Nizhnesvirsky Nature Reserve, Nature reserve in Lodeynopolsky District, Leningrad Oblast, Russia

Nizhnesvirsky Nature Reserve is a protected area in Leningrad Oblast that stretches along Lake Ladoga's eastern shore. It contains extensive wetlands, pine forests, and sand ridges shaped by glacial activity.

The area became a protected reserve in 1980 after ecological research programs began in the 1950s. These efforts responded to concerns about how industrial development was affecting the local environment.

The reserve's name means "Lower Svir" and it adjoins Olonetsky Zakaznik across the Karelian border. Its staff continue the research tradition begun by the Biological Institute of Leningrad University and the Zoological and Botanical institutes of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which argued for the reserve's creation. Since protection began, beaver colonies have grown and grey cranes increased, while greylag geese returned to the inner lakes after vanishing in the 1960s.

The reserve is located roughly 240 kilometers northeast of St. Petersburg and can be reached through several access points. Spring and autumn offer the best conditions for visits, as bird migration activity peaks and exploring conditions are most comfortable.

The reserve's sand ridges are old shoreline banks of Lake Ladoga, formed as the lake retreated about two thousand years ago; the parallel ridges later grew over with forest while the hollows between them turned into bogs. The Ladoga ringed seal, found nowhere else, lives in the lake's waters.