On March 1 the second stage of the nationwide “Seven Wonders of Ukraine” campaign will be launched in Ukraine. This time around the organizers of the event, the brainchild of MP Mykola Tomenko, are aiming to attract the attention of Ukrainians and foreign guests to the unique features of Ukraine’s natural surroundings and make our country more attractive for tourists.
“The results of the first round of this campaign are simply impressive: in 2007 over 23 million foreign tourists visited Ukraine. Ukrainians have also learned about the unique historic places that their country has to offer. According to approximate estimates, between 20 and 30 percent more Ukrainian tourists visited historic places than in previous years. Once people get to know Ukraine’s natural wonders, I am sure its image as an attractive tourist country will grow,” said Anatolii Pakhlia, the head of Ukraine’s State Tourism and Resorts Service.
According to the various oblast administrations, the campaign organizers have already selected 100 sites located in various regions of Ukraine. They include Zhukiv Island, Zamkova Hill in the Kyiv region, the highest waterfall in Ukraine — Uchan-Su in the Crimea — Volyn’s Lake Svitiaz, the fossil trees of the Donetsk region, Hetmanska Hill in the Cherkasy region, the Kremenets Mountains of Ternopil oblast, and the biosphere preserve of Askania Nova. After familiarizing themselves with these and other natural wonders, on July 7 this year the members of the jury will vote for 21 sites, and on the eve of Independence Day the seven natural wonders of Ukraine will be announced.
“Our country has a vast number of unique natural sites that should form part of the general knowledge of every schoolchild. The tourist guides that will be released after the campaign ends will have not only scientific but educational value,” said Petro Hozhyk, the head of the Institute of Geological Sciences at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
The organizers say that this campaign will also help preserve Ukraine’s unique nature from destruction. “More than half of the selected sites are being ruined. For example, the Kyiv municipal authorities are already building up Zhukiv Island. The famous Zamkova Hill is being dug up, trees in forest preserves are being cut down, and in Donetsk oblast it has come down to selling fossil trees piece by piece. Therefore, this will be a kind of ‘inventory’ of Ukraine’s natural wealth, after which these sites will be protected by the state. We will be saving natural landscapes from further destruction and fostering the development of ecological culture in young people,” said the parliamentarian Mykola Tomenko.
In six months the world will find out about Ukraine’s greatest natural wonders, that is, if they are not destroyed by exploiters until then.
COMMENTARY
Volodymyr HETMAN , chief specialist of the State Management and Control Department at the State Service of Kyiv Preserves:
“If we are talking about natural wonders, we must absolutely present seven truly unique sites from our nature-preserve heritage. For example, Russia has 859 nature and cultural heritage sites on UNESCO’s heritage list. In August 2007 only the ancient beech woods in Ukraine’s Carpathian Mountains were added to this list. But even earlier we had proposed many sites that may be regarded as Ukraine’s natural wonders. So far, the UNESCO list does not have a place for them. Therefore, they must be shown to Ukrainians. But in my opinion, the selection of sites should be made in a professional way, with scholars involved, not this way: if some village boss likes to take a rest under some oak tree, then it should be recognized as a wonder. Above all, we should present things that are part of Ukraine’s riches, things that can be shown to the whole world. Wonders are called wonders because there is nothing of the kind anywhere else, like the Great Wall of China or the Egyptian pyramids. The seven wonders of Ukraine should be sites about which we can boast to other countries and with the help of which Ukraine’s national image will be determined. In my opinion, one of the sites could be the Podolian Tovtry, whose territory is an example of ancient geological processes: there used to be coral reefs here; the biosphere preserve of Askania Nova, the only region of unbroken steppe in all of Europe, which has never been touched by a plow; the unique Danubian water-marshes; the Karadazh Natural Preserve, where there are extinct volcanoes from the Jurassic Period of the Mesozoic Era; Lake Svitiaz, the largest and deepest lake of natural origin in Ukraine (‘the Ukrainian Baikal’); and the chalk mountains of Donetsk region (the ‘Donetsk Switzerland’), rising to the height of 120 meters above the Siversky Donets River.”
