Location: Sadovaya 20 Street
Muhina Creek or Muhina Balka is a unique natural formation located in the east part of Aksay. It is a steep ravine with an area of 43 hectares those slopes are covered by a forest. Virtually the entire bottom of the beam is covered by marshes, except for a spring and a large creek that forms several ponds. Mukhina Creek area is most popular not for features above ground, but rather that is found underground. Mukhina Creek was actually a site of an underground military bunker that was also used for various secrete experiments. You can see signs of some of these experiments by burned sandstone around bunker entrance doors.
Flora
All kinds of steppe plants grow on the
slopes of Mukhina gully. Among them: fescue, feather grass.
Dandelions, wormwood, bluegrass, highlander, sweet clover, clover,
plantain are widespread. A ravine forest is located in the ravines
of Mukhina gully. At the edges of the forest, shrubs of hawthorn,
barberry, rose hips are widespread, and there are quite a few
thickets of prickly blackthorn. In Mukhina Balka, there are smooth
elm, mulberry, forest apple, common pear, and some specimens of
Western and Caucasian frames. White birch grows on the territory of
artificial plantations. On the banks of the pond, you can find woody
plants such as silvery elk, white willow, white poplar.
Currently, Mukhina Balka is in a deplorable state. Here the
territory is plowed up, fires are often made, the dump is growing,
the springs are not cleaned and not landscaped, the pond is in a
clogged state, the building of houses and garages does not stop.
History
In the 18th century, Mukhina gully was called Maly
Log. A little later it was renamed and began to be called the Rowan
Beam. The reserve owes its modern name to the Mukhin family of
merchants, who owned an area of 79 hectares near the village of
Aksayskaya. Mukhin were one of the richest timber merchants. They
were engaged in a very profitable timber trade at that time. Since
here, in the steppe region, there was no forest of its own, it was
sold at a very high price.
In 1915, students and teachers of
the Warsaw University, evacuated to Rostov-on-Don in connection with
the possible occupation of Warsaw by German troops, began to study
Mukhina Balka. Studies of the soil and vegetation of this area took
a significant place in the scientific works of professors V.N.
Vershkovsky, A.A. Seizures, O.K. Koyaly and others. The university
substantiated the significance of the study of the gully by the fact
that Mukhina gully is the most typical representative of the
vegetation of this region, which has virgin steppes, shrub steppe,
rocky and clay slopes, gully forest and meadow on its territory.
In 1923, the Aksai excursion station of the State Don University
was opened. Two houses were allocated for it. In the first house it
was planned to organize a laboratory, a museum of local nature and a
hostel for students. In the second house of a smaller area there was
one common kitchen, one room was occupied by a minister, and four
more were reserved for visiting scientific workers. In 1925, on the
basis of the excursion station in Aksai, a biological station was
opened, which included two departments - steppe and hydrobiological.
In this regard, in April 1925, the former estate of Mukhin was
transferred to the ownership and use of the university, where they
planned to acquaint future teachers with agriculture, study the
methods of natural science and much more. This estate was
transferred for a period of 10 years.
One of the first blows
to the nature of the reserve was the Great Patriotic War. The slopes
of the gully were the scene of fierce battles three times. For a
better view of the area, then century-old oaks and other rare trees
were cut down. The slopes of the gully were surrounded by trenches
and anti-tank ditches. Their traces are still visible.