Aytuarskaya Steppe

The Aytuarskaya Steppe is a section of the Orenburg Nature Reserve covering 6,753 hectares, on the left bank of the Ural River near the village of Aytuarka in Kuvandyk District, on Russia's border with Kazakhstan (Aktobe Region). Two Kazakh auls once stood here, and the meadow-steppe tracts were used for haymaking. In 1971 the Aytuarskaya Steppe became part of the Zagorny state farm, which ran goat breeding and haymaking until 1985, after which economic activity was curtailed. Since 1988 all economic activity in the steppe has been halted, apart from occasional horse grazing at the stud farm in Aytuarka for producing kumis.

The Aytuarskaya Steppe is the most mountainous section of the reserve and forms part of the Ural fold belt. It lies between the Alimbet and Aytuarka rivers on the left bank of the Ural. Geomorphologically the site is bounded on the east by the Central Ural Uplift and on the west by the outer fold zone of the Western Urals. The relief is dominated by erosional landforms, with gullies and their slopes, ridges and mounds crowned by outcrops of crystalline rock stretching between them.

The soils form under the influence of the relief's vertical zonation and a varied mix of parent rock. Processes of solonetzisation and salt accumulation play a particular role. Shallow southern chernozems with bedrock outcrops dominate the ridge tops and upper slopes, while carbonate chernozems occur in the southern part. The gully floors carry heavy-textured meadow-chernozem soils with a medium humus content, and meadow-bog soils form in closed depressions.

The drainage network is made up mostly of streams running along the gully floors, many of which dry up or flow only intermittently. The only permanent watercourse is the Aytuarka River, which borders the site on the west before joining the Ural. The area also has many springs.

The flora and fauna include numerous plant and animal species, among them rare and relict ones. Steppe and stony-steppe species dominate the vegetation cover, with aspen and birch stands in the thickets. The animal life includes many species of mammals and birds, some of them rare or endangered.

The Aytuarskaya Steppe is a benchmark of the mountain-gully landscapes of the Southern Urals and holds high conservation value. Its location close to the Kazakh border makes it a potential site for international cooperation in environmental protection and the creation of transboundary nature reserves.