Guide
Karagöl-Sahara National Park covers 3,251 hectares in the Şavşat district of Artvin, in the far northeast, and was declared in 1994. Like Başkomutan it is a park in two parts, and its name is simply the two parts joined: the Sahara section, a stretch of dense spruce and fir forest with open recreational ground, and the Karagöl section, a landslide-dammed lake ringed by spruce. Spruce and fir are the dominant trees throughout.
The reason this forest matters beyond the region is on record: it falls within one of the 25 terrestrial ecoregions the IUCN identifies as the world's most biologically important, is listed by WWF among 200 priority ecoregions, and sits on the transition between the Euro-Siberian and Irano-Turanian phytogeographic regions, in the Colchic sector. A doctoral survey carried out between 1997 and 2002 recorded 872 plant taxa here, from 91 families and 364 genera, of which 54 are endemic; the threat status of 103 taxa was assessed.
The animal list is equally specific. The brown bear, strictly protected under the Bern Convention, lives inside the park. The directorate counts 128 bird species, 50 of them endemic or at risk under the European Red Data Book of vertebrates, and 45 mammal species, five of them endemic and at risk. Among breeding birds it singles out the Caucasian black grouse and the Caspian snowcock, and the area is one of the important habitats of the Caucasian viper.
Both sections take day visitors for picnicking and tent camping. Karagöl is the more built-up of the two, with a hotel, a cafe-restaurant, open-air event grounds and a children's playground, and it is the section where you can stay overnight indoors; concerts, country weddings and private functions are held there. Sahara has toilets and a country restaurant, with a playground and tented gazebos recorded as still under construction. Sahara is 87 km from Artvin and 17 km from Şavşat on the Şavşat-Ardahan road; Karagöl is 95 km from Artvin and 25 km from Şavşat, reached mostly on asphalt.
- Designated
- 31.08.1994
Entry fee
- Black Sea group 1 · category 1 · Per person
- 75 ₺
