Desert landscape draws tourists
98 views · Published 23 October 2018 · 7:00 · Indexed 23 September 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(18 Oct 2018) LEADIN: An unusual sandy desert near Ukraine's Black Sea coast is proving popular with toursits. Oleshky Sands is a barren infertile place, but visitors are now putting this dramatic landscape on the map. STORYLINE : A vast expanse of sand covers a large area kilometers in the south of Ukraine. This huge desert in the heart of Eastern Europe is known as Oleshky Sands, about 30 kilometers from the Black Sea coast. A few hundred years ago this was grassy plains but in the 18th and 19th centuries sheep farming caused the grass to die off. The root system that binded the sandy soil was lost and the soil turned to sand and began to engulf the region. The barren landscape has in recent years become a popular tourist attraction. "Our desert is one of the biggest sandy areas in Europe. We have more than only barchans (a crescent-shaped shifting sand dune) and landscapes as other deserts do. We have plants, trees, shrubs. There are many animals - wolves, hares. There are even fish in the lakes. That distinguishes us from other deserts, we have not just sands," says Yana Demydova, inspector of National Park "Oleshky Sands". Olexander Khybenko, a guide of a tourist company explains its appeal: "This is the phenomenon which can be seen only abroad as many thought, for example in Sahara, Turkey, Egypt, places with sea coasts. This phenomenon is very unusual for Ukraine and very beautiful at the same time. That's why people visit us to see this beauty." Visitor Mykola Fisayuk says it is beautiful: ""There is an incredible beauty here. My first thought when I came here was how is Ukraine, which is known for its black earth, situated in such a huge sand area? But the forest on the skyline is pleasing to the eye. And there are more and more plants growing in the desert." Oleshky Sands has barchans, crescent-shaped shifting sand dunes, which are up to 20 meters high in some places. It is also home to oases and sandstorms. In the summer air temperatures can reach up to 45 degrees celsius and the temperature of the surface of the sand can reach 75 degrees celsius. The region became a national park in 2010 and so far in 2018 around 2,600 tourists visited the desert in organized guided tours, according to Yana Demydova, inspector of National Park "Oleshky Sands". But these figures are not exact, because there are many places where people can access the area by themselves. Approximately 70,000 people live in the villages and towns on the edge of the desert. The nearest city is Kherson is 30 kilometers from Oleshky Sands. The main regional industry is the cultivation of fruits and vegetables, as well as tourism. In order to stop the spread of the sand, pine forests were planted in the 20th century. "This was an edge of the desert in the time. The huge sand hills were moving. They had been moving, coming closer and closer to people's settlements as there were no houses at that time. The sands buried them. So people came to this region and planted these trees. It took some time for them to take root. Now there some places where the pines are holding the sandy soil together their roots like real people," explains ecologist Volodymyr Sheludko. More tree planting is planned for early 2019, when 30 hectares of pine trees will be planted to stem the sandy tide. The sandy area is 161,000 hectares (1,610 square kilometers). And the whole area including forests and sands is 210,000 hectares, 2,100 square kilometers. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/69a85aece5b2a1c0c1a62a370e1b136c
