Desert lakes - monuments of nature, excursion to the reserve

Pustynsky Reserve - a forest area of 6,200 hectares in the Seryozha basin between s. Old Pustyn and the village of Menshikovo, Arzamas District. * Here eight karst lakes and two peat bogs are taken under protection as natural monuments: Koz'e and Mostovoe. * On the border of subzones of mixed forests with oak forests, almost all types of natural landscapes and biocenoses of the middle zone of the European part of the country gathered in a small area. * The main attraction of the Pustynsky natural complex are eight deep-sea (up to 14 m.) Karst lakes: the Great, Holy, Deep, Round, Steam, Dolgoye, Narbus and Karasevo - connected in a single system with a total area of about 300 hectares From the very name of these lakes, a nature reserve of the Nizhny Novgorod region, breathes something romantic, mysterious. The name of the place, obtained in the neighboring village of the Old Desert of the Arzamas region, was not accidental. Indeed, the places here in the densely populated Right Bank are empty - forests and forests stretching for tens of kilometers along Serezha. Underground waters, dissolving local limestone and gypsum, fill the dips on the surface of the earth with water. Half of the Pustyn Lakes (Great, Deep, Steam and Long) are flowing - through them flows the river Seryozha. Imperceptibly turning on its long journey from a narrow blue ribbon into bays and lakes, it forms a real water maze. The remaining lakes are only occasionally interconnected by channels, making the water in them like rock crystal - clear and clean.