The beauty and grandeur of the Carpathians have inspired man since time immemorial. And the dense, fairy-tale forests covering the mountain slopes have played an important role in the spectacular nature of this natural treasure. These forests mesmerize, take a man into the world of amazing nature, its boundless and magical imagination. And one of the most striking fruits of nature’s imagination is the beech forest.
Beech forests covering the Carpathians with a thick velvet carpet are impressive pictures of extraordinary beauty. The most striking masterpieces among such pictures are the virgin beech forests, which have survived to this day since the end of the last ice age.
The protected virgin beech forests of the Carpathians stretch along the mountain system for 185 kilometers, in Ukraine they start from Chernogorsky massif and Rakhovskie mountains. These untouched forests, undisturbed by man and civilization, preserve the history of earthly settlements and ecosystems, represent an invaluable natural object, and for people who are attracted to nature and admire its beauty — a natural ancient natural world that can be seen with their own eyes.
Strong trunks, sprawling crowns, creating a thick carpet of foliage high above your head, through which the rays of light barely penetrate — once you have been in a real beech forest, its atmosphere is impossible to forget. The average age of trees in virgin beech forests of the Carpathians reaches 300-400 years, but there are even more ancient giants! Century-old beeches stretch up to 30-50 meters, the trunks of these amazing trees can be up to 2.5m in diameter. Sometimes, in an effort to avoid being killed by wild animals, beech trunks take on a bizarre, unusual shape. Neighbors of beech trees in the virgin beech forests of the Carpathians are rare plants listed in the Red Book of Ukraine: snow-white snowdrop, forest lily, Hungarian lilac, berry yew, as well as other beautiful flowers and shrubs.
It is easy to imagine what a fantastic picture the beech forest represents: standing at a small distance from each other tall slender trees, creating a dusky, mysterious atmosphere, lurking below undergrowth of low «figures» of bushes, fallen giants that have outlived their centuries — many famous people were visited by the muse here. Having been in this world, imbued with its mysticism and dark romance, in the late XIX century Bram Stoker wrote his novel «Dracula». It was the magical nature of the Carpathians that inspired the writer for the famous masterpiece. And to see this nature today in the Carpathians and the Ukrainian Carpathians, in particular, you can see exactly the same, unchanged — medieval beech forests still keep romantic, peaceful atmosphere, taking a person to other worlds.
In such places, which have a mysterious, strong energy, one can truly feel unity with nature, feel harmony and positive mood, new strength. The purest air of beech forests has a healing effect on the human body.
In 2007, together with the Slovakian ones, the virgin beech forests of the Ukrainian Carpathians were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List — such rare now because of inappropriate attitude in the past sights of Ukraine are invaluable not only for the country, but also for the whole world, they are unique natural treasures, of which there are very few left on earth. And anyone can see these sights of Transcarpathia today — the impressions of touching the virgin, infinitely beautiful and inspiring nature of beech forests will remain for many years.
I notice the hill slope in the last photograph seems to have slipped at some time, so the trees all leaned over a bit. They show a slight bend to the right as they adapted to keep the trunk vertical.
