ИСТИНА

Up-to-date urbanization, increasing in industrial, transport, and other man-made load as well as other challenges threaten natural landscapes at different levels; from local to global one. When revealing areas for special care and protection one should take into account not only objective appraisal of their natural peculiarities, significance, and usefulness but also their aesthetic originality, because it is very important to preserve beautiful landscapes for the next generations. At the same time, the beauty and attraction of a landscape play the most important role in choosing natural objects for tourism and recreational purposes too. The scenic beauty and high aesthetic value of a landscape is for example one of the key prerequisites for giving a National Park status. People belonging to different cultures differ by their landscape preferences due to a number of ethno-cultural, historical, social, and environmental factors. Thus, the “outside view” of another culture representatives allows us to see unusual in usual, to assess originality and beauty of familiar landscapes, and to find out new aesthetic features. The purpose of this study is to find out new criteria for revealing of valuable natural objects for protected areas and tourism, using a cross-cultural analysis of landscape preferences in Russia and Japan, in two countries with deep-rooted traditions of landscape appreciation. The photo database of landscapes both similar and unique for Russia and Japan was created. The respondents in both countries are suggested to classify and group photo images of different landscapes according to their personal perception as well as to estimate the attractiveness and exoticism of given landscapes images. Using elementary and multi-dimensional statistics methods we revealed some common features of emotional and visual perception of landscapes, and the main points of differences between the Russian and Japanese cultures, as well as between groups of Russian respondents from different regions (Moscow, Siberia and Kamchatka). While grouping lanscapes the most important feature appeared to be the presence/absence of water and type of water basin. Topography is also important for the Russians, while both visual and seasonal characteristics are significant for the Japanese. Russian and Japanese respondents generally agree in assessing the attractiveness of different landscape types, but evaluate their exoticism differently. It was revealed that for Russian respondents the most exotic landscapes are the most attractive, although we can’t see such a tendency for Japanese respondents. Despite all the differences, the most attractive for both Japanese and Russian respondents are mountains, mountain lakes and waterfalls. These landscapes are the most suitable for development of ecotourism. Ecotourism is the form of land use that can reconcile such conflicting goals as of nature conservation, tourism and regional development.