Anna Golovina, an ecologist and the Kuznechikha (Yaroslavl Oblast) Village Settlement’s deputy, launched a fundraiser for a community plant nursery’s organization on her birthday. Anyone will be able to pick up seedlings for landscaping their city, town, or yard for free from there. Anna has bought a plot of 15 ares for the nursery in the village of Ramenye, which is located 13 km from Yaroslavl. Golovina still has to put up a fence, equip garden-beds, and build support structures. She needs to raise about 200 thousand rubles. The activist reports this in social networks.
According to Anna Golovina, the first thing is to raise funds for putting up a fence around the site. This requires 62 thousand rubles. In addition, she needs to equip garden-beds and build support structures. She needs to raise a total of 200 thousand rubles. Golovina hopes that the nursery will be able to produce 3 thousand seedlings for free outgiving to residents of the region annually in four years.
The activist plans to involve both residents of the village of Ramenye and volunteers from the city to work in the nursery, organize special eco-trips and other events.
"My residential yard already has some stock for outgiving, but it is not very convenient to work on a social project on my territory: it is difficult to get funding, involve volunteers. That is why I have bought a separate plot of land nearby. In four years, it will be able to produce three thousand large beautiful trees a year: firs, cedars, oaks, lindens. I want to popularize the idea of planting trees, so that people can learn how to grow trees and plant them wherever possible," Anna Golovina told 7x7.
The activist has been giving out seedlings for five years already. She coordinates the Rodnoy Les (‘near and dear forest’) Movement in Yaroslavl Oblast. Together with like-minded volunteers, she takes young trees — firs, cedars, oaks — from authorized territories, grows them on her site, and then gives them out to everyone in Yaroslavl and the suburban Kuznechikha.
Photo from Anna Golovina’s personal archive
"There is great demand for seedlings in Yaroslavl. People would take away all the trees during every outgiving, but, of course, not all of them would take root: not everyone has planting skills. However, in general, the result is good. I have been asked for trees not only for residential yards, but also for kindergartens, schools, and other urban areas. That is why I have come to the idea that we need a nursery that will be working on a volunteer basis: there, volunteers will be able to plant young seedlings, grow them up to three or four years, and then give them away," the activist added.
Anna Golovina is inspired by other similar projects’ experience: the Pereslavl Dendrological Garden, which has been working for almost 70 years, and the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden. It was opened in 1714.
Not all regions take care of trees. For example, residents of Voronezh announced collecting signatures against the development of an apple orchard near Lomonosov, Shishkov streets, and Moskovsky avenue. It is planned to build a 12-to-22-storied residential estate on this site.
In March 2020, the authorities of Arkhangelsk Oblast gave the Central City Park in Severodvinsk to the Akvilon-Invest Company for development without the consent of the residents. The developer plans to build a large elite residential estate, consisting of nine high-rise blocks, there. Local residents opposed the project. They demanded stopping the development and also offered their own public site improvements' project. To protect the park, the residents appealed to the prosecutor's office, recorded video messages to the governor of the region, invited deputies of the regional Duma and the municipal council of Severodvinsk to discuss the issue, but were ignored.
