AASEI Summer Program
By Elana Wilson

Photo gallery:

All pictures, unless otherwise noted, were taken by Xenia Soubotin.

Alexander

Svirsky

Monastery

Located near

Nizhnesvirsky

Reserve.

Entrance to

Nizhne-

Svirsky

Reserve

Reserve Director of

Ecological Education,

Victor Kovalov,

giving a boost to

Russian student, Dimitri

Bilski.

Dima was examining

a fungal growth on one of

the many birch trees typical to the region.

Dima

Bilski

Students visited

the Gumbaritsa

Ornithological

Station, which has been monitoring birds

since the early 1970s, on the shores of Lake Ladoga. This willowtit (Parus montanus) was caught in the station’s large nets and banded and recorded by the station’s scientists

American males were heavily outnumbered by American females during this year’s trip, 8-0. Pictured below at Nizhne-svirsky reserve (l-r) Patricia Svilik (Stanford), Elana Wilson (Middlebury), Erin Schmidt (Grinnell), Lena Vasanova, and Xenia Soubotin (Cornell).

Students traveled to the Ornithological Station of the Petrazavodsk University near Lake Ladoga to speak with resident scientists.

As part of their cultural experience, students learned how to make the traditional Russian dish, pelmeni, with Galina Vechkunina (wife of park ranger Vasilii Vechkunin).

Patricia, Xenia and Elana traveled by boat on the Svir River with water biologists Sergei and Larisa Kudashkin.

Lena Vasanova poses with fish caught in research nets on a small bay near the Svir River. All fish are weighed and measured by the scientists, as shown below.

Rainbow over the Svir River, Nizhnesvirsky Zapovednik.

Farewell Dinner at Nizhne Svirsky, an eclectic mix of Russian, American and Chinese food prepared by American students. On to Lapland!

Lapland Reserve:

Discussion of the next day’s plans in a rare moment of darkness during the white nights of the Arctic summer with Natasha Berlina, reserve botanist.

Chuna Lake, view from base camp.

Lunch at one of the reserve’s izbas (small huts for cooking/camping). During this overnight hike with Natasha Berlina, students got acquainted with Arctic mosquitoes and assisted the botanist in collecting mushrooms for a study.

A mosquito-hatted Xenia Soubotin.

Along eco-trail, posing by rock formation once believed to be sacred by the Sami, the indigenous people of the Kola Peninsula. The Sami believed that rocks, such as this one, that stood on top of much smaller rocks had been placed their by the gods. Today, approximately 1,600 Sami live on the Kola Peninsula, but no longer on the reserve grounds.

Typical mountain tundra landscape.

Cornus swedsicus

Diorin Svedskii.