Luhansk Nature Reserve

The charming Starobilsk wild grasses-fescue-feather grass steppes, peculiar floodplain and ravine forests, sandy spaces on the banks of the Siverskyi Donets and the picturesque slopes of Donetsk Ridge – all these are about Luhansk Nature Reserve. The reserve has the following branches: “Striltsivskyi steppe”, “Provalskyi steppe”, “Triokhizbenskyi steppe” and “Stanychno-Luhanske”. Colourful steppe carpets are decorated with rare flowers: the fern leaf peony (Paeonia tenuifolia), the Schrenck’s tulip (Tulipa schrenkii), Bulbocodium versicolor, Onosma graniticola, Centaurea protogerberi. The reserve is one of the few habitats of rare steppe animal species – the steppe viper (Vipera renardi), the steppe ratsnake (Elaphe dione), the Blotched snake (Elaphe sauromates), the great great jerboa (Allactaga major), the southern birch mouse (Sicista subtilis), the northern mole vole (Ellobius talpinus); the symbol of the park is the steppe marmot (Marmota bobak).