pure mountains

My name is Masha. I usually live in Moscow, but for several years now I have been able to spend almost the entire summer in the Elbrus region. In my free time, I walk a lot in the vicinity of the villages of Elbrus, Tegenekli, Verkhniy Baksan. I have two dogs and this gives me the opportunity to constantly explore new places, find new paths, for example, those trodden by domestic animals. What is great is that they always lead to different nice places, untouched corners of nature, the evidence of which is only horse or cow manure. There are many crowded places in the vicinity of the villages, where both tourists and locals come to relax in nature. One of them is Komsomolskoye Lake. This is a very beautiful place, with a landscape not quite typical for a mountainous area. The lake is actually a large artificial dam, along the banks of which several decades ago, a birch alley was planted, shady and picturesque, walking along it in hot weather is a pleasure, and swimming in the lake is always great for those who like to toughen up, because the water in the lake is very cold, from a mountain river. There are many clearings around the lake, where it is nice to have a small picnic. Some can be reached by car, which greatly simplifies the logistics for vacationers. But to my great regret, walking there quite often, I always see some kind of garbage left behind, for some reason people do not understand that nature is not a garbage dump, and no one will clean up the garbage that they leave behind. Once a couple of years ago, Lisa and I went there in her car, taking garbage bags and a shovel with us, since the day before I accidentally noticed in addition to a pile of plastic dishes left after the picnic, also quite a lot of broken glass from beer bottles. After spending about an hour, we buried everything that could not be collected, the rest was taken away in bags by car.

Where? To the garbage bins in the village. Why? Because everyone decides for themselves whether nature is dear to them, how carefully to treat it, because as the famous song goes - this world was not invented by us ... But it depends on us how we will see it. I want to see nature, so I almost always take garbage bags with me and, if possible, collect everything I can carry ... Of course, I would be more happy to collect mushrooms and berries, but that's another story!

It should also be added that this year they put up a sign "Elbrus National Park" near the lake, but people, as usual, continue to leave their garbage in the clearings around the lake after picnics and campfires. Nothing has changed, habits are very difficult to overcome. And because of the abundance of food waste, wild boars have come there, which feed on these human food wastes, and have also dug up the soil everywhere. It is now dangerous to pitch tents there, tourists said that a boar walked around their tent camp all night... What will happen next? Time will tell... Although this problem can be easily solved by the joint efforts of the national park and volunteers.