Tylihulskiy Landscape Park

Tylihulskiy Landscape Park

The Park has been set up to preserve valuable natural habitats and historical sites along the Tylihul. It also provides facilities for organized tourism and vacationing, for nature studies, and for promoting environmental awareness.

As a unique natural habitat, the Tylihul Estuary is included in the list of wetlands of international significance, especially as a waterfowl nesting area. The Tylihul Estuary is on the border between Mykolayiv and Odesa Oblasts and is considered one of the cleanest estuaries in the northwestern Black Sea. It is 60 km long and 4.5 km wide, with a maximum depth of 21 meters. Its waters are up to 7 meters, making it the clearest and deepest estuary in the region, separated from the Black Sea by a wide sandy bar and connected only through an artificial channel.

The natural environment of this National Park has been remarkably well preserved—ponds and lakes, grassy marshes, saline meadows, salt marshes with glasswort, natural and rocky steppes, thickets of trees and shrubs. Near Tashyne Bay and the Tsareha River estuary is one of the largest virgin steppe areas in southern Ukraine. This has resulted in a wealth of flora along the shores of the Tylihul estuary—some 620 species of vascular plants.

In flood years, large numbers of bream, common roach, perch, common carp, European carp and other freshwater species appear. Over the years that the estuary has been there, some 62 species of fish have been recorded. Today, there are no more than 30 species evident. Only, silverside, mullet, gobies and anchovies are of industrial importance. Tylihul is a major nesting area for birds during seasonal migrations, with around 270 species passing through. As many as 50,000 birds can touch down on the estuary and its shores enroute to their destination.

The Park’s territory has considerable cultural significance as well. A number of settlements of the Late Bronze Age have been found on the shores of the estuary. Tylihul was one of the earliest areas colonized by the Kozaks and it has long been used for fishing and navigation.

At the mouth of the Tylihul, the Kobleve health resort is located along the Black Sea shore. The therapeutic mud of the Tylihul have been a major factor allowing such a resort to be developed here and visitors come from wide and far to be treated problems and diseases related to the musculoskeletal system, the nervous system, and the skin.

Five recreational zones have been established in the Park: Koblivka, Chervonoukrayinsk, Anatoliyivka, Atamanka, and Tashynka.

This provides a broad basis to develop green tourism and a wide range of outdoor activities that are gaining in popularity around the world. On the Tylihul Estuary and its picturesque littoral, visitors can now enjoy sunning and swimming on the beaches, cast their lines to hook some fish, take a boat trip or kite-ride, hike, go on sightseeing tours, join an expeditions, engage in field studies, and enjoy bird-watching.