Press Release, 27.07.2023

On 25-26 July, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov, visited the Tambov region.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov at the meeting with Olga Burkanova, Director of the Voroninsky nature reserve

On the morning of 25 July, Rybakov together with the Chair of the Tambov branch of Yabloko Yana Zenkina and other party members, visited the office of the Dobraya Tochka, a charity environmental organisation, where, together with colleagues, he brought things for those in need. Tambov Yabloko has been cooperating with them for many years and helps to replenish their fund with the items they need. At the end of August 2022, there were more than 11,000 goods in the warehouse of Dobraya Tochka. Every year, several thousand people receive help from Dobraya Tochka.

The head of the party also visited the Voroninsky nature reserve, the only specially protected natural area of the federal level in the Tambov region. Rybakov met with the Director of the reserve, Olga Burkanova, with whom he discussed the problems of specially protected natural areas and the prospects for the development of environmental education in Russia.

The next day, Nikolai Rybakov visited places associated with the memory of the Second World War. In the morning, together with colleagues from the Tambov Yabloko, he visited the Eternal Flame memorial. The complex was created in 1970 in memory of 250,000 residents of the Tambov region who died on the battlefields.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov, together with Vladimir Sereda, the former Chairman of the Tambov branch of the Memorial human rights organisation and the chief curator of the Sergei Denisov Literature and Arts Museum, visiting the monument to the victims of political repression

From the city centre the delegation moved to the international memorial complex “Tambov-Rada” near Tambov. During the Second World War a camp for prisoners of war was organised there in the vicinity of Tambov, near the Rada station. People of more than 20 nationalities, who fought voluntarily or under duress on the side of Nazi Germany, were kept there behind barbed wire. According to official sources, approximately 24,000 prisoners of war died in the camp.

In the afternoon, Nikolai Rybakov arrived in the city of Uvarovo, the Tambov Region, where a meeting was held in the city library in memory of Yuri Shchekochikhin, journalist and member of the Yabloko party, who died 20 years ago after being poisoned by an unknown substance.

Photo: an event devoted to the memory of Yuri Shchekochikhin in Uvarovo

The meeting place was specially chosen in Uvarovo, the city of Shchekochikhin’s childhood and youth. The event was hosted by Nadezhda Azhgikhina, the journalist’s widow, director of the PEN-Moscow Association.

Nikolai Rybakov spoke to the residents of Uvarovo and, together with actress Tatyana Parshina, read out several newspaper reports by Yuri Shchekochikhin about the Chechen wars and problems in Russia’s relations with other countries.

The residents of Uvarovo who spent many years of their youth together with Yuri Shchekochikhin also shared their memories of him. The audience also talked about how relevant Shchekochikhin’s articles are today in particular, “Take Care of Yourself”, “A War Box Office” and “I Will Not Give Up My Georgia”.

Photo: a meeting with Yabloko acitivists and supporters in Tambov

It should be noted that since the beginning of the year, Yabloko Chairman Nikolai Rybakov has been on a working visit in 23 regions of Russia, including the Tambov Region, the Volgograd Region, the Stavropol Territory, the Chuvash Republic, St. Petersburg, the Altai Territory, the Novosibirsk Region, the Kemerovo Region, the Kamchatka Territory, the Saratov Region, the Republic of Khakassia, the Krasnoyarsk Territory, the Sakhalin Region, the Irkutsk Region, the Amur Region, the Trans-Baikal Territory, the Republic of Dagestan, the Chechen Republic, the Ulyanovsk Region, the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic, the Karachay-Cherkess Republic, the Republic of North Ossetia – Alania, and the Republic of Ingushetia.