Uzunbodzhak Reserve

Worth a detour

Uzunbodzhak, also called Lopushna, is the largest reserve in Strandzha and one of Bulgaria's four biosphere reserves under the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere programme. It protects two thousand six hundred and sixty-one hectares of old-growth oak and oriental beech on the Turkish border. It is included here so that you know not to try: there is no marked route and entry needs written permission.

Story

Background

The reserve was declared in December 1956 and covers land in the Malko Tarnovo and Tsarevo municipalities, around the villages of Kosti and Slivarovo. Its stated purpose is the centuries-old mixed broadleaf forest of oak and oriental beech, the characteristic Strandzha shrub and grass layer, and the animal life that goes with them. It is one of four Bulgarian sites in the UNESCO biosphere network, alongside Central Balkan, Chervenata Stena and Srebarna.

The legal position is straightforward. In a Bulgarian reserve all activity is prohibited except guarding, visits for scientific purposes, passage along marked paths designated by ministerial order, seed collection for science, and firefighting or sanitary work. Two neighbouring Strandzha reserves have designated routes — Sredoka has three and Silkosiya one, with an escort — and the directorate publishes them. For Uzunbodzhak it publishes none, and states that entry is only by special permission from the environment ministry.

What that leaves a visitor is the edge. The forest of the reserve continues outside its boundary into the nature park, and the marked trails the directorate does publish — the Path of the Stars from Zvezdets to Brashlyan, the circuit at Kondolovo, the coastal geological routes — go through the same kind of woodland with the same understorey. If you want to see what Uzunbodzhak protects, walk one of those. If you want to see Uzunbodzhak, you need a research institute behind you.