National parks of Russia

In 1961, Soviet geographers, headed by Innokenti Gerasimov, director of the Institute of Geography, USSR Academy of Sciences, visited the United States.

A similar natural park was also designed in the Lake Seliger area on the Valdai Hills.

In 1966, the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article by Innokenti Gerasimov and Vladimir Preobrazhensky, which discussed the need to create a system of natural parks in the USSR.

[1] The oldest parks in Russia are Sochinsky and Losiny Ostrov (1983); Samarskaya Luka (1984); Mariy Chodra (1985); Bashkiriya, Prielbrusye, Pribaykalsky, and Zabaykalsky (1986).

There should be a strictly protected area managed as a zapovednik, and also recreational and buffer zones in which economic activity is allowed, such as tourism, traditional land use, and benign forms of agriculture and forestry.