Description of the attraction
You can see the diversity and beauty of the Crimean nature by visiting the Museum of Nature and the Arboretum in Alushta. It is located at the very entrance to the Crimean nature reserve near Alushta.
The museum was founded in 1923 on the basis of the Crimean State Nature Reserve. It is then that the plants of the entire Crimean peninsula are brought here. This reserve is one of the largest farms in Ukraine, its branch is the Swan Islands reserve located in the Karkinitsky Bay. The territory of the reserve is 44 hectares. Before the start of the revolution, there were lands for royal hunting here. Until 1942, the museum was located in the Kozmo-Damianovsky monastery, then it was destroyed by the Germans. And on the initiative of Khrushchev in 1957, the museum began to be restored. Since 1976, the museum has a new building and starts working again. In 1982, an arboretum located nearby was opened.
Not every vacationer has the opportunity to see and get acquainted with the unique nature of the entire peninsula, see rare plants that grow only in the south, or in the north of Crimea, get acquainted with the vegetation of mountains and forests, steppes and caves - you can see all this by visiting the Museum nature and arboretum.
Now the museum has more than one thousand six hundred exhibits. You will see faunistic, floristic and geological collections, get acquainted with relief maps that will tell you about the magnificent landscapes of the Crimean coast, learn about its inhabitants and see rare and endangered plant species, and how they are protected. You will also be able to get acquainted with the evolution of the plant world.
The main attraction of the museum are eight unique dioramas created by biologists and artists, representing the main natural complexes of the reserve. Thanks to the dioramas, we see all the beauty of oak, pine and beech forests, as well as the forestry of Nikitinskaya yayla, where the source of many rivers is mainly located.
There is an arboretum near the museum. Here, in spacious open-air cages, rare and typical representatives of the animal world, birds living in their natural environment live. There is a pond with swans, landscaped places for recreation with cozy gazebos, where you can relax for the whole family, as well as a company of travelers and tourists.
On the territory of the reserve there are ecological educational routes for organized visits.
