The Sikhote-Alin is a mountain range in Primorsky and Khabarovsk Krais, Russia, extending about 900 km to the northeast of the Russian Pacific seaport of Vladivostok. The highest summits are Tordoki Yani at 2077 m above sea level, Ko Mountain (2003 m) in Khabarovsk Krai and Anik Mountain (1933 m) in Primorsky Krai.

Geography

Sikhote-Alin is a temperate zone, though species typical of northern taiga (such as reindeer and the Ussuri brown bear) coexist with the Amur tiger, Amur leopard, and Asiatic black bear. The region holds very few wolves, due to competition with tigers. The longest-lived tree in the region is a millennium-old Japanese yew. It is the only known habitat of Sikhotealinia, the only living member of the beetle family Jurodidae, which have been described as the “most mysterious representatives of beetles” due to their uncertain placement within the group. Many tributaries of the Amur River lie within the range, including the Gur. The core zone can only be explored in a company of rangers.

History

The name is thought to be of Manchu origin ( "mountain"). In the 1910s and 1920s, Sikhote-Alin was extensively explored by Russian geographer and naturalist Vladimir Arsenyev (1872–1930), who described his adventures in several books, notably Dersu Uzala (1923), which in 1975 was turned into an Oscar-winning film by Akira Kurosawa. Largely due to his exploration and advocacy, the large Sikhote-Alin and Lazo wildlife refuges were set up in 1935 to preserve the region's unusual wildlife. On February 12, 1947, one of the largest meteorite showers in recent history occurred in the mountains range. The Sikhote-Alin meteorite exploded in the atmosphere as it fell, raining many tons of metal on an elliptical region about 1.3 km2 in area. Craters were formed by the meteorites; the largest was 26 m in diameter. In 2001, UNESCO placed "Central Sikhote-Alin" onto the World Heritage List, citing its importance for "the survival of endangered species such as the scaly-sided (Chinese) merganser, Blakiston's fish-owl and the Amur tiger". The World Heritage Site had a total area of 16319 km2, of which the terrestrial core zone of Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik comprised 3985 km2. In 2018, the World heritage Site was expanded by 11605 km2 by including Bikin National Park under the name "Bikin River Valley".