It currently occupies 7,213 square kilometers and forms the core of the World Heritage Site Virgin Komi Forests.

The nature reserve is located in the south-eastern corner of the Komi Republic (Troitsko-Pechorsky District), on the western slopes of the Ural Mountains and the adjacent foothills and lowlands.

Originally, the reserve's main office was built in the village of Ust-Ilych, at the fall of the Ilych into the Pechora.

Access to that location being extremely difficult, the main office was moved in 1935 to the village of Yaksha, further upstream on the Pechora, but closer to the Kama River basin, via which the area communicated with the outside world in those days.

In 1951 the reserve was greatly reduced in size, to a mere 930 km2; its area became non-contiguous, with a small lowland section near Yaksha being separated from the highland part.

The wild reindeer have almost disappeared after the loss of the pine forest section of the reserve in 1951, and consequent habitat destruction.

At the same time, hunting operations allowed the collection of valuable statistics on the biology of the Pechora moose population.

A farm-raised moose can live as long as 18 years, although few reached that age because of the depredations of wolves, bears, and poachers on the free-ranging population.

Over the years, a number of research articles dealing with the physiology, ethology, and ecology of the moose were published by the biologists from the reserve, as well as from the research institutes in Syktyvkar and Moscow (e.g.[4] [5] [6]) Knorre's and his associates' moose domestication work at Pechora Ilych, as well as somewhat similar Muskox Domestication Project at the University of Alaska's Institute of Northern Agricultural Research, also provided valuable insights in the general theory of animal domestication.

[7] [8] The facility, located in the remote Northern Urals taiga, was never meant to turn a profit, and found itself in a difficult situation after the government funding cutbacks of the early 1990s.