{"id":6304,"date":"2018-05-31T06:43:55","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T03:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/?page_id=6304"},"modified":"2019-02-05T11:04:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T05:04:00","slug":"nature","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/destinations\/turkmenistan\/nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Nature"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nature of Turkmenistan<\/strong><\/p>\n

Turkmenistan`s flora includes thousands of species of plants, ranging from desert grasses to mountain forests. The fauna is presented with the species of 91 mammals, 372 birds, 74 reptiles and 60 fishes. While flora and fauna are poorly represented in the desert, then the mountain river valleys are true wealth of Turkmenistan`s nature. All this wealth is protected by the Badkyz, Krasnodar and Repetek Reserves.<\/p>\n

The climate of Turkmenistan is strongly continental. Daytime temperatures are very different: the average temperature in July of 30-32\u00b0\u0421 lowers to -5\u00b0\u0421 in winter time. The average annual rainfall varies from 80 mm in the deserts to 400 mm in the mountains. At the same time, the plains feature frequent hot winds and dust storms.<\/p>\n

Most tourists are attracted to Turkmenistan by the unique natural landmarks: tremendous flora \u2013 forests of wild fruit and nuts trees, juniper forests on mountain slopes, pistachio savanna forests, saxaul forests, flood-plain tugais; diverse fauna \u2013 Central Asian leopards, argalis, koulans, goitered gazelles; enchanting sceneries \u2013 from picturesque mountain ridges to lifeless desert sands, from green oases to multikilometer sea coast.<\/p>\n

Turkmenistan is famous for its caves. The most known of them are the Karlyuk caves<\/strong>. They are located on the slope of Kugitangtau Ridge<\/strong> and are considered unique natural sanctuaries, they are equal to none in entire Eurasia; by right included in the List of the World Legacy of UNESCO.<\/p>\n

Karlyuk caves are typical representation of various karst forms. There have been found around 60 caves with total length of 50 km, with galleries, passages, halls, labyrinths.<\/p>\n

The caves are rich in wandering formations of plaster, calcite, aragonite in the form of stalactites, stalagmites, stone curtains etc. A lot of caves have not been explored yet.<\/p>\n

In the west of Turkmenistan, there are about 30 mud volcanoes. They are of various forms and exteriors. Periodically they throw up a mixture of mud masses, gases, waters and oil on the surface. The biggest volcano is called Aligul (extinct). The most ancient is the Boyadag mud volcano<\/p>\n

Kara Kum Desert<\/strong><\/p>\n

Barchans of the Kara Kum sands occupy 7 % of flat territories and are characteristic form of sandy relief. They occur in places lacking of vegetation.<\/p>\n

Kara Kum is a sand desert stretching for 350,000 km2 from the Caspian Sea to Pamir foothills and from Amu Darya to Kopet Dag ridge. Its name is translated as \u201cblack sands\u201d (\u201ckara\u201d \u2013 black, \u201ckum\u201d \u2013 sand). The dessert corresponds to its gloomy name, because some of its parts were previously completely waterless for hundreds of kilometers, and anyone who tried to cross it, found a terrible death under the scorching sun of Asia.<\/p>\n

Structurally, Kara Kum is a rugged plain with sand ridges and dunes connected with small salt marshes and takyrs. It is divided into the Zaunguz Kara Kum, located on a plateau, the Central Kara Kum, spread in the lowlands, and South-Eastern Kara Kum, gradually developing into the Kugitangtau foothills.<\/p>\n

There is practically no surface water in the form of oases, but large volumes of groundwater, hidden beneath the sands, has a discharge through dug wells. Besides, the desert is crossed by the huge Kara Kum Canal, which takes water from the Amu Darya and carries it away almost for 1,000 km to the desert. In addition, in the south, there are several rivers flowing down from the mountains and dissolving in the sands.<\/p>\n

Kara Kum`s climate is very severe. Summer temperature can reach +50\u00b0\u0421, while the soil can run hot as high as +80\u00b0\u0421. Winter features strong frosts up to -30\u00b0\u0421. Rainfall is very scanty, and precipitates mainly in November and April.<\/p>\n

Flora<\/strong><\/p>\n

Flora of Turkmenistan is made of relic forests, subtropics with a set of rare plants, picturesque nooks with preserved centuries-old vegetation.<\/p>\n

It represented by the sand sedge, acacia, saksaul, and in spring, by grasses and flowers which cover huge areas, except for dunes, and completely dry up by May. Fauna of the Karakum desert includes gazelles, foxes, wolves, various rodents, lizards, snakes and insects. Besides the wildlife, grassland farming to raise sheep and camels is also common there.<\/p>\n

More than 2.5 thousand plant species grow on the territory of Turkmenistan including about 700 ones in the Kara Kum Desert. Among the most precious plants is 2,000-thousand-old juniper (Turkmen archa) growing on inaccessible tops of the Kopet Dagh. The unique country\u2019s grove called Unabi (Kugitang) has the trees whose age exceeds 200 years.<\/p>\n

In Karakala gorge grows the well-known 500-year-old Shakhoz (King of Nuts). Another unique nut grove is located in Ipaikala. Another attraction is the pistachio savanna Badkhyza with century-old trees on Kugitang. The savanna is unsurpassed in its beauty and rarity. In the foothills of the Kopet-Dagh grow about 1,700 kinds of plants \u2013 this is the largest \u201ccollection\u201d in Central Asia.<\/p>\n

The desert flora is represented by the oldest black saxaul, which has survived in Yeradzhin natural reserve.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nature of Turkmenistan Turkmenistan`s flora includes thousands of species of plants, ranging from desert grasses to mountain forests. The fauna is presented with the species of 91 mammals, 372 birds, 74 reptiles and 60 fishes. While flora and fauna are poorly represented in the desert, then the mountain river valleys are true wealth of Turkmenistan`s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1083,"parent":6283,"menu_order":4,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"page_country.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6304"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11361,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6304\/revisions\/11361"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/6283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ak-sai.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}