Seliger is a system of lakes located in the Tver and Novgorod regions in Russia. The well-known youth forum of the same name is held annually on the lake.
Lake Seliger
Lake Seliger is located in the Tver region, 370 kilometers from Moscow. Another name for Seliger is Ostashkovskoe, after the name of the town of Ostashkov located on the coast.
In fact, Seliger is a whole chain of lakes of glacial origin, into which more than a hundred tributaries flow, including the Soroga, Krapivenka and Seremukha rivers. The lake is located at an altitude of 205 meters above sea level. The length of the coastline is over 500 kilometers. At the same time, the coastline is very indented, there are many capes, stretches and backwaters in it, and in the lake itself there are many islets.
Lake Seliger is unusually picturesque, and the water in it is very clean and transparent (the depth of transparency is up to five meters!). On one of the islands (Stolobnoye) there is the Nilova Pustyn monastery. More than 30 species of fish live in the lake.
In bays and creeks, in addition to reeds and cattails, yellow egg capsules and white water lilies grow, the banks are overgrown with coniferous and deciduous trees.
The lake is navigable and is a very popular tourist destination. Numerous recreation centers are located on the shores and islands.
Seliger Forum
Lake Seliger is especially famous thanks to the eponymous youth forum of the pro-government movement Nashi, which has been held here annually since 2005. Initially, it was a closed camp only for activists of the movement. Currently (since 2009 - the Year of Youth), the event is also supervised by the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs, and the camp is open to everyone.
In the early days of the camp, it was held every year in one shift (two weeks), during which the participants underwent ideological and sports training. The forum is now being held in several shifts on topics including politics, creativity, sports, tourism, entrepreneurship, leadership and others.
The anthem of the forum is the song "Who else if not us", which was previously the anthem of one of the projects of the "Nashi" movement.
In 2010, activists of the “Steel” movement organized the installation “You are not welcome here” at the forum, displaying the heads of mannequins depicting the faces of a number of public figures on stakes.
During its existence, the camp has been repeatedly criticized. Thus, tourists and locals say that after the event there is a huge amount of garbage. In addition, some actions of the camp participants seem unethical. In 2011, the Antiseliger forum was held in the Khimki forest.
