Hannelotte.Kindlund@abc.se      December 2002

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Kamchatka, September 2002

• Introduction
• Kamchatka from helicopter and boat..........
• Birch forest
• Pacific coast
• Kronotzky park
• Avachinsky vulcano
• Mutnovsky vulcano
• Population etc

INTRODUCTION

In September 2002 my husband and I visited Kamchatka for almost two weeks.

I prepared the trip by surfing the Internet and by reading. The newly published Flora and Climatic Conditions of the North Pacific (Edit. Berkutenko et al) has been very important for my understanding of the Flora of Kamchatka. Alexandra Berkutenko has also been so kind, to help me with identification of plants after I had returned home.

Kamchatka is a peninsula in the easternmost part of Siberia, connected through the Aleutes with Alaska and through the Kurile Islands with Japan. Along Kamchatka's Pacific coast, you can find about 300 volcanoes, about 30 of them still active. The lowlands in the southern part of the island are covered by huge, untouched birch forests. The climate is cold and the two last weeks of September were a little late for botanizing. Only a few plants were in bloom, most seed was shed and in the mountains many plants had already gone dormant.

KAMCHATKA FROM HELICOPTER AND BOAT

The lowlands we saw in the south and the middle of Kamchatka were covered by huge birch forests (Betula ermanii). The birches are mixed with Alnus, Sorbus and Salix. The soil in these forests was deep humus mixed with some lava sand. The herb vegetation in these forests is very rich, compared with Sweden. Not only are there the giant herbs (2 m and higher), there is also an interesting low vegetation of Liliaceae and Orchidaceae. As expected, there were some plants we are used to see in the Swedish forests ( Maianthemum bifolium, Pteridium aquilinum and Trientalis europea). There are also - among many others - Trillium camchaticum, Cypripedium yatabeanum, Cypripedium macranthos, Fritillaria camschatcensis and Aconitum fischeri. But I didn't find these plants in the little wood, I had the opportunity to explore.

PACIFIC COAST

We visited the Pacific coast some 20 km north of Petropavlosk. The black beach was about 50 m broad and behind the beach a vast landscape of dunes reached into the countryside.

Between beach and dunes there were large colonies of Artemisia stelleriana and Senecio pseudo-arnica. In the first dune belt behind the beach, I found a far richer type of vegetation than expected: Iris setosa was very frequent here, there were some Fritillaria camschatcensis in seed, the small Gentianella auriculata and the quite attractive Saussurea tilesii in bloom - and Oxytropis arctica and the lovely Rubus arcticus were everywhere. When coming farther into the countryside, the vegetation changed into Vaccinium and Empetrum.

Saussurea tilesii	Artemisia stelleriana	Rubus arcticus	Gentianella auriculata
Rosa ragusa	Fritillaria camschatcensis *	Iris setosa *	Senecio pseudoarnica * * Pictures from my garden

KRONOTZKY PARK

The Kronotzky park is a volcano park, classified as a World Nature Heritage. In the vast park area, which you can reach only by helicopter, There are several volcanic phenomena. Among others, there is the Valley of Geysers, a 'must' for tourists. Within the park area you cannot move freely, but have to follow the prepared paths. The possibilities to botanise are thus very restricted. I found, however, some plants of Dactylorhiza aristata, a dark red orchid. You can also find Cypripedium macranthos in the park.

The tour to the 'Valley of Geysers' is often combined with a stop in the caldera of Uzon (a caldera is the large crater area of a collapsed volcano). Our visit in this caldera was one of the highlights of our trip. The fall colors of the mountain flora combined with the many different volcanic activities were overwhelmingly beautiful and impressing.

Caldera of Uzon	Spiraea beauverdiana	Arctostaphylos alpinus	Lycopodium sp
Caldera of Uzon	A dwarf vulcano, Caldera of Uzon	Spiraea beauverdiana	Eruption of the large geyser, Valley of Geysers.

AVACHINSKY

The mountains north of the capital Petropavlosk are dominated by the tops of Koryarsky (about 3 500 m) and Avachinsky (about 2700 m). Koryarsky hasn't been active in historical time, but Avachinsky is one of the most active volcanoes of Kamchatka. Our visit of Avachinsky was one of our last trips and we had been able to watch the snow covering more of the mountains for each day of our stay in Petropavlosk.

The bumpy ride in our four-wheel truck went through the broad riverbed formed by the spring floods from the mountains. We stopped at the altitude of about 1000 m on the plateau between the two mountains, where we were welcomed by a large number of curiously watching long-tailed marmots and a Kamchatka bear.

The flora of the Avachinsky massive is rather well known, since it is so easy to approach. In the investigation performed by Alexandra Berkutenko and her colleagues there were found 235 different species.

The plateau is covered by lava grit and lava sand. The main vegetation consisted of Salix arctica, different species of Vaccinium, several species of low, silvery Artemisia, Dryas punctata and Oxytropis kamchatica. There were also Loiseleuria procumbens, Phyllodoce and Cassiope, plants which are common also in European mountains. Among the dominating vegetation there were a lot of small cushions of plants, most of them totally new to me (see images). On a slope I found large colonies of Rhododendron aureum and hundreds of plants of Lagotis glauca.

Stellaria eschscholtziana	Salix arctica	Minuartia macrocarpa	Artemisia sp
Potentilla vulcanicola	Ermania parryoides and Artemisia glomerata	Cassiope ericoides	Gentiana algida
Androsace?? sp and Oxytropis kamchatica	Rhododendron aureum	Rhodiola sp ??	Sibbaldia procumbens
Rhododendron camchaticum (from my garden)	Kamchatka bear

MUTNOVSKY

Mutnovsky is a volcano not quite 100 km south of Petropavlosk. It is one of the most active volcanoes of Kamchatka. The last eruption was as late as in 2 000. Most people are going to the volcano via the new geo-termical factory, but we choose to approach Mutnovsky from the south. After a long ride through colorful vegetation of dwarf bushes, our little truck crossed the lava desert of a caldera at the altitude of 1800 m and we felt as if on the moon. When we eventually reached Mutnovsky, the path became so difficult that the truck almost turned over.

While Lech, our guide and driver, tried to find alternative ways, I used the break for a quick look at the obviously rich flora. Since the snow here hadn't melted before august, there were several plants in bloom. There were - among many other species - two different Cassiope, ´Rhododendron aureum, Lagotis glauca and several species of Saxifraga. I rushed for my camera, when the wind suddenly became stronger and it started to rain. An unexpected cyclone from Japan had reached us suddenly. I managed to take three photos before I had to seek rescue in the car, entirely soaked and chilled to my bones. The tour, which should have been one of the highlights of our stay, ended with a picnic in our truck in the desert of the caldera, now - in the on-going storm - still more desolate and scary. A real anti-climax!

Rhododendron aureum (In the garden of a friend)

Cassiope sp 1

Cassiope sp 2

Lagotis glauca

PEOPLE

Kamchatka has not even a half million inhabitants. The main part of them lives in or close to Petropavlosk. Most of them are Russians. There are only about 10 000 left of the native peoples. Those are mainly koryaks and ewenes. But there are also about 1 000 ilmenes and minor groups of aleutes. The majority of these people lives in the northeast of the peninsula and makes their living by keeping rein-deers and by hunting and fishing.

The Russians didn't colonize Kamchatka before in the 19-ies century. Sten Bergman, who was a member of the Swedish Kamchatka expedition 1920-22, mentioned in his book 'På hundsläde genom Kamchatka' that Petropavlosk had about 1 500 inhabitants in 1920. During the Soviet era Kamchatka became an important military area and was closed for visitors. In spite of the military roll of Kamchatka, the peninsula has experienced only one battle - and that was during the Crimean War in the 1850-ies, when French and English battleships attacked Petropavlosk. All of the attackers were killed and are buried in the little old-town.

Since the end of the cold war, the military importance of Kamchatka has decreased considerably and a great number of jobs have disappeared. Fishing is now the dominating business. The infrastructure is hardly developed; there are few roads and no trains. Many people are living in poverty and according to our guides the poverty is rapidly increasing.

Every year the village is situated in the same place, the Ilmene people raise one statue of the God Who Always is Hungry	Ilmene people in traditional clothes. In the background two of their summer-houses	Children of the Ilmene people
The guns at Avacha Bay, which defended the town of Petropavlosk during the Crimean War