Nizhnehopersky Nature Park, Nature park in Volgograd Oblast, Russia

Nizhnehopersky Nature Park covers 230,000 hectares in the lower Khoper valley, across the Kumylzhensky, Alekseevsky and Nechaevsky districts of Volgograd Oblast. The Khoper, called Europe's cleanest river, forms its axis, joined by the Buzuluk, Kumylga, Akishevka and Tishanka. Its right bank rises on the Kalach Upland, its left lies on the Khoper-Buzuluk plain, and feather-grass steppes on chernozem alternate with ravine oak woods, floodplain forest, sands with birch groves, springs and granite boulders.

The park was created in 2003 by a law of the Volgograd Oblast Duma and a decree of the oblast administration, which also founded the state institution managing it. It covers 230,000 hectares in the lower Khoper basin across the Kumylzhensky, Alekseevsky and Nechaevsky districts, and holds 19 protected natural areas of federal, regional and local status.

The park protects an intact traditional system of Cossack settlement and daily life that sits alongside the steppe, oak groves and floodplain forests. Monuments such as the "Defenders of the Fatherland, Don Cossacks" monument in Kumylzhensky District and Koyshav Hill, site of a watchpost and one of the first settlements of the Kumylzhenskaya stanitsa, mark this Cossack presence.

The park lies in the lower Khoper basin across Kumylzhensky, Alekseevsky and Nechaevsky districts, with the Khoper and its tributaries the Buzuluk, Kumylga, Akishevka and Tishanka as its axis. The Shakin oak grove and its Kipyashchy spring can only be visited accompanied by a park employee, so arrange access in advance. Expect steppe tracks and sandy stretches.

Granite boulders 0.5–1 m across lie on the watersheds and slopes of the park, left behind by the Donskoy lobe of the Dnieper glaciation. The Shakin oak grove, the region's southernmost upland oak stand at over 200 years old, hides the Kipyashchy spring, reachable only with a park employee.