Age of Russian forests. Why are all trees young in Russia, while trees in America are long-lived? But in Russia there is a lot of coal Age of trees in the Siberian taiga

Russia is the largest forest power in the world. It is all the more surprising that our forests are very young, they are no more than 200 years old.

They would live and live

For the first time I thought about this, considering the paintings of I.I. Shishkin. Something about them bothered me. And one day I realized: the beautiful forest in all the pictures bears little resemblance to the dense, rather, young growth is depicted. Why did the artist not capture the forest with old, centuries-old trees? Yes, because there was no such forest in those years on the territory of Russia.

In order for the reader to have an understanding of how long a tree can live, I will name the age of some trees. Olive lives 2000 years, royal oak - 2000, berry yew - 2000, juniper - 1700-2000 years, oak - 500-900, cedar pine - 1200 years, sycamore maple - 1100, Siberian larch - 700-900, Siberian cedar - 850, linden - 800, spruce - 300, birch - 100-120 years. The main characters of our forests are pine, spruce, birch, oak.

According to the researchers of the Polar-Alpine Botanical Garden-Institute A.V. Kuzmina and O.A. Goncharova, average age trees of the Murmansk region are about 150 years old. The picture is similar throughout Russia. Don't believe? Get out into the forest and try to find at least one tree older than 200-300 years. It won't work. And such a tree would be visible from afar. For example, a spruce of this age should be at least two meters in diameter! According to archaeologists excavating ancient city Arkaim, in Chelyabinsk region coniferous forests grew with trees with a diameter of more than five meters!

There are historical sources that testify that our forests should have a more solid age. Travelers of the 18th century reported on the large oaks of Valdai. There are also earlier sources. Alberto Campensee (1490–1542), a Dutch writer, reported on Muscovy in a letter addressed to Pope Clement VII: “In general, they have much more forest than we do. Pine trees are incredible in size, so one tree is enough for the mast of the largest ship. IN official history Until the 18th century, Muscovy was the name of the entire territory of Russia. Hence the question is natural: where are the trees in Russia that are more than 500 years old? There is none of them. There are, of course, individual specimens preserved thanks to man. For example, the so-called Peter's oaks in the Kolomenskoye Museum-Reserve in Moscow, which are about 500 years old.

General rejuvenation

The Tale of Bygone Years mentions a huge forest area - the Okovsky forest, the remains of which are located in the southwestern part of the Tver region. Written this chronicle around 1110-1118. It turns out that the trees in the Okovsky forest should be at least 900 years old, and given that the forest was already standing at the time of writing the Tale and the events described in it, then the age of some species should be more than 1000 years. The basis of the Okovsky forest was spruce forests and oaks. According to the tree age tables, there must be an old forest here. But in the forests of the Tver region, the average age of trees is again about 150 years.

In a normal forest, there should be both old trees and young ones, just like in the photo late XIX- early twentieth century - deforestation in Humboldt County, California. Note - thick trees next to thin ones, that is, old with young growth. But... Why don't trees have tops? As if the forest had undergone some kind of catastrophic impact. We can observe a similar picture in the photo of the place where the Tunguska meteorite fell in 1908. Then in Siberia, a forest was felled on an area of ​​2000 km². But the most interesting thing is that there are no old trees of large diameter at the site of the fall of the Tunguska body. That is, at that time a young forest was growing in Siberia! But the main reserves of forests in Russia are concentrated in Siberia.

Another proof of the youth of our forests is the wide distribution of birches. As you know, many of their species grow on the site of clearings, burnt areas, wastelands. Average duration life of a birch is 100–120 years. If we start from the average age of forests of 150 years, then it turns out that most of Russia's forests underwent catastrophic destruction around 1840-1870. But, most likely, the most correct date is 1810-1815. After the destruction of forests, the land was entirely a zone of fires. And only by 1840 began their full-scale restoration. In place of the so-called deforestation, new young growth has grown.

What Science Says

It is worth immediately abandoning the version that the forests were destroyed by felling for household needs: for kindling or housing construction. Yes, the forest was used by man. For example, during the time of Catherine II, the trade in ship timber flourished. Oaks were used, according to the German traveler Adam Olearius (1599–1671), "for ritual fire in honor of Perun the Thunderer." But it is impossible to destroy the forest on the territory of, say, the same Tver region in a short period of time. Yes, the Russian people did not treat the forest so barbarously. For him, the forest has always been a breadwinner. Picking mushrooms, berries, medicinal plants, hunting, beekeeping - part of the way of life, a way to survive in the years of crop failure. The forest is an integral part of the folklore and mythology of the Rus. Pain-boshka, Borovik, Goblin, Mokhovik and other characters lived there.

The version of natural fires also does not stand up to criticism. The forest cannot burn all over Russia at the same time. Only if the fires are caused artificially. Let me remind you that in 2010, 2 million hectares of forest burned in 20 regions of the country. Experts immediately dubbed this event a disaster, and alternative researchers said that the forest was set on fire artificially, including from space satellites.

Official science recognizes the youth of forests in Russia. Science also recognizes, for example, that Siberian larch currently grows mainly in burnt areas. The study of the boundaries of its age showed interesting results: trees under 50 years old - 7.1%; 51-100 years old - 3.7%; 101-200 years - 68%; 201-299 years - 20.5%; over 300 years - 0.7%. The age of the main mass of larch is 101–200 years. And according to the table of ages, Siberian larch is listed as a centenarian and, under normal conditions, should reach the age of 700–900 years. Where are these centenarians in their native forests? Logically modern science- burned down. Since "forest fires are the main mechanism for reforestation, replacement of old trees with young ones," therefore, natural fires do not allow trees to live to an advanced age. However, there is a unique natural source wood like bog oak or, in other words, "ebony". It is mined from the depths of rivers and swamps, in those places where the oak grew many thousands of years ago. The black color of the tree acquires more than 1000 years of staining. The diameter of some specimens is sometimes more than two meters! This means that modern oaks may well and should be much older and, accordingly, larger.

Alexey Kozhin

Photography - shutterstock.com ©

Continue reading in the June issue (No. 6, 2015) of the magazine "Miracles and Adventures"

It was precisely the wary attitude towards the statements of Alexei Kungurov about the Perm forests and clearings, at one of his conferences, that prompted me to conduct this study. Well, how! There was a mysterious hint of hundreds of kilometers of clearings in the forests and their age. I was personally hooked by the fact that I walk through the forest quite often and far enough, but I did not notice anything unusual.
And this time an amazing feeling was repeated - the more you understand, the more new questions appear. I had to re-read a lot of sources, from materials on forestry of the 19th century, to the modern "Instructions for conducting forest management in the forest fund of Russia." This did not add clarity, rather the opposite. However, there was confidence that it's dirty here.
First amazing fact , which was confirmed - dimension of the quarter network. The quarterly network, by definition, is “The system of forest quarters created on the lands of the forest fund for the purpose of inventorying the forest fund, organizing and maintaining forestry and forest management”. The quarterly network consists of quarterly glades. This is a straight strip freed from trees and shrubs (usually up to 4 m wide), laid in the forest in order to mark the boundaries of forest quarters. During forest inventory, cutting and clearing of a quarter clearing to a width of 0.5 m is carried out, and their expansion to 4 m is carried out in subsequent years by forestry workers.
In the picture you can see how these clearings look in Udmurtia. The picture was taken from the program "Google Earth"(see Fig.2). The quarters are rectangular. For measurement accuracy, a segment of 5 blocks wide is marked. She made 5340 m, which means that the width of 1 quarter is 1067 meters, or exactly 1 track verst. The quality of the picture leaves much to be desired, but I myself constantly walk along these clearings, and I know well what you see from above from the ground. Until that moment, I was firmly convinced that all these forest roads the work of Soviet foresters. But what the hell did they need mark the quarterly network in versts?
Checked. In the instructions, quarters are supposed to be marked with a size of 1 by 2 km. The error at this distance is allowed no more than 20 meters. But 20 is not 340. However, in all forest management documents it is stipulated that if block network projects already exist, then you should simply link to them. It is understandable, the work on laying the glades is a lot of work to redo.
Today, there are already machines for clearing clearings (see Fig. 3), but they should be forgotten, since almost the entire forest fund of the European part of Russia, plus part of the forest beyond the Urals, approximately to Tyumen, is divided into a verst block network. Of course, there is also a kilometer, because in the last century the foresters also did something, but mostly it was a verst. In particular, there are no kilometer clearings in Udmurtia. And this means that the project and practical laying of the quarterly network in most of the forest areas of the European part of Russia were made no later than 1918. It was at this time that the metric system of measures was adopted for mandatory use in Russia, and the verst gave way to the kilometer.
It turns out made with axes and jigsaws if, of course, we understand historical reality correctly. Considering that the forest area of ​​the European part of Russia is about 200 million hectares, this is a titanic work. The calculation shows that total length clearing is about 3 million km. For clarity, imagine the 1st lumberjack armed with a saw or an ax. During the day, he will be able to clear an average of no more than 10 meters of clearing. But we must not forget that these works can be carried out mainly in winter time. This means that even 20,000 lumberjacks, working annually, would create our excellent verst block network for at least 80 years.
But there has never been such a number of workers involved in forest management. According to the articles of the 19th century, it is clear that there were always very few forestry specialists, and the funds allocated for these purposes could not cover such expenses. Even if we imagine that for this they drove peasants from the surrounding villages to free works, it is still not clear who did this in the sparsely populated areas of the Perm, Kirov, Vologda regions.
After this fact, it is no longer so surprising that the entire block network is tilted by about 10 degrees and is not directed to the geographic North Pole, and, apparently, magnetic(marking was carried out using a compass, and not a GPS navigator), which should have been located at that time about 1000 kilometers in the direction of Kamchatka. And it is not so embarrassing that the magnetic pole, according to the official data of scientists, has never been there from the 17th century to the present day. It’s not even frightening that even today the compass needle points in approximately the same direction in which the quarterly network was made before 1918. It still can't be! All logic falls apart.
But it is. And in order to finish off the consciousness clinging to reality, I inform you that all this economy must also be serviced. According to the norms, a complete audit takes place every 20 years. If it passes at all. And during this period of time, the “forest user” should monitor the clearings. Well, if in Soviet time someone followed, then over the past 20 years is unlikely. But clearings are not overgrown. There is a windbreak, but there are no trees in the middle of the road. But in 20 years, a pine seed that accidentally fell to the ground, of which billions are sown annually, grows up to 8 meters in height. Not only are the clearings not overgrown, you will not even see stumps from periodic clearings. This is all the more striking in comparison with power lines, which special brigades cleared of grown shrubs and trees regularly.
This is what typical clearings in our forests look like. Grass, sometimes bushes, but no trees. There are no signs of regular maintenance (see Fig. 4 and Fig. 5).
The second big mystery is the age of our forest, or trees in this forest. In general, let's go in order. First, let's figure out how long a tree lives. Here is the relevant table.

In different sources, the numbers differ slightly, but not significantly. Pine and spruce should survive under normal conditions up to 300…400 years. You begin to understand how ridiculous everything is only when you compare the diameter of such a tree with what we see in our forests. Spruce 300 years old should have a trunk with a diameter of about 2 meters. Well, like in a fairy tale. The question arises: Where are all these giants? No matter how much I walk through the forest, I have not seen thicker than 80 cm. They are not in the mass. There are piece copies ( in Udmurtia - 2 pines) that reach 1.2 m, but their age is also no more than 200 years. In general, how does the forest live? Why do trees grow or die in it?
It turns out that there is a concept "natural forest". This is a forest that lives its own life - it has not been cut down. He has distinguishing feature- low crown density from 10 to 40%. That is, some trees were already old and tall, but some of them fell affected by a fungus or died, losing competition with their neighbors for water, soil and light. Large gaps form in the forest canopy. A lot of light begins to get there, which is very important in the forest struggle for existence, and young growth actively begins to grow up. Therefore, the natural forest consists of different generations, and crown density is the main indicator of this.
But if the forest was subjected to clear cutting, then new trees for a long time grow at the same time, crown density is high, over 40%. Several centuries will pass, and if the forest is not touched, then the struggle for a place under the sun will do its job. It will become natural again. Do you want to know how much natural forest in our country that is not affected by anything? Please, a map of Russian forests (see Fig.6).
The bright colors indicate forests with high canopy density, i.e. they are not “natural forests”. And most of them are. All European part denoted by saturated blue color. This is as stated in the table: "Small-leaved and mixed forests. Forests with a predominance of birch, aspen, gray alder, often with an admixture coniferous trees or with individual sections coniferous forests. Almost all of them are derived forests that have formed on the site of primary forests as a result of logging, clearing, forest fires ... "
On the mountains and the tundra zone, you can not stop, there the rarity of the crowns may be due to other reasons. But the plains and middle lane covers clearly a young forest. How young? Come down and check. It is unlikely that you will find a tree older than 150 years in the forest. Even the standard drill for determining the age of a tree is 36 cm long and is designed for a tree 130 years old. How does this explain forest science? Here's what they came up with:
“Forest fires are a fairly common phenomenon for most of the taiga zone of European Russia. Moreover: forest fires in the taiga are so common that some researchers consider the taiga as a lot of fires. different ages- more precisely, a lot of forests that have formed on these burned areas. Many researchers believe that forest fires are, if not the only, then at least the main natural mechanism for forest renewal, the replacement of old generations of trees with young ones ... "
All this is called. That's where the dog is buried. The forest was on fire, and burned almost everywhere. And this, according to experts, main reason small age of our forests. Not fungus, not bugs, not hurricanes. Our entire taiga stands on fire, and after a fire, the same thing remains as after clear-cutting. From here high crown density almost throughout the entire forest zone. Of course, there are exceptions - really untouched forests in the Angara region, on Valaam and, probably, somewhere else in the expanses of our vast Motherland. There are really fabulous big trees. in its mass. And although these are small islands in the boundless sea of ​​the taiga, they prove that forest can be.
What is so common in forest fires that over the past 150 ... 200 years they have burned the entire forest area of ​​​​700 million hectares? Moreover, according to scientists, in some checkerboard pattern respecting the sequence, and certainly at different times?
First you need to understand the scale of these events in space and time. The fact that the main age of old trees in the bulk of forests is at least 100 years old, suggests that large-scale fires, which so rejuvenated our forests, occurred over a period of no more than 100 years. Translating to dates, for one only 19th century. For this it was necessary burn 7 million hectares of forest annually.
Even as a result of large-scale forest fires in the summer of 2010, which all experts called catastrophic in terms of volume, only 2 million hectares. It turns out that there is nothing "so ordinary" in this. The last justification for such a burned past of our forests could be the tradition of slash-and-burn agriculture. But how, in this case, to explain the state of the forest in places where traditionally agriculture was not developed? In particular, in Perm region? Moreover, this method of farming involves the labor-intensive cultural use of limited areas of the forest, and not at all unrestrained arson of large areas in the hot summer season, but with a breeze.
Going through everything possible options, it can be said with certainty that scientific concept "dynamics of random disturbances" nothing in real life not justified, and is myth, designed to mask the inadequate state of the current forests of Russia, and hence events leading to this.
We will have to admit that our forests either burned heavily (beyond the norm) and constantly burned throughout the 19th century (which in itself is inexplicable and is not recorded anywhere), or burned down at the same time as a result some incident, why furiously denies scientific world, having no arguments, except that nothing of the kind is recorded in the official history.
To all this, one can add that there were clearly fabulously large trees in the old natural forests. It has already been said about the reserved surviving areas of the taiga. It is worth giving an example in part deciduous forests. IN Nizhny Novgorod region and in Chuvashia very favorable climate for deciduous trees. grows there great amount oaks. But you, again, will not find old copies. The same 150 years old, no older. Older single copies are all over the place. There is a photo at the beginning of the article the largest oak tree in Belarus. It grows in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (see Fig. 1). Its diameter is about 2 meters, and its age is estimated at 800 years which, of course, is highly arbitrary. Who knows, maybe he somehow survived the fires, it happens. The largest oak in Russia is considered to be a specimen growing in the Lipetsk region. According to conditional estimates, he 430 years(see Fig.7).
A special theme is bog oak. This is the one that is extracted mainly from the bottom of the rivers. My relatives from Chuvashia told me that they pulled huge specimens up to 1.5 m in diameter from the bottom. AND there were many(see Fig.8). This indicates the composition of the former oak forest, the remains of which lie at the bottom. This means that nothing prevents the current oaks from growing to such sizes. What, before "dynamics of random disturbances" in the form of thunderstorms and lightning worked somehow in a special way? No, everything was the same. And so it turns out that the current forest has not yet reached maturity.
Let's summarize what we got as a result of this research. There are a lot of contradictions between the reality that we observe with our own eyes and the official interpretation of the relatively recent past:
- There is a developed quarterly network on a huge space, which was designed in versts and was laid no later than 1918. The length of the glades is such that 20,000 lumberjacks, subject to manual labor, would create it for 80 years. Clearings are serviced very irregularly, if at all, but they do not overgrow.
- On the other side, according to historians and surviving articles on forestry, there was no funding of a commensurate scale and the required number of forestry specialists at that time. There was no way to recruit a similar amount of free labor. There was no mechanization capable of facilitating these works. It is required to choose: either our eyes deceive us, or The 19th century was not like that at all as historians tell us. In particular, there could be mechanization, commensurate with the described tasks (What could this steam engine from the film “The Barber of Siberia” be intended for (see Fig. 9). Or is Mikhalkov a completely unthinkable dreamer?).
There could also be less labor-intensive, efficient technologies for laying and maintaining clearings that have been lost today (some distant analogue of herbicides). It is probably foolish to say that Russia has not lost anything after 1917. Finally, perhaps, they did not cut through the clearings, but in the spaces destroyed by the fire, trees were planted in quarters. This is not such nonsense, compared to what science draws us. Though doubtful, it at least explains a lot.
- Our forests are much younger the natural lifespan of the trees themselves. This is evidenced by the official map of the forests of Russia and our eyes. The age of the forest is about 150 years, although pine and spruce under normal conditions grow up to 400 years, and reach 2 meters in thickness. There are also separate sections of the forest from trees of similar age.
According to experts, all our forests are burned out. It is the fires in their opinion, do not give the trees a chance to live to their natural age. Experts do not even allow the thought of the simultaneous destruction of vast expanses of forest, believing that such an event could not go unnoticed. To justify this ashes, official science adopted the theory of "dynamics of random disturbances". This theory proposes that forest fires are considered commonplace, destroying (according to some incomprehensible schedule) up to 7 million hectares of forest per year, although in 2010 even 2 million hectares destroyed as a result of deliberate forest fires were named catastrophe.
You need to choose: or our eyes deceive us again, or some great events of the 19th century with particular impudence did not find their reflection in the official version of our past, no matter how

Another notch to remember. Is everything honestly and objectively stated in the official history?

Most of our forests are young. Their age is from a quarter to a third of life. Apparently, in the 19th century, some events took place that led to the almost total destruction of our forests. Our forests hold great secrets...

It was the wary attitude towards the statements of Alexei Kungurov about the Perm forests and clearings, at one of his conferences, that prompted me to conduct this study. Well, how! There was a mysterious hint of hundreds of kilometers of clearings in the forests and their age. I was personally hooked by the fact that I walk through the forest quite often and far enough, but I did not notice anything unusual.

And this time an amazing feeling was repeated - the more you understand, the more new questions appear. I had to re-read a lot of sources, from materials on forestry of the 19th century, to modern " Instructions for conducting forest management in the forest fund of Russia". This did not add clarity, rather the opposite. But there was confidence that things are not clean here.

The first amazing fact that was confirmed is the dimension quarter network. The quarterly network, by definition, is " The system of forest quarters, created on the lands of the forest fund for the purpose of inventorying the forest fund, organizing and maintaining forestry and forest management».

The quarterly network consists of quarterly glades. This is a straight strip freed from trees and shrubs (usually up to 4 m wide), laid in the forest in order to mark the boundaries of forest quarters. During forest inventory, cutting and clearing of a quarter clearing to a width of 0.5 m is carried out, and their expansion to 4 m is carried out in subsequent years by forestry workers.

Fig.2

In the picture you can see how these clearings look in Udmurtia. The picture was taken from the program "Google Earth" ( see Fig.2). The quarters are rectangular. For measurement accuracy, a segment of 5 blocks wide is marked. It amounted to 5340 m, which means that the width of 1 quarter is 1067 meters, or exactly 1 track verst. The quality of the picture leaves much to be desired, but I myself constantly walk along these clearings, and I know well what you see from above from the ground. Until that moment, I was firmly convinced that all these forest roads were the work of Soviet foresters. But why the hell did they need to mark the quarterly network in versts?

Checked. In the instructions, quarters are supposed to be marked with a size of 1 by 2 km. The error at this distance is allowed no more than 20 meters. But 20 is not 340. However, in all forest management documents it is stipulated that if block network projects already exist, then you should simply link to them. It is understandable, the work on laying the glades is a lot of work to redo.

Fig.3

Today, clearing machines already exist (see Fig. Fig.3), but they should be forgotten, since almost the entire forest fund of the European part of Russia, plus part of the forest beyond the Urals, approximately to Tyumen, is divided into a verst block network. Of course, there is also a kilometer, because in the last century the foresters also did something, but mostly it was a verst. In particular, there are no kilometer clearings in Udmurtia. And this means that the project and practical laying of the quarterly network in most of the forest areas of the European part of Russia were made no later than 1918. It was at this time that the metric system of measures was adopted for mandatory use in Russia, and the verst gave way to the kilometer.

It turns out made with axes and jigsaws, if, of course, we correctly understand historical reality. Considering that the forest area of ​​the European part of Russia is about 200 million hectares, this is a titanic work. The calculation shows that the total length of the glades is about 3 million km. For clarity, imagine the 1st lumberjack armed with a saw or an ax. During the day, he will be able to clear an average of no more than 10 meters of clearing. But we must not forget that these works can be carried out mainly in the winter. This means that even 20,000 lumberjacks, working annually, would create our excellent verst block network for at least 80 years.

But there has never been such a number of workers involved in forest management. According to the articles of the 19th century, it is clear that there were always very few forestry specialists, and the funds allocated for these purposes could not cover such expenses. Even if we imagine that for this they drove peasants from the surrounding villages to do free work, it is still not clear who did this in the sparsely populated areas of the Perm, Kirov, and Vologda regions.

After this fact, it is no longer so surprising that the entire quarterly network is inclined by about 10 degrees and is directed not to the geographic north pole, but, apparently, to the magnetic one ( markings were made using a compass, not a GPS navigator), which was supposed to be at that time located about 1000 kilometers towards Kamchatka. And it is not so embarrassing that the magnetic pole, according to the official data of scientists, has never been there from the 17th century to the present day. It’s not even frightening that even today the compass needle points in approximately the same direction in which the quarterly network was made before 1918. It still can't be! All logic falls apart.

But it is. And in order to finish off the consciousness clinging to reality, I inform you that all this economy must also be serviced. According to the norms, a complete audit takes place every 20 years. If it passes at all. And during this period of time, the “forest user” should monitor the clearings. Well, if in Soviet times someone followed, then over the past 20 years it is unlikely. But the clearings were not overgrown. There is a windbreak, but there are no trees in the middle of the road.

But in 20 years, a pine seed that accidentally fell to the ground, of which billions are sown annually, grows up to 8 meters in height. Not only are the clearings not overgrown, you will not even see stumps from periodic clearings. This is all the more striking in comparison with power lines, which are regularly cleared by special teams from overgrown shrubs and trees.

Fig.4

This is what typical clearings in our forests look like. Grass, sometimes bushes, but no trees. There are no signs of regular care (see photo). Fig.4 And Fig.5).

Fig.5

The second big mystery is the age of our forest, or the trees in that forest. In general, let's go in order. First, let's figure out how long a tree lives. Here is the relevant table.

* In brackets - height and life expectancy in especially favorable conditions.

In different sources, the numbers differ slightly, but not significantly. Pine and spruce should live up to 300-400 years under normal conditions. You begin to understand how ridiculous everything is only when you compare the diameter of such a tree with what we see in our forests. Spruce 300 years old should have a trunk with a diameter of about 2 meters. Well, like in a fairy tale. The question arises: Where are all these giants? No matter how much I walk through the forest, I have not seen thicker than 80 cm. They are not in the mass. There are piece copies (in Udmurtia - 2 pines) that reach 1.2 m, but their age is also no more than 200 years.

In general, how does the forest live? Why do trees grow or die in it?

It turns out that there is a concept of "natural forest". This is a forest that lives its own life - it has not been cut down. It has a distinctive feature - low crown density from 10 to 40%. That is, some trees were already old and tall, but some of them fell affected by a fungus or died, losing competition with their neighbors for water, soil and light. Large gaps form in the forest canopy. A lot of light begins to get there, which is very important in the forest struggle for existence, and young growth actively begins to grow up. Therefore, the natural forest consists of different generations, and crown density is the main indicator of this.

But, if the forest was subjected to clear-cutting, then new trees grow simultaneously for a long time, crown density is high, more than 40%. Several centuries will pass, and if the forest is not touched, then the struggle for a place under the sun will do its job. It will become natural again. Do you want to know how much natural forest in our country that is not affected by anything? Please, a map of the forests of Russia (see. Fig.6).

Fig.6

The bright colors indicate forests with high canopy density, i.e. they are not “natural forests”. And most of them are. The entire European part is marked in deep blue. This is as indicated in the table: Small-leaved and mixed forests. Forests with a predominance of birch, aspen, gray alder, often with an admixture of coniferous trees or with separate areas of coniferous forests. Almost all are derivative forests formed on the site of primary forests as a result of logging, clearing, forest fires.».

On the mountains and the tundra zone, you can not stop, there the rarity of the crowns may be due to other reasons. But it covers the plains and the middle lane clearly a young forest. How young? Come down and check. It is unlikely that you will find a tree older than 150 years in the forest. Even a standard drill for determining the age of a tree has a length of 36 cm and is designed for a tree age of 130 years. How does forest science explain this? Here's what they came up with:

« Forest fires are a fairly common phenomenon for most of the taiga zone of European Russia. Moreover, forest fires in the taiga are so common that some researchers consider the taiga as a multitude of burnt areas of different ages - more precisely, a multitude of forests formed on these burnt areas. Many researchers believe that forest fires are, if not the only, then at least the main natural mechanism for forest renewal, the replacement of old generations of trees by young ones.…»

All this is called dynamics of random disturbances". That's where the dog is buried. The forest burned, and burned almost everywhere. And this, according to experts, is the main reason for the small age of our forests. Not fungus, not bugs, not hurricanes. Our entire taiga stands on fire, and after a fire, the same thing remains as after clear-cutting. Hence the high density of crowns in almost the entire forest zone. Of course, there are exceptions - really untouched forests in the Angara region, on Valaam and, probably, somewhere else in the expanses of our vast Motherland. There are really fabulously large trees in their mass. And although these are small islands in the boundless sea of ​​the taiga, they prove that the forest can be like that.

What is so common in forest fires that over the past 150 ... 200 years they have burned the entire forest area of ​​​​700 million hectares? Moreover, according to scientists, in a certain checkerboard pattern, observing the order, and certainly at different times?

First you need to understand the scale of these events in space and time. The fact that the main age of old trees in the bulk of the forests is at least 100 years suggests that large-scale fires, which have so rejuvenated our forests, occurred over a period of no more than 100 years. Translating into dates, for the 19th century alone. For this it was necessary to burn annually 7 million hectares of forest.

Even as a result of large-scale forest fires in the summer of 2010, which all experts called catastrophic in size, burned down only 2 million hectares. Turns out nothing so ordinary' is not in this. The last justification for such a burned past of our forests could be the tradition of slash-and-burn agriculture. But how, in this case, to explain the state of the forest in places where traditionally agriculture was not developed? In particular, in the Perm region? Moreover, this method of farming involves the labor-intensive cultural use of limited areas of the forest, and not at all unrestrained arson of large areas in the hot summer season, but with a breeze.

Having gone through all the possible options, we can say with confidence that the scientific concept of " dynamics of random disturbances”is not substantiated by anything in real life, and is a myth intended to mask the inadequate state of the current forests of Russia, and hence the events that led to it.

We will have to admit that our forests are either heavily ( beyond the norm) and constantly burned throughout the 19th century ( which in itself is inexplicable and nowhere recorded), or burned out at the same time as a result of some incident, from which the scientific world furiously denies, having no arguments, except that in official no such thing is recorded in history.

To all this, one can add that there were clearly fabulously large trees in the old natural forests. It has already been said about the reserved surviving areas of the taiga. It is worth giving an example in terms of deciduous forests. The Nizhny Novgorod region and Chuvashia have a very favorable climate for deciduous trees. There are a lot of oak trees growing there. But you, again, will not find old copies. The same 150 years old, no older.

Older single copies are all over the place. At the beginning of the article there is a photograph of the largest oak tree in Belarus. It grows in Belovezhskaya Pushcha (see. Fig.1). Its diameter is about 2 meters, and its age is estimated at 800 years, which, of course, is very conditional. Who knows, maybe he somehow survived the fires, it happens. The largest oak in Russia is considered to be a specimen growing in the Lipetsk region. According to conditional estimates, he is 430 years old (see. Fig.7).

Fig.7

A special theme is bog oak. This is the one that is extracted mainly from the bottom of the rivers. My relatives from Chuvashia told me that they pulled huge specimens up to 1.5 m in diameter from the bottom. And there were many (cf. Fig.8). This indicates the composition of the former oak forest, the remains of which lie at the bottom. This means that nothing prevents the current oaks from growing to such sizes. Did the “dynamics of random disturbances” in the form of thunderstorms and lightning work in a special way before? No, everything was the same. So it turns out that the current forest has simply not yet reached maturity.

Fig.8

Let's summarize what we got as a result of this research. There are a lot of contradictions between the reality that we observe with our own eyes and the official interpretation of the relatively recent past:

There is a developed quarterly network over a vast area, which was designed in versts and was laid no later than 1918. The length of the glades is such that 20,000 lumberjacks, subject to manual labor, would create it for 80 years. Clearings are serviced very irregularly, if at all, but they do not overgrow.

On the other hand, according to historians and surviving articles on forestry, there was no funding of a commensurate scale and the required number of forestry specialists at that time. There was no way to recruit a similar amount of free labor. There was no mechanization capable of facilitating these works.

It is required to choose: either our eyes are deceiving us, or the 19th century was not at all what historians tell us. In particular, there could be mechanization commensurate with the tasks described. For what interesting could this steam engine from the movie " Siberian barber" (cm. Fig.9). Or is Mikhalkov a completely unthinkable dreamer?

Fig.9

There could also be less labor-intensive, efficient technologies for laying and maintaining glades that have been lost today ( some distant analogue of herbicides). It is probably foolish to say that Russia has not lost anything after 1917. Finally, perhaps, they did not cut through the clearings, but in the spaces destroyed by the fire, trees were planted in quarters. This is not such nonsense, compared to what science draws us. Though doubtful, it at least explains a lot.

Our forests are much younger than the natural lifespan of the trees themselves. This is evidenced by the official map of the forests of Russia and our eyes. The age of the forest is about 150 years, although pine and spruce under normal conditions grow up to 400 years, and reach 2 meters in thickness. There are also separate sections of the forest from trees of similar age.

According to experts, all our forests are burned out. It is the fires, in their opinion, that do not give the trees a chance to live to their natural age. Experts do not even allow the thought of the simultaneous destruction of vast expanses of forest, believing that such an event could not go unnoticed. In order to justify this ashes, official science has adopted the theory of " dynamics of random disturbances". This theory suggests that forest fires that destroy ( according to some strange schedule) up to 7 million hectares of forest per year, although in 2010 even 2 million hectares, destroyed as a result of deliberate arson of the forest, were called a disaster.

It is required to choose: either our eyes are deceiving us again, or some grandiose events of the 19th century with particular impudence were not reflected in the official version of our past, as it did not fit there nor Great Tartary, nor the Great Northern Way. Atlantis with fallen moon and they didn't fit. One Time Destruction 200…400 million hectares it is even easier to imagine forests, and even to hide them, than the unquenchable, 100-year-old fire proposed for consideration by science.

So what is the age-old sadness Belovezhskaya Pushcha? Is it not about those heavy wounds of the earth that the young forest covers? After all, giant conflagrations by themselves don't happen...

In the vast expanses of Russia - from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok - in a country where 1/5 of the planet's forests grow - an equally young forest grows. Do not find trees older than 150-200 years. Why?

We look at the data on the possible age of trees: European spruce - able to grow and live from 300 to 500 years. Pine ordinary from 300 to 600 years. Linden small-leaved from 300 to 600 years. Beech forest from 400 to 500 years. Cedar pine 400 to 1000 years. Larch up to 500 years. Siberian larch (Larix sibirica) up to 900 years. Common juniper (Juniperus communis) up to 1000 years. Yew berry (Taxus baccata) up to 2000 years. Pedunculate oak, up to 40 meters high, up to 1500 years old.

The photo shows a tree growing in California. The diameter of the trunk near the ground reaches 27 meters. The age is estimated at 2 thousand years. Well, even if it is less, the age of this tree is still more than 500 years for sure. So everything was fine in California, the next 500 - 2000 years :))

What happened to the nature of Russia 200 years ago? The phenomenon that "nullified" the Russian forest... Versions for reflection come as follows: 1. Forest fire. 2. Mass felling. 3. Another cataclysm.

Let's take a look at each version.

1. Version of the most powerful fire 200 years ago.

The forest area of ​​Russia today is 809 million hectares. http://geographyofrussia.com/les-rossii/ Annual fires, even very strong ones, burn up to 2 million hectares. Which is less than 1% of the forest area. It is generally recognized that the human factor, that is, the presence of a person in the forest, who kindled a fire. Just like that - the forest does not burn.

The forest fires closest to us in time are the period of the summer of 2010, when all of Moscow was in smoke. What were these fires and what area did they cover?

"At the end of July, August and the beginning of September 2010 in Russia, throughout the entire territory of the first Central federal district, and then in other regions of Russia, a difficult fire situation arose due to abnormal HEAT and lack of precipitation. PEAT fires near Moscow were accompanied by the smell of burning and strong smoke in Moscow and in many other cities. As of the beginning of August 2010, about 200 thousand hectares in Russia were covered by fires in 20 regions (Central Russia and the Volga region, Dagestan). They write to us in a large and detailed article on Wikipedia.

Peat fires were recorded in the Moscow region, Sverdlovsk, Kirov, Tver, Kaluga and Pskov regions. The strongest fires were in the Ryazan and Nizhny Novgorod regions and Mordovia, where a real disaster actually occurred. A real disaster from just 200 thousand hectares of burning forest! Burning peat.

About peat.

In the 1920s, within the framework of the GOELRO plan, swamps in Central Russia were drained in order to extract peat, this was explained by its greater availability and need as a fuel - compared to oil, gas and coal. In the 1970s-1980s, peat was mined for the needs Agriculture. The burning of dehydrated peatlands in the 2000s is the result of peat mining in the early 1920s. 200 years ago, peat extraction did not seem to be carried out. That is, the forest had even less reason to burn.

The heat wave of 2010.

The heat wave of 2010 in Russia is a long period of abnormally hot weather in Russia in last decade June - first half of August 2010. It became one of the causes of massive fires, accompanied by unprecedented smog in a number of cities and regions. led to economic and environmental damage. In its scope, duration and degree of consequences, the heat had no analogues for more than centuries of history weather observations. The head of Roshydromet, Alexander Frolov, tells us a fairy tale that "based on the data of lake sediments, there has not been such a hot summer in Russia since the time of Rurik, that is, over the past more than 1000 years.!... "

Thereby public services they say that this heat was exceptionally rare.

This means that the consequences of the burnout of 200 thousand hectares in Central Russia are an exceptional rarity. There is some reasonableness in this statement, since a fire in which at least a third of the forests burned down central Russia- would cause such smoke, such carbon monoxide poisoning, such economic losses - in the form of thousands of burned villages, such human losses - that it would certainly be reflected in history. At least it's reasonable to assume.

So - a fire as a phenomenon, of course, is possible.

But it needs to be specially organized for large area, and the territory of Russia is very, very huge. Which means huge costs. And these arsonists need to be able to resist the rain - since rains in Russia in the summer are also an everyday reality. And a few hours pouring rain nullify all efforts of arsonists.

2.Mass cutting version.

On an area of ​​800 million hectares - even with modern technology- benozipil, a very long and difficult event. Now all lumberjacks in Russia annually cut down about 2 million hectares of forest as much as possible. equipment is used for the removal of timber, ships for rafting it along rivers, cars and barges for transportation.

200 years ago, even if there were enough lumberjacks to cut down 1/100 of the country's forests, on an area of ​​8 million hectares (8 million lumberjacks), who and how could take out such volumes of forest and where to sell it. It is clear that it is not realistic to transport and use such volumes of forest by manual labor and on horseback.

3.A version of another cataclysm that was able to destroy all the forests. What could it be?

Earthquake? So we don't see them.

Flood? Where can you get enough water to flood an entire continent? And the mighty trees would have remained standing anyway. Or at least lay down. But such a flood would wash away all people.

In general, other cataclysms are not suitable. And even if they were suitable, then with their power of influence they would have to be reflected in the history of the country.

Conclusion. There is a fact of the absence of an adult forest. We have forests everywhere - young thickets. An explanation for this phenomenon remains to be found.