1538 when a document issued by king Sigismund the Old instituted the death penalty for poaching a wisent (European bison). He also built a new wooden hunting manor in Białowieża, which became the namesake for the whole forest.
The forest was declared a hunting reserve in 1541 for the protection of wisent. In 1557, the forest charter was issued, under which a special board was established which examined forest usage. In 1639 king Władysław IV Waza issued the "Białowieża royal forest decree" (''Ordynacja Puszczy J.K. Mości leśnictwa Białowieskiego''). The document freed all peasants living in the forest in exchange for their service as ''osocznicy'', or royal hunters. They were also freed of taxes in exchange for taking care of the forest. The forest was divided onto 12 triangular areas (''straże'') with a centre in Białowieża.

Until the reign of Jan Kazimierz the forest was mostly unpopulated. However, in late 17th century several small villages were established for development of local iron ore deposits and tar production. The villages were populated with settlers from Masovia and Podlachia and many of them still exist.
After the Partitions of Poland tsar Paul turned all foresters into serfs and handed them over along with parts of forest which they lived in to various Russian aristocrats and generals. Also, a large number of hunters entered the forest since all protection was abolished. The number of wisents fell from more than 500 to less than 200 in 15 years. However, in 1801 tsar Alexander I reintroduced the reserve and hired a small amount of peasants for protection of the animals. By the 1830s there were 700 wisents. However, since most of the foresters took part in the November Uprising (500 out of 502), their posts were abolished, leading to a breakdown of protection.
Alexander II visited the forest in 1860 and decided that the protection of wisents must be reintroduced. Following his orders, locals killed all predators: wolves, bears and lynxes. In 1888 the Russian tsars became the owners of all of primeval forest. Once again the forest became a royal hunting reserve. The tsars started sending the wisents as gifts to various European capitals while at the same time populating the forest with deer, elk and other animals brought from all over the empire. The last major tsarist hunt took place in 1912.
During the World War I the forest suffered heavy losses. The German army seized the area in August 1915 and started to hunt for the animals. During 3,5 years of German occupation more than 200 kilometres of railway tracks were laid in there in order to ease the industrial development of the area. Three big lumber-mills were built in Hajnówka, Białowieża and Gródek. Until September 25 when an order was issued not to hunt in the reserve at least 200 wisents were killed. However, German soldiers, poachers and Soviet marauders continued the slaughter until February 1919 when the area was captured by the Polish army. The last wisent was killed just a month earlier.
After the Polish-Soviet War in 1921 the core of Puszcza Białowieska was declared a National Reserve. In 1923 it was discovered that only 54 wisents survived the war in various zoological gardens all around the world - none of them in Poland. In 1929 a small herd of 4 wisents was bought by the Polish state from various zoological gardens and from the Western Caucasus (where the wisent was to become extinct just several years afterwards). To protect them, most of the forest was declared a Białowieża National Park in 1932.
The reintroduction proved successful and in 1939 there were 16 wisents in the Białowieża National Park. Two of them were from the zoological garden in Pszczyna and were direct descendants of a pair of wisents from the forest given to Duke of Pszczyna by tsar Alexander II in 1865.
In 1939 the local inhabitants of Polish ethnicity were deported to remote areas of the Soviet Union. They were replaced with Soviet forest workers, but in 1941 the forest was occupied by Germans and the Soviet inhabitants were also deported. Hermann Göring planned to create the biggest hunting reserve in the world there. Since July 1941 the forest became a refuge for both Polish and Soviet partisans. German authorities organized mass executions of people suspected of aiding the resistance. In July 1944 the area was liberated by the Red Army. Withdrawing Wehrmacht demolished the historical Białowieża hunting manor.
After the war part of the forest was divided between Poland and the Belarusian SSR of the USSR. The Soviet part was put under public administration while in the Polish part the Białowieża National Park was reopened in 1947.
Belovezhskaya Pushcha was protected under: Decision No. 657 of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, 9 October 1944; Order No. 2252-P of the USSR Council of Ministers, 9 August 1957; and Decree No.352 of the Byelorussian SSR Council of Ministers, September 16, 1991.
The Reserve was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1992 and internationally recognised as a Biosphere Reserve under UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme in 1993.
A new attraction in the Belarusian part of the Reserve is a museum of the "New Year" and the residence of ''Father Frost'' (Dzied Maroz or Ded Moroz, literally: Grandfather Frost; the East Slavic counterpart of Santa Claus). Thousands of tourists have visited this museum as of 1 January 2004.
The Belarusian part of the reserve also became the place where the Belavezha Accords were signed by leaders of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus to dissolve the USSR.

Named oaks

'Great Mamamuszi' is the thickest oak in the forest. The trunk circumference at the height of 130 cm from its basis is 690 cm (2005). The tree's name stems from Molière's ''The Middle-Class Gentleman'', in which the main protagonist, a Mr Jourdain, was appointed the Mamamouchi by a Turkish ambassador. The tree has a beautiful column–like trunk and its height is 34 m. From 1989 the tree's circumference grew by 10 cm. Among all the oaks in Białowieża with circumference above 600 cm it is in the best condition.
'The King of Nieznanowo' (trunk circumference at 130 cm from the trunk's basis – 620 cm, height 38 m), has one of the most steeple-shaped trunks among the oaks in Białowieża. The first branches grow on the height of 18 m. The tree has a column-like trunk, interestingly set in the ground. It has been gradually dying out since 1998. As of 2005, only two small branches still have leaves. Since the mid-1960's its trunk circumference has grown by ca. 45 cm.
'Emperor of the South' (circumference at 130 cm from trunk's basis – 610 cm, height 40 m). The tree shows no clear signs of dying out.
'Emperor of the North' has a very regular trunk (circumference at 130 cm from trunk's basis – 605 cm, height 37 m). The tree shows no clear signs of dying out.
'Southern Cross' (circumference at 130 cm from trunk's basis – 630 cm, height 36 m). At the basis of the trunk it has a considerable lesion in the bark on the Eastern side. From the mid-1960's its circumference grew by 65 cm. The name stems from the shape of its crown, whose main branches evoke a cross (see photo of the crown).
'The Guardian of Zwierzyniec' is one of the thickest oaks in the forest. The trunk circumference at the height of 130 cm from the base is 658 cm and the height of the tree is 37 m. The tree is largely bent down westwards, which most probably has contributed to the larger circumference of the trunk at its base. All branches are green, which shows that the tree is in a good condition.
'Barrel Oak', so named for its barrel shaped trunk, is the oak which reached the greatest trunk circumference among the Białowieża oaks (at 130 cm from the basis 740 cm, height above 30 m). The dead tree is largely deprived of bark and is estimated to be around 450 years old.
'Tsar Oak' (circumference at 130 cm from trunk's basis – 640 cm, height 41 m). The tree's volume was estimated at 75 cubic meters. It dried down in 1984. For over 20 years it has been standing dead on the verge of the valley of Leśna Prawa river. Today the trunk is totally deprived of bark, some of the branches broke down and lay at the basis of the trunk.
'Dominator Oak' is one of the thickest oaks of the Puszcza Białowieska, with a circumference of 680 cm (measured at 130 cm from trunk base), and a height of over 36 m. The tree has been dead since 1992, and its trunk is now already largely deprived of bark. For many years it dominated the Puszcza Białowieska as far as size is considered. Its age was estimated at 450 years.
'Jagiełło Oak' is probably the most famous of the trees in the forest. it is said that King Władysław II Jagiełło rested beneath it before the Battle of Grunwald.

In culture

The forest is the subject of a famous Russian ballad, "Belovezhskaya Pushcha",
composed in 1975 by Aleksandra Pakhmutova, with lyrics by Nikolai Dobronravov.
It includes the lines:
: Здесь забытый давно наш родительский кров.
: И, услышав порой голос предков зовущий,
: Серой птицей лесной из далёких веков
: Я к тебе прилетаю, Беловежская пуща.
: ''Zdes’ zabytyj davno naš roditel’skij krov.''
: ''I, uslyšav poroj golos predkov zovuščij,''
: ''Seroj pticej lesnoj iz dalëkix vekov''
: ''Ja k tebe priletaju, Belovežskaja pušča.''
: Here is our long-forgotten family home.
: And, having heard now and then the voice of ancestors calling,
: Like a grey little forest bird, from far-away centuries,
: I fly to you, Belovezhskaya Pushcha.^[2]

See also

★ List of national parks of Poland

★ List of old growth forests

★ Virgin Komi Forests - the largest forest in Europe

★ Western Caucasus - the largest wisent habitat

External links

★ The UNESCO official site

★ Belovezhskaya Pushcha dedicated conservation/environmental website

★ / Białowieża National Park

★ Bialowieza photographs

★ Oaks in Bialovieza(English)

★ Primal Nature Alert: Help Save Bialowieza Forest

★ Bialowieza photographs

★ Białowieża Forest travel guide on wikitravel.

★ BBC radio documentary about the forest (2002)

References

1. "Earth Without People" by Alan Weisman 2005.
2. Downloadable recordings of the song from the official site of Aleksandra Pakhmutova.