95 years have passed since the establishment of the oldest nature reserve of the country out of nine existing ones – the Repetek Biosphere Reserve. 

t was established in 1927 to preserve the black and white saxaul forests in the Eastern Karakum to replace the Repetek sandy-desert station that had existed since 1912 and had been established by the Imperial Russian Geographical Society and its Vice-President, a traveller P.P. Semenov-Tien-Shansky and managed until 1928 by Director V. Dubyansky, who was one of the founders of desert science in Central Asia. So, the research of the Karakum Desert there has been going on for 110 years. The station, together with the Nature Reserve, existed until 1998, since 1962 as a division of the National Institute of Deserts, Flora and Fauna. Then, the reserve unit of international importance was transferred from the system of the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan under the jurisdiction of the environmental department – now the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment Protection of Turkmenistan.