Saryarka on film: the steppe and lakes of northern Kazakhstan
A UNESCO film presents Saryarka, a World Heritage site of steppe and lakes. A plain guide to what the place is and what to notice while watching.
The video on this page is the film Saryarka – Steppe and Lakes of Northern Kazakhstan. Its title credits it to UNESCO and NHK, the Japanese public broadcaster, and it is published on UNESCO’s official YouTube channel. The title is also the name of a natural site on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
This guide explains what that site is, using UNESCO’s own description of it. It does not retell the film. It is meant to be read before watching, so that an open landscape with few landmarks becomes easier to read.
What the site protects
The site is made up of two protected areas in Kazakhstan, the Naurzum and Korgalzhyn state nature reserves. They lie far apart, and UNESCO treats them as complementary parts of one whole. Together they keep large, mostly undisturbed stretches of Central Asian steppe and two groups of lakes, some fresh and some salt.
The lakes sit on a watershed. Rivers on one side flow north towards the Arctic, and rivers on the other flow south into the Aral–Irtysh basin. UNESCO notes that the lakes fill and shrink in long cycles of wet and dry periods, and that the plants and animals of these wetlands have adapted to that rhythm.
Birds are the main reason for the listing. The wetlands are a stopover and a crossroads on the Central Asian flyway, used by water birds travelling from Africa, Europe and South Asia to their breeding grounds in Siberia. Among them UNESCO names globally threatened species such as the Siberian white crane and the Dalmatian pelican.
What to notice while watching
Pay attention to water. In a flat, dry country life gathers at a lake, so note whether the lakes on screen are full or shallow and whether they are described as fresh or salt. Remember too that for many of the birds these lakes are only a resting place on a much longer journey.
Then look at the grassland itself. By UNESCO’s account the steppe here shelters more than half of the region’s steppe plant species, several threatened birds and the saiga, a steppe antelope that was once abundant and was greatly reduced by poaching. There are no permanent settlements inside the reserves and visitor access is limited, so for most people a film is the nearest they will come to this place.
