Press Release, 27.10.2022

Photo: The participants of the 6^th Alexei Yablokov Readings, members of the Yabloko party /Photo by the St. Petersburg regional branch of the Yabloko party

On 26 October, the 6^th Alexei Yablokov Readings dedicated to the memory of Alexei Yablokov, environmental scientist and politician who headed the Green Russia faction of the Yabloko party, were held in St. Petersburg. The event was held for the sixth time by the joint efforts of leading environmental non-governmental organisations, the academic community and the Yabloko party. Yabloko members Olga Tsepilova, Chair of the Green Russia faction, Alexander Kolotov, an environmental activist from Krasnoyarsk, Lina Zernova, an environmental journalist from St. Petersburg, and others participated in the readings.

Topical and even painful issues in waste management, air and water pollution, protection of environmental rights, green energy, and climate change were traditionally raised at the readings.

Paying tribute to the work of Alexei Yablokov and emphasising the relevance of the thesis that environmental conservation is impossible without political work, Olga Tsepilova, head of the social ecology group of the Sociological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Chair of the Green Russia faction of the Yabloko party, delivered a report “Environmental Issues on the Political Agenda” within the session “Science, Climate, and Environment”.

Lina Zernova, Co-Chair of the Guild of Environmental Journalists of the Union of Journalists of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region and a Yabloko member, presented the report “What Is Wrong with the Air of St. Petersburg” within the framework of the session “Hot Issues. Correcting the Mistakes”.

The speech of Alexander Kolotov, the Russian coordinator of the environmental coalition Rivers Without Borders, a member of the Angara-Baikal Basin Council, and a Yabloko member, was devoted to the condition of dams.

Olga Tsepilova, Chair of the Green Russia faction of the Yabloko party, commenting on the readings, noted their special significance in the present difficult situation for Russia and the world.

“Even in such hard times we managed to consolidate, in the format of an all-Russian applied research conference, the brightest representatives of the environmental community and draw public attention to topical environmental issues. This is the best tribute to the memory of Alexei Yablokov,” Tsepilova said.

Closing the readings Dilbar Klado, the widow of Alexei Yablokov, spoke about how the traditional holiday of the end of summer held in the village of Petrushevo, the Ryazan Region, which Alexei Yablokov and Dilbar Klado came up with for their grandchildren and which local residents had been maintaining for many years.