Travel Guide Pn De La Forêt De Belovej (Белавежская Пушча)

Created in 1939 and became UNESCO World Heritage in 1992, Belovezhskaya's National park is the pride of Belarus. The last relic of Europe's former primary forest, it stretches over 70 km from north to south, with an area of 152 961 hectares. The flora of the park has more than 1000 types of trees, shrubs and shrubs, 270 types of mosses, 600 types of fungi and 290 lichens. Wildlife is also very rich: 59 mammal species, over 250 species of birds, 27 species of fish and 10 000 species of insects. Wild boar, foxes, wolves, elk, deer, deer, lynx, marten and hare are walking on the forest trails. The forest tsar, as we call it here, is the bison. There are almost 800! Destroyed in Europe in the th century, these giants were successfully reintroduced here. The desire to protect the bison and save them from extinction has surely helped preserve the forest which, for centuries, has been used by Polish and Russian sovereigns as a hunting reserve. This forest has a particular significance in the history of Belarus and all the Soviet republics. On 8 December 1991, in Viskuli, in the centre of the forest, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus signed the treaty which ended the USSR and defines the status of a new union, the Commonwealth of Independent States. Today, the park is open to visitors who continue to wonder about the immensity of this true natural pearl.