The obvious dominant in the district territory is the moderately paludified hilly-ridge landscape generated by tectonic denudation with a complex of glacial formations and the prevalence of pine forests. This is the most typical and widespread landscape in the north-taiga subzone of Karelia, as well as in adjacent Finnish territories.

Although the tectonic denudation landscape prevails in the Muezersky District, it features also other types of terrain and landscape fragments making the district highly interesting for nature tourism. The White Sea - Baltic drainage divide runs across the district in a wide south-trending arc with elevations reaching up to 417 m a.s.l. It comprises the ridge (selka) landscape. Pine forests predominate and mires cover up to 40% of the territory.

The north-eastern part of the district, along the Tiksha-Ledmozero road has the most diverse assortment of landscapes. Within a compact area one would find a glaciolacustrine plain, about 65% of which are wetlands with strong dominance of raised bogs in combination with paludified pine forests and pine swamps; hilly-ridge glacioaqueous landscape with nearly 20% under mires, represented mostly by mesotrophic mires sparsely or densely overgrown with pine; and a fragment of the ridge (selka) landscape with an absolute elevation of 300 metres above sea level and a mire coverage of about 15%, open mires occupying less than 2%. Mires in this landscape are fed by running water, lie in deep canyon-like faults (vertically falling scarps reach 40 m in height) and are noted for a great variety of plant groupings typical of fens and transitional mires. Peat thickness there is 6 metres or more.

The greatest, central part of the district is occupied by the hilly-ridge landscape with 40-45% under wetlands, over a half of which are open mires. There prevail composite mire systems with meso-oligotrophic and oligotrophic mire complexes combined with aapa mires and sites covered in pine and spruce.

The western part of the district is hilly-ridge landscapes dominated by spruce forests. The wetland coverage there is about 30%. The dominance of spruce stands on mineral soils tells also on the characteristics of the wetlands, as spruce stands are fairly common in most mires.

Expert: A.Gromtsev, V. Kolomytsev.

See photos in section "Project activities"