Press Release, 2.02.2021

Photo: The Chelyabinsk city pine forest / Wikimedia Commons

The second Court of Appeal once again confirmed that the decision of the regional Legislative Assembly to change the boundaries of the Chelyabinsk pine forest was unlawful. The court, located in St. Petersburg, overturned the decision of the deputies to seize part of the pine forest for the construction of a children’s surgical building.

Andrei Talevlin, member of the Yabloko Federal Bureau, and lawyer Vladimir Kazantsev once again defended the city forest, because of the regional authorities’ appealed the first ruling of the court of appeal.

The second Court of Appeal in addition to preserving the territory of the forest which had been transferred under a construction site, also left the mountain area Monakhi within the boundaries of protection.

“The inability of the regional authorities to admit its guilt and amend the mistakes is amazing. Without waiting for today’s court session and the final decision on the case, the Ministry of Construction of the Chelyabinsk Region announced a repeated tender for the development of a surgical building project on a disputed land plot, and there are already participants of the tender. Once again, the Ministry of Construction will need to cancel the contract and conduct negotiations with the contractor so that he does not collect losses from the regional budget,” Yaroslav Shcherbakov, Chairman of the Chelyabinsk Yabloko, said.

“People have already called this case “nasty”, since representatives of the regional authorities tried to accuse the defenders of the pine forest and environmental activists that trees were more important to them than children’s health,” the leader of the regional branch of the party added.

The Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko emphasises that the regional branch of the party has never opposed the construction of a children’s hospital. According to Yabloko, a medical facility can be built in a different location, as was originally planned.

It should be noted that back in December 2019, the regional parliament seized more than 4 hectares of a specially protected natural area for the construction of a surgical building of a children’s hospital. Initially, it was planned to construct the surgical building in the territory of the Medical Town without changing the boundaries of the city pine forest. The plan of the corresponding land plot was approved. The designers did not cope with the task and offered to build the object in the territory of the Chelyabinsk city pine forest. The Legislative Assembly promptly deprived the land plot of the status of a natural monument so that to help the developers. Subsequently, the Chelyabinsk branch of Yabloko’s Anti-Corruption Policy Centre revealed a conflict of interests in the construction of the Children’s Surgical Building.