Peo­ple have set­tled in the vicin­i­ty of Losiny Ostrov for a long time and will­ing­ly. Neolith­ic set­tle­ments are known on the banks of the Klyaz­ma (Bol­shevskoe set­tle­ment) or the Bear Lakes. Peo­ple began to set­tle on Elk Island itself rel­a­tive­ly late — the places here were incon­ve­nient, swampy, and the soil was most­ly poor. The ear­li­est archae­o­log­i­cal sites — the Vyatichi mounds — date back to the 11th-12th cen­turies. From the 14th cen­tu­ry, when the raids of the Horde drove the pop­u­la­tion of Rus’ to the north, when Rus’ began to gath­er around Moscow, peo­ple began to set­tle dense­ly in Losiny Ostrov. The peak of set­tle­ment occurred in the 15th-16th cen­turies.

The name “Losiny Ostrov” was first men­tioned in the 15th cen­tu­ry. The name “Pogonny Elk Island” comes from the era of court hunts: “island” is a grove among cul­ti­vat­ed land, “pogonny” is from “rut,” hound hunt­ing; “elk” — from the largest hunt­ing object. Numer­ous ref­er­ences have been pre­served to how the tsar went hunt­ing to estates near Moscow, includ­ing Losiny Ostrov. Trav­el palaces were built for the king’s hunt­ing trips. The swamps at the source of the Yauza were also famous hunt­ing grounds. Here, before peat min­ing began (mid-19th cen­tu­ry), water­fowl were hunt­ed.

The bor­ders of Losiny Ostrov have remained vir­tu­al­ly unchanged since the mid-18th cen­tu­ry. even against the back­drop of the rapid growth of Moscow and the inten­sive eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment of lands in the Moscow region.

Today Losiny Ostrov is a spe­cial­ly pro­tect­ed nat­ur­al area of ​​fed­er­al sig­nif­i­cance, a wildlife reserve with­in the bound­aries of Russia’s largest urban agglom­er­a­tion, a nation­al park that has no ana­logues in the world. We can right­ful­ly say that a nation­al park is the “eco­log­i­cal frame­work” of the capital’s metrop­o­lis.

The Moscow part of the nation­al park, where recre­ation­al areas with free access to vis­i­tors are locat­ed, is man­aged by the city of Moscow, the region­al part is man­aged by the Min­istry of Nat­ur­al Resources and Ecol­o­gy of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion, and is man­aged by the Fed­er­al State Bud­getary Insti­tu­tion Losiny Ostrov Nation­al Park.

In addi­tion to recre­ation­al areas, in the Moscow region part of the nation­al park there are spe­cial­ly pro­tect­ed and reserved areas. This is the “heart” of Losiny Island, where unique nat­ur­al com­plex­es are locat­ed, moose, deer, wild boars and oth­er mam­mals live, rare birds stop on migra­tion, and the largest colony of black-head­­ed gulls in the Moscow region nests.

On Losiny Island, locat­ed near Moscow, there are three eco­log­i­cal cen­ters that open up a pro­tect­ed world to vis­i­tors. You can walk along the Deer Trail and see a wild herd of sika deer, stay overnight in glamp­ing, kayak to float­ing islands, walk on water or bare­foot along the trail — unique hik­ing routes. The expo­si­tions of the eco-cen­ters will intro­duce plants from var­i­ous regions of Rus­sia, the pecu­liar­i­ties of for­est pro­tec­tion, and the tra­di­tions of Russ­ian peas­ant life and tea drink­ing.