Kamchatka is a large peninsula located in the Far East. Administrative entity - Kamchatka Territory. Formed in 2007 through the merger of the Kamchatka region and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. The administrative center is the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (the local slang name is Peter).
Valley of
Geysers
Anavgai
Blue Lakes Nature Park (Golubye Ozyora)
Esso
Kronotsky Nature Reserve
Komandorsky Nature Reserve
Nalychevo Nature Park
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky
Southern Kamchatka Nature Park (Yuzhno-Kamchatsky Zakaznik)
Bystrinsky Nature Park
Kluchevskoy Nature Park
Koryaksky Zapovednik
Palana
Paratunka
Yelizovo
Helicopter and walking tours (Valley of Geysers, Uzon Volcano
caldera, Kuril Lake)
Climbing volcanoes (Avachinsky, Mutnovsky,
Gorely)
Jeep tours, ATV excursions (to the Vachkazhets mountain
range, to the caves of the Gorely volcano, to the Mutnovsky volcano, to
the Mini Valley of Geysers (Dacha springs, to the Avachinsky volcano, to
Lake Vorobinoy)
Thermal springs (Paratunka, Malkinskiye)
A trip to
the Pacific Ocean
Horse rides
Boat trips with fishing
Hiking to
the Blue Lakes
Diving
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the only large city in Russia (and the
second in the world) that cannot simply be reached by car.
Regular passenger service is carried out only through the airport of
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (located in Yelizovo). You can also get there
by sea (however, there is no regular passenger service), or by
all-terrain vehicle, and in winter by snowmobile, reindeer or dog sled
from the mainland.
Outside of civilization, the roads are dirt, and there is nothing to do on puzoterki. As a rule, all-terrain vehicles are used, and more distant places are reached by helicopter.
The cost of a basic package of basic food products - in particular
vegetables, fruits, meat and dairy products - in Kamchatka will surprise
you: an ordinary loaf of white bread is more than three times more
expensive than a similar one in Volgograd (for example) - 75 rubles.
Even in Kolyma - in sunny Magadan, food is much cheaper.
Prices
in Petropavlovsk for the first half of 2018:
1 liter package of milk
from 80 to 100 rubles.
a dozen chicken eggs - 120-200 rubles
fresh
tomatoes - 400-800 rubles kg
fresh cucumbers - 500-800 rubles kg
Ryazhenka “Prostokvashino” 1 liter - 300 rubles (this is the one with
the cat Matroskin...)
fresh onion - 350 rubles kg
old potatoes
from 30 to 70 rubles per kilo, for young potatoes they ask for up to 400
saffron milk caps
liter pack of pomegranate juice “Ya” - 370 rub.
fresh strawberries from Turkey - 1000 rubles kg
fresh cherries from
the Krasnodar region - 5000 rubles kg
Vegetables, as elsewhere in
the Far East, are often produced in China. And even if they write
Khabarovsk or Ussuriysk, in fact it was grown by the Chinese using their
technologies, with herbicides and pesticides.
The cost of meat
products is comparable to “mainland” prices, although it is also
expensive. The price tags for local fish and seafood are not at all
affordable: canned food costs more or less tolerably, but salmon caviar
(pink salmon, chum salmon, etc.) costs more than 2,000 rubles. per kilo.
The only consolation is that the seafood here is real, of good quality
and has a large selection.
Summer in Kamchatka is not hot, rainy and foggy. A cyclone may
approach and it will rain continuously for a couple of weeks. From here
we think about what clothes to take with us.
Independent visits
to volcanoes, geysers, and thermal springs may be unsafe. At a minimum,
you need to find out from the locals what and how.
When traveling
in Kamchatka, great attention must be paid to precautions related to a
possible encounter with a bear. The population of bears in Kamchatka is
one of the largest in the world, so human encounters with this animal
are not uncommon. In case of independent excursions in Kamchatka, it is
recommended to register with the Ministry of Emergency Situations.
There are many military installations and protected areas in
Kamchatka. You shouldn’t go “over the fence” and look for adventures on
your butt. They will tie you up, and then they will spend a long time
trying to find out why and for what purpose you are here. In addition,
some objects are indeed potentially dangerous to health and life.
There are no snakes on the peninsula. None at all.
And
finally. Everything is expensive in Kamchatka. Very expensive. You need
a lot of money.
The name “Kamchatka”, attributed to the river, appears for the first
time in Peter Godunov’s drawing of Siberia in 1667. There are more than
20 versions of the origin of the toponymic name “Kamchatka”.
Before the arrival of the Russians, Kamchatka was inhabited by several
nationalities: Itelmens, Koryaks, Chukchi, Ainu.
In the Ainu
language, the Kamchatka Peninsula, together with the Kuril Islands, was
called Chupka (also Tyupka, Tsyupka), literally: “place of sunrise.”
According to one version, the name of the Kamchatka Peninsula itself
is a compound word of Ainu origin from the following parts: kam “to
extend” + chak “to explode” + ka “place”; the original toponym was
Kamchakka, meaning “vast [and] exploding terrain.”
According to
another version, the peninsula received its name from the Koryak name
for the valley of the river. Kamchatka - Conchat.
According to
B.P. Polevoy, the name of the Kamchatka Peninsula came from the
Kamchatka River, and the river was named in honor of Ivan Kamchaty. In
1659, Fyodor Chukichev and Ivan Ivanov, nicknamed “Kamchaty”, were sent
to the Penzhina River to collect yasak (the nickname was given due to
the fact that he wore a silk shirt; in those days, silk was called
“damask fabric” or “damask”). Ivan Kamchaty is a Kolyma Cossack,
converted in 1649 at his own request, a former industrialist. In honor
of Ivan Kamchatsky, one of the tributaries of the Indigirka River was
already called “Kamchatka” in the 1650s. On their campaign, they did not
limit themselves to the Paren and Penzhina rivers, they visited the
Lesnaya River, where they met the Kolyma Cossack Leonty Fedotov’s son
and the industrialist Sava Anisimov Sharoglaz (Seroglaz). It is known
that having risen to the upper reaches of the Lesnaya River, they
crossed to the eastern coast of Kamchatka, along the bed of the Karagi
River they came to the shore of the Bering Sea, where for some time they
were engaged in fishing for “fish tooth” (walrus ivory). In 1662, the
Upper Kolyma Yukaghirs found all the participants in the campaign killed
near Chukichev’s winter quarters on the Omolon River - “Prodigal”. It is
believed that the campaign of Ivan Kamchaty gave rise to an unusual
legend among the Itelmens “about the glorious, respected warrior
Konsh(ch)at”, which was later heard by Georg Steller and Stepan
Petrovich Krasheninnikov. Leonty Fedotov's son and Sava Seroglaz moved
to the lower reaches of the Kamchatka River to one of its tributaries,
which later began to be called “Fedotovka,” and conveyed to the Itelmens
the story about Ivan Kamchat. Since the Itelmens on the Kamchatka River
could not know about Ivan Kamchat, his path passed to the north. The
Itelmens passed on to other Russian explorers of Kamchatka the legend of
Ivan Kamchat, that is, of Konsh(ch)at.
The ethnonym “Kamchadal”
arose no earlier than the 1690s. Only in the 1690s did the Russians
learn that the Itelmens were not Koryaks at all, but a special people.
In those days, it was customary to call local residents by the names of
rivers. So from the Opuki River appeared the “Oputsky people”, from the
Olyutory River - “Olyutorsky”, along the Pokhacha River - “Pogyche” -
“Pogytsky”, and from the Kamchatka River - “Kamchatsky”, who in the time
of Atlasov began to be called “Kamchadalians” or briefly “Kamchadals”,
and from here, some time later, the southern peninsula was sometimes
called “Kamchadalia” or “Kamchadal land”. Therefore, the Itelmen do not
consider the ethnonym “Kamchadal” to be an Itelmen word.
There
are etymological versions. Russian pioneers on the Kamchatka Peninsula
encountered fur seals (kam seals) and hunted them. This is where the
toponym “Kamchatka” — “land of the Kamchatkas” — came from. Previously,
the word “Kamchat” meaning “big beaver” penetrated into Russian dialects
through interaction with Tatar traders and spread throughout Siberia.
Turkic kamka, Uyghur kimhap, kimhob in the Tajik language mean
“patterned fabric” (damask) - this word comes from the Chinese kin hua
(“golden flower”). To trim their hats, the Tatars used not fabric, but
the skin of a beaver (or other animal) - in Tatar kama, kondyz (this is
where the words “Kamchat”, “Kymshat” come from), where, according to one
version, the name of the peninsula originates.
There is a version
that Kamchatka is a Russified version of the Yakut hamchakky,
ham-chatky, derived from khamsa (“kamcha”) - a smoking pipe, or from the
verb ham-sat (“kamchat”) - “to move, sway”
Since the Stone Age, Kamchatka has been inhabited by ancient tribes.
The first known peoples to appear in this territory were the Koryaks,
Ainu and Itelmens. In the middle of the 19th century, the Evens began
settling the peninsula.
Excavations of several ancient sites
discovered on the territory of the Anadyr region indicate that the first
people appeared in these places back in the early Neolithic era.
The sparse population was mainly engaged in hunting and fishing.
In the 17th century, the Russians began to explore Siberia and the Far
East. One of the oldest cities in the Far East is
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
The Cossacks of Atlasov were among the
first to arrive here from Russia in 1697. Cossacks in Avacha Bay, near
the Itelmen village of Aushin, on the shores of the Avacha Bay of the
Pacific Ocean, laid out warehouses for storing yasak and founded a fort.
A permanent Russian population appeared by the 1730s and, due to its
small numbers, largely mixed with the aborigines of the region, and some
of the Itelmen adopted the Russian language and culture, becoming part
of the Kamchadals. By the beginning of the 20th century, there were
about 3,600 people of the local Russian-Itelmen population in Kamchatka,
who represented one ethnographic group with common features of culture
and life and the Russian language of communication.
After 43
years, according to previously compiled maps of the Kamchatka land, the
Second Kamchatka Expedition of 1733-1743 arrived here on two packet
boats on October 17, 1740, under the leadership of Vitus Bering and
Alexei Chirikov.
The Peter and Paul fortress received its name
from the names of the packet boats “St. Apostle Peter” and “St. Apostle
Paul”.
The founder of the city is navigator of midshipman rank
Elagin Ivan Fomich. On September 29, 1739, by order of the leader of the
2nd Kamchatka expedition, Vitus Bering, Ivan Elagin set off from Okhotsk
to Kamchatka on the boat “Holy Archangel Gabriel”.
He was
entrusted with describing the sea coast from the mouth of the Bolshoy
River to Avacha Bay, continuing research on Avacha Bay, drawing up its
map, building warehouses and living quarters to stop the expedition, and
also taking measurements to determine the possibility of entry of large
sea vessels, since “there should be the building was built for a
servant’s dwelling, as well as for storing provisions for shops, and
from the Big River to the said bay the seashore has not yet been
described.”
Avacha Bay was discovered by Vitus Bering in 1729
during the return of the First Kamchatka Expedition to Okhotsk.
On October 6 (October 17 according to the present day), 1740, the packet
boats “St. Apostle Paul,” led by Alexei Chirikov, and “St. Apostle
Peter,” with commander Vitus Bering, arrived in Avacha Bay.
This
day is considered to be the birthday of the city of
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.
1779 - Peter and Paul Harbor was
visited by two English warships “Discovery” and “Resolution” of J.
Cook’s Third Around the World Expedition. C. Clark, who took over
leadership of the expedition after the death of J. Cook, was buried in
the harbor in August.
1787 - Petropavlovsk was visited by the
ships "Bussol" and "Astrolabe" of La Perouse's round-the-world
expedition.
1812 - Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky received the status
of a city and the name Petropavlovsk Harbor. A “New Regulation on
Kamchatka” was also issued, according to which the management of
Kamchatka was entrusted to a special chief. The place of residence of
the chief was “designated” as Peter and Paul Harbor, which became the
capital of Kamchatka.
December 2, 1849 - The Kamchatka region was
formed, headed by Governor V.S. Zavoiko, with the center - the
Petropavlovsk port.
In 1922, the Kamchatka province was formed on
the territory of the Kamchatka region.
The Kamchatka region was
formed on October 20, 1932 as part of the Khabarovsk Territory.
On July 22, 1934, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee decided to
include the Chukotka and Koryak national districts into the Kamchatka
region.
In August 1938, a diesel submarine base was created in
the Tarya Bay of the Avacha Bay. It was from this time that the future
Vilyuchinsk became a city of submariners.
Since January 23, 1956,
the region has been an independent region. The Koryak Autonomous Okrug
was also located on the territory of the Kamchatka region.
The
city of Vilyuchinsk was formed on October 16, 1968 by Decree of the
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR by merging the working
villages of Rybachy (nuclear submarine base), Primorsky (coastal support
units of the Pacific Fleet) and Seldevaya (ship repair plant of the
Navy). It got its name from the neighboring volcano - Vilyuchinsky. The
villages themselves received the status of microdistricts.
In
1959, by the personal decision of N. S. Khrushchev, the 4th Pacific
Oceanographic Expedition TOGE-4 was formed in the Soviet Union, which
gave a powerful impetus to the development of the region.
Since
the end of 1959, the ship repair industry began to develop in the
region, and a few years later nuclear submarines of the Pacific Fleet
settled in Krasheninnikov Bay.
In 1959-60, a military unit of
naval anti-submarine pilots was stationed in Rybachye, and military
units of anti-submarine pilots were created.
In May 1970, Admiral
of the USSR Fleet S.G. Gorshkov founded the Rybachy House of Fleet
Officers (DOF) in the microdistrict.
In 1973, a monument to
submariners who died while performing military duty was unveiled.
On July 28, 1996, a memorial was opened in Vilyuchinsk in honor of
the submariners who died while performing combat missions. The names of
the L-16 submariners are inscribed on a copper plate attached to the
submarine's conning tower; the names of the K-129 and K-429 crew members
are inscribed on granite slabs.
In 1998, the flotilla of nuclear
submarines of the Pacific Fleet of the Russian Federation was
reorganized into a squadron of nuclear submarine missile cruisers. In
NATO reference books, this Russian submarine base is called the Hornet's
Nest.
On October 23, 2005, a referendum was held on the
unification of the Kamchatka region and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug. The
population supported the unification of the regions.
On July 7,
2006, the Federation Council approved the law “On the formation of a new
constituent entity of the Russian Federation as a result of the
unification of the Kamchatka region and the Koryak Autonomous Okrug.”
As a result, a new subject of the Russian Federation was formed,
which since July 1, 2007 has been called the Kamchatka Territory; an
administrative-territorial unit with a special status has been created
within the region - the Koryak Okrug.
On August 28, 2015, the
Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation “On the creation of
the territory of rapid socio-economic development “Kamchatka”” was
adopted to create conditions for strengthening Russia’s economic
position in the competitive markets of the countries of the Asia-Pacific
region and stimulating the socio-economic development of the Kamchatka
Territory through the creation of additional jobs, new industrial and
tourist facilities, production of export-oriented and
import-substituting products, attracting investment.
The Kamchatka Territory occupies the territory of the Kamchatka
Peninsula, the adjacent part of the mainland, Karaginsky Island and the
Commander Islands. It is washed from the east by the Bering Sea (coast
length is more than 2000 km), from the west by the Sea of Okhotsk (coast
length is approximately 2000 km).
Up to 14,100 rivers and streams
flow through the territory of the Kamchatka Territory. The main rivers:
Kamchatka (length 758 km), Penzhina (713 km), Kuyul (Talovka) (458 km),
Vyvenka (395 km), Pakhacha (293 km), Apuka (296 km), Ukelayat (288 km).
Lakes: Talovskoye (44 km²), Palanskoye (28 km²).
Mountain ranges:
Sredinny (length about 900 km), Eastern, Vetveysky, Penzhinsky,
Pakhachinsky, Olyutorsky, etc. Heights: Khuvkhoytun (2613 m), Ledyanaya
(2562 m), Ostraya (2552 m), Shishel (2531 m), Tylele Hill (2234 m).
Kamchatka belongs to a zone of active volcanic activity; there are
about 300 large and medium-sized volcanoes, 29 of them are active. The
largest volcano in Eurasia is Klyuchevskaya Sopka (height 4750 m). The
activity of volcanoes is associated with the formation of many minerals,
as well as the manifestation of hydrogeothermal activity: the formation
of fumaroles, geysers, hot springs, etc.
The Kamchatka region is
located in a 12-hour zone called Kamchatka time. The UTC offset is
+12:00. The difference with Moscow, the capital of the Russian
Federation, is 9 hours.
Its territory is roughly comparable to
Papua New Guinea and Cameroon.
The climate in the northern part of the region is subarctic, on the
coasts it is temperate maritime with a monsoon character, and in the
interior regions it is continental. Winter is long and snowy; average
temperatures in January-February range from −7… −8 °C in the south and
southeast, −10… −12 °C in the west to −19… −24 °C in the center and
north. Summer is short, usually cool and rainy; average temperatures in
July and August range from +10...+12 °C in the west, +12...+14 °C in the
southeast and up to +16 °C in the central part. Precipitation varies
greatly: from 300 mm per year in the extreme northwest of the region to
2500 mm per year in the southeast.
Most of the peninsula is
covered with stone birch forests; alder and cedar dwarf trees are common
in the upper parts of the mountain slopes. In the central part,
especially in the Kamchatka River valley, forests of Kuril larch and
Ayan spruce are common. In the floodplains of the rivers, forests grow
with the participation of fragrant poplar, hairy alder, choicenia, and
Sakhalin willow. In the second tier and undergrowth, green-fleshed
hawthorn, Asian bird cherry, Kamchatka rowan, shrubs - Kamchatka
elderberry, blunt-eared rosehip, elderberry rowan, Kamchatka
honeysuckle, meadowsweet, shrubby willows and many other species are
common. Kamchatka, especially coastal areas, is characterized by tall
grasses - species such as Kamchatka shelamaynik, bear's angelica, and
sweet hogweed reach a height of 3-4 meters.
The fauna is
represented by many species, among the largest land mammals are the
brown bear, bighorn sheep, reindeer, elk, and wolverine. Also common are
fox, sable, squirrel, mink, ermine, weasel, muskrat, Arctic ground
squirrel, black-capped marmot, pika, voles and shrews. The wolf is quite
rare and is more typical for the northern part of the peninsula. Among
the relatively rare species in Kamchatka are also chiropterans, or bats
- Brandt's bat, northern bat, eastern brown long-eared bat (presumably
found in the lower reaches of the Kamchatka River). The coasts and
coastal waters are inhabited by sea otters, sea lions, fur seals,
spotted seals, anturas, cetaceans - killer whales, gray whales,
porpoises and others.
About 240 species of birds are found in
Kamchatka, among which marine colonial and wetland species are
especially noticeable. Passeriformes are also numerous, and birds of
prey are also found (steller's sea eagle, white-tailed eagle, golden
eagle, gyrfalcon, peregrine falcon, goshawk, osprey, etc.)
There
are no land reptiles on the peninsula; there are only two species of
amphibians - the Siberian salamander and the lake frog.
More than 14.5% of the territory of the Kamchatka Territory is
classified as specially protected. There is the Kronotsky Nature
Reserve, the Yuzhno-Kamchatsky Nature Reserve of federal significance,
and two sanatorium-resort areas - Paratunka Resort, Malkinsky Mineral
Waters); four natural parks of regional significance (“Nalychevo”,
“Bystrinsky”, “South-Kamchatsky”, “Klyuchevskoy”); 22 reserves of
regional significance; 116 natural monuments; four specially protected
natural areas (the Blue Lakes landscape nature park, the South-Western
tundra and Sobolevsky reserves).
Six zones called “Volcanoes of
Kamchatka” are included in the UNESCO World Heritage List: Kronotsky
Biosphere Reserve, Uzon Volcano Caldera, Bystrinsky Natural Park,
Nalychevo Natural Park, South Kamchatka Natural Park, Klyuchevskoy
Natural Park.
Koryaksky Nature Reserve, including Cape Govena, Lavrova Bay and
Parapolsky Dol (327 thousand hectares) The Koryaksky Nature Reserve has
been under the management of the Kronotsky State Nature Reserve since
April 2015.
Kronotsky Nature Reserve;
South Kamchatka Nature
Reserve (Located under the management of the Federal State Budgetary
Institution "Kronotsky State Reserve";
Commander Nature Reserve on
the Commander Islands.
Karaginsky Island (193 thousand hectares), Moroshechnaya River (150 thousand hectares), Belaya River (90 thousand hectares), Lake Palanskoye (88 thousand hectares), Kaazarok Lagoon (17 thousand hectares), Utkholok (50 thousand hectares). ha) etc.
Valley of Geysers, Palana geothermal springs, Anastasia Bay, o. Manchu, larch forest, amethysts of the Shamanka River, etc.
The flora of Kamchatka includes about 1,200 species of vascular
(higher) plants. There is a comparative impoverishment of the Kamchatka
flora in comparison with similar climatic zones of the Far East. The
dendroflora of the region, including the islands (Komandorsky and
Karaginsky), includes more than 100 species of trees, shrubs, subshrubs,
shrubs, lianas and other plants with woody stems, which accounts for
approximately 7% of the flora of vascular plants in the region.
Of the trees, the most common species is the Erman birch, or stone birch
(Betula ermanii), which forms sparse forests throughout the region and
reaches north to the south of the Koryak Highlands. In optimal
conditions, stone birch is a fairly large tree, up to 15-20 m tall and
90 cm in diameter. However, on the ocean coast, at the upper border of
the forest and in the north of the peninsula, due to unfavorable
climatic factors, its trunk is often strongly curved and rarely reaches
even 10 m in height.
Less common are large coniferous trees:
Okhotsk larch (Larix ochotensis) and Ayan spruce (Picea ajanensis),
forming forests mainly in the Kamchatka River valley. The endemic of the
peninsula, the graceful fir (Abies gracilis), is found on an area of
about 22 hectares only in the estuary of the Semyachik River on the
eastern coast of Kamchatka.
Sweet poplar, aspen, hairy alder,
choicenia, and Sakhalin willow grow mainly in river floodplains. In the
undergrowth in the central and southern regions of Kamchatka there are
Asian bird cherry, green-fleshed hawthorn, Kamchatka elderberry,
Kamchatka rowan, goat willow and others.
Along the mountain
slopes and plateaus, cedar or dwarf cedar (Pinus pumila) and Kamchatka
alder (Alnus kamtschatica) are widespread, forming unique dwarf forests
over vast areas.
Kamchatka is very characterized by tall grasses
- species such as sweet hogweed (Heracleum dulce), Kamchatka meadowsweet
(Filipendula camtschatica), bear angelica (Angelica ursina), Kamchatka
cacalia (Cacalia kamtschatica), common ostrich (Matteuccia
struthiopteris), etc. reach a height of 3-4 meters. Stepan
Krasheninnikov wrote: “The herbs throughout Kamchatka without exception
are so tall and juicy that it is difficult to find similar ones in the
entire Russian Empire. Along rivers, lakes and in copses they are much
taller than a person, and they grow so quickly that you can put hay in
one place at least three times a summer.”
Kamchatka is rich in
wild berries - edible honeysuckle grows on the peninsula, two types of
blueberries, crowberries (shiksha), lingonberries, two types of
cranberries, cloudberries, princely raspberries (Arctic raspberries),
Sakhalin raspberries, currants - red-fruited species: sad and
pale-flowered, and also rare here black-fruited currant-grouse, mountain
ash - large-fruited elder-leaf and small-fruited Kamchatka, redberry
(klopovka), stone drupe, etc.
The waters of Kamchatka are the only region of the World Ocean where
all six species of Pacific salmon live.
The waters washing
Kamchatka are rich in a variety of shellfish: mussel, littorina, whelk,
chiton; crustaceans: shrimp, king crab; marine mammals: seal, sea lion,
sea otter, walrus, fur seal, killer whale, as well as a large number of
fish species: in the Bering Sea - 394 species, in the Sea of Okhotsk -
270 species. One of the most common and abundant deep-sea game fish in
the area is the giant grenadier.
In the Pacific Ocean, the
species composition is even more diverse and includes fish families:
cod, flounder, herring, smelt, greenling or sea lenka, sea bass,
slingshot or goby, salmon, Pacific noble salmon, char, as well as marine
invertebrates.
The species composition of the rivers and lakes of Kamchatka is relatively poor; there are very few typical freshwater species - these are grayling, mykiss (a freshwater form of Kamchatka salmon), river and lake forms of Dolly Varden, smelt, sockeye salmon and coho salmon. Introduced silver crucian carp, Amur carp, and Siberian char are also found in the Kamchatka River basin. And only in the very north, mainly in the basin of the rivers Penzhina, Talovka, Rekinniki and some others, are species such as Penzhina omul, whitefish, pyzhyan and other whitefishes, as well as pike, sculpin, burbot and some others found.
In Kamchatka there are slaty gulls, puffin gulls, Beringian cormorants, Pacific guillemots, guillemots, and fulmars are representatives of the bazaars. The following species are also represented everywhere: crows, magpies, nutcrackers, wagtails, partridges, waders. Less accessible for observation are small birds such as the Little Flycatcher, Chinese Greenfinch, Spotted Pipit, Okhotsk Cricket, Gray Bunting, Whistling Nightingale, Brambling, Eastern Tit, Dubrovnik Bunting, Siberian Zhupan, Common Bee-eater, Bluetail, Mountain Great Snipe, Pink Gull . Many representatives of the predatory fauna, including Steller's sea eagle, white-tailed eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, osprey, hawk owl, etc.
The fauna of land mammals includes: Kamchatka sable, ermine, otter,
mountain hare, muskrat, fox, elk, reindeer, bighorn sheep, lynx, polar
wolf, wolverine, weasel, Beringian ground squirrel, Kamchatka marmot,
etc. The fauna has some features of the island character: in Kamchatka
there are not many taiga animals typical for Eastern Siberia and the Far
East - for example, musk deer, grouse - only in the very north of the
region (in the Penzhinsky region) is the flying squirrel found,
relatively recently the Yakut chipmunk penetrated through the Parapolsky
valley and further to the south, just like the lynx did in the 1930s. Of
the large predatory animals of the forest zone, the Kamchatka brown bear
was and remains the most noticeable and best known species.
Of
the arthropods, there are many spiders.
Among the amphibians
found in Kamchatka are the Siberian salamander, lake frog and grass
frog. The Siberian salamander is an indigenous species, distributed
throughout the entire peninsula up to the northernmost regions. The lake
frog, introduced to Kamchatka at the end of the 20th century, lives in
the Khalaktyrskoye, Medvezhye and Kultuchnoye lakes in
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, in the Paratunka Valley, in the vicinity of
the village of Malki, in the area of the Mutnovskaya GeoPP, as well as
in some thermal reservoirs in the Milkovsky and Bystrinsky districts.
The grass frog is so far known only from one point in the southwest of
the peninsula (Golyginskie Klyuchi), where it was deliberately
introduced in 2005 from the Moscow region. Within 10 years, the first
stable population of this species formed there.
There are no land
reptiles; twice, a leatherback sea turtle migrating from tropical seas
was caught off the coast of the peninsula.
Aquatic biological resources - fish, seafood.
Mineral waters of
various types and fresh waters.
The region has rich timber reserves.
Shanuchskoye copper-nickel field - up to 2.5 million tons of ore
(about 5% nickel, Bystrinsky district) - the Shanuchskoye mining and
processing enterprise is preparing for operation.
Olyutorsky deposit
of mercury ores and valley placers of platinum in the Olyutorsky
district.
Khalaktyrskoe deposit of titanium-magnetite sands
(concentrate reserves are about 6 million tons, dioxide reserves are up
to 0.8 million tons).
Despite the region’s insignificant total
reserves of 450–800 tons of gold, the concentration of ores is high,
ranging from 10 to 25 grams of metal per ton of ore:
"Amethyst" with
reserves of 102 tons;
"Rodnikovoe" with reserves of 40 tons;
Aginskoye gold deposit with reserves of 30 tons of gold, the Aginskoye
mining and processing plant operates;
"Ozernovskoe" and several gold
fields under investigation.
Deposits of the Okhotsk and Pacific oil and gas provinces:
western
coast (Kshukskoye, Severo-Kolpakovskoye, Sredne-Kunzhikskoye and
Nizhne-Kvakchikskoye fields (7.2 billion m³)), total established gas
reserves - 19.31 billion m³ - of local importance, in 2010 a gas
pipeline was laid to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky;
Exploration of
offshore fields is underway; predicted resources are estimated at 1.8
billion tons of oil and 2.3 trillion m³ of gas.
The Krutogorovskoye
deposit of brown coal of local importance (profitable reserves - about
100 million tons) in the Ust-Bolsheretsky region - pre-project
preparation for development, and several deposits of hard coal in the
Koryak district - Khairyuzovskoye (C2 - 1.377 million tons) and
Lesnovskoye (P1 - 2, 04 million tons, P2 - 5.9 million tons at a depth
of 100 m).
The region has significant hydropower potential:
The Penzhinskaya
Bay of the Sea of Okhotsk has enormous tidal potential, assessed in
Soviet times as part of the Penzhinskaya TPP project with a capacity of
87 GW;
The potential of the rivers of the peninsula is significant,
realized only by a few objects, in particular the Tolmachevsky
hydroelectric power stations with a total capacity of 45.2 MW. The total
potential of the rivers is estimated at up to 20 GW of operating power.
The potential of Kamchatka’s steam hydrotherms is also great, including
low-temperature ones, capable of stably providing heat energy, and the
total estimated electrical potential reaches 1 GW. Among the main
deposits:
Mutnovskoye (up to 413.6 million kWh of electricity per
year is generated at the Mutnovskaya and Verkhne-Mutnovskaya GeoPPs);
Pauzhetskoye (up to 60 million kWh of electricity per year is generated
at the Pauzhetskaya GeoPP).
The wind potential of the coast is high,
especially in the Ust-Kamchatsky, Sobolevsky regions and at Cape
Lopatka. There are two wind power plants: in the village of Nikolskoye
on the Commander Islands and in the village of Oktyabrsky.
In 2010,
Kamchatka generated 40% more electricity than needed, but in some places
there was a surplus and in others there was a shortage.