Press Release, 17.09.2020

The Second Court of Appeal in St. Petersburg sided with the defenders of Chelyabinsk forest that the city authorities were planning to cut. The Court overturned not only the decision of the Chelyabinsk Regional Court, but also the decision of the Regional Legislative Assembly to change the boundaries of the city’s only natural monument. Lawyers Andrei Talevlin and Vladimir Kazantsev (the latter is under house arrest now) managed to win the case.

On September 16, 2020, the Court considered the appeal filed by environmental activists and invalidated the resolution of the Legislative Assembly of the Chelyabinsk Region of December 26, 2019 which permitted the cuttings by means of changing the boundaries of the protected territory of the forest “On approving the boundaries of the natural monument of the Chelyabinsk region of the Chelyabinsk (city) pine forest and its zone of protection”.

Andrei Talevlin, a lawyer, environmentalist and member of the Bureau of the Yabloko party, told about the details:

“In December 2019, our Legislative Assembly changed the boundaries of the only protected natural forest area in the city of Chelyabinsk. On the one hand, they annexed the territory, which they seized in 2011, and on the other, completely unreasonably cut out a piece of the territory for the construction of the surgical complex of the children’s hospital. They just took it and cut it out, without even having a justification for this, without researching the conservation value of the territory. We decided that this should not be done and appealed, and the regional court refused to satisfy our appeal.

We went to the court of appeal, which supported us. Why did we succeed? Because sooner or later such a cheating must end! They really do what they want according to the principle: I want to deceive and I do it. You can not do it this way. After all, this is a specially protected natural area, and there is a legal regime, legislation that protects it. You cannot just brush off the laws like that!

In St. Petersburg, both the court and the Public Prosecutor’s Office sorted out the case, looked at the laws and made an informed decision. Moreover, they not only satisfied our demand to cancel the seizure of land plots from the boundaries of the protected area, but completely canceled the entire decision of the Legislative Assembly, together with the decision of the Chelyabinsk court.

It is important to note that we have never been against the construction of a children’s hospital, which can be built elsewhere – as it was originally planned. It is not our fault that construction lobbyists have no competence in either construction or environmental legislation, but there is a corruption component. This is the trouble of the team of Governor Texler, which submitted the bill [on cutting part of the forest] to the Legislative Assembly, and the trouble of the deputies who voted for it.

Here is an important and characteristic fact: on 20 May there was a decision by the Chelyabinsk court, and already on 26 May, when this decision had not yet entered into force (!), The Legislative Assembly had already changed the permission to use the plot [do the cuttings], referring to this decision!

We were handling the case together with Vladimir Kazantsev, who was unable to attend the appeal in St. Petersburg today, as a trumped-up charge was brought against him and he is under house arrest. Certainly, this [arrest] is not due to the defence of the Chelyabinsk pine forest. This is the persecution for his fight against the dangerous project of the Tominsky Mining and Processing Plant”.

It should be noted that in December 2019, the regional parliament seized more than 4 hectares of a specially protected natural area for the construction of a children’s surgical building of the Regional Hospital. Initially, the building was planned to be built on the territory of Medgorodok without changing the boundaries of the city pine forest. The construction planning plan was approved for the corresponding land plot. However, the architects and constructors did not cope with the task and offered to build an object on the territory of the Chelyabinsk city pine forest. The Legislative Assembly promptly deprived the land of the status of a natural monument so that to satisfy the needs of the developers.

The competition for architectural and construction project was won by a local firm (OOO Regionproekt), affiliated with the Deputy Minister of Construction of the Chelyabinsk Region. The contract for the design of the surgical building between the regional Ministry of Construction and OOO Regionproekt is currently undergoing an urgent audit of the Main Control Department for the Chelyabinsk Region. The Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko demanded to conduct an audit due to the revealed violations, as well as a possible conflict of interest: the new deputy minister of construction, the customer of the work, was the owner of this company and its general director at the conclusion of the contract.

Andrei Talevlin, member of the Yabloko Federal Bureau and Chairman of the Chelyabinsk branch of the Yabloko environmental faction in the region, appealed to the Regional Court to cancel the decision of the Legislative Assembly of the Chelyabinsk Region to seize part of the territory of the Chelyabinsk pine forest for development.

After the appeal of the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko to the court, the regional Ministry of Construction terminated the contract for the development of a part of the city pine forest.