Press Release, 19.06.2020

The Supreme Court of Karelia satisfied the claim of Olga Tuzhikova, Ilya Shkvarin and Valery Alekseev, the residents of the capital of Karelia Petrozavodsk, to the city administration, who demanded that the change of the status of part of the territory of the Kamenny Bor park (where the construction of a kindergarten is going on as part of the Federal Special Programme for the Development of the Republic of Karelia until 2020) was unlawful.

The court declared unlawful the expansion of the construction site to the territory of the park. According to lawyer Olga Tuzhikova, if the decision of the Supreme Court of the Republic is upheld in the Third Court of Cassation in St. Petersburg, then the construction of the kindergarten in the territory of the park will be prohibited.

Emilia Slabunova, member of the Federal Political Committee of Yabloko and a deputy of the parliament of Karelia, acted as a witness in court. In addition, earlier the politician had filed an appeal to the Public Prosecutor regarding deforestation in the Kamenny Bor park and the demolition of the monument to Yasha Stepanov.

Dmitry Rybakov, Deputy Chairman of the Green Russia faction of the Yabloko party, took part in defending the Kamenny Bor park. The environmentalist emphasised that the victory was made possible due to the efforts of hundreds of caring residents of Karelia who defended the park.

It should be noted that the conflict around the Kamenny Bor park broke out in Petrozavodsk last winter, when residents discovered that trees in the green zone were being cut down. As it turned out, part of the park’s territory was given by the city authorities for the construction of a kindergarten under the Federal Special Programme for the Development of Karelia until 2020. During cutting of trees, the builders destroyed a monument to the fighter of battle-plane Yakov Stepanov who defended the city in the World War 2 and installed in the 1990s at the site of the death of the defender of the Karelian capital. Defenders of the park demanded that the city and the republican authorities stop the construction, but Karelian officials said in response that works would continue despite protests. At present the residents of the city have restored the monument at the site of the death of Yakov Stepanov.