Nikolai Rybakov’s Facebook page, 29.08.2021

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov with Yabloko candidates in the Arkhangelsk region Oleg Mandrykin and Oksana Vladyka at the radioactive waste storage facility in Severodvinsk

In one day we managed to visit two cities of the Arkhangelsk region – Severodvinsk and Arkhangelsk.

In Severodvinsk, we checked the indicators of water pollution in the White Sea on the city beach Yagry. The device showed a two-fold excess of the maximum permissible pollution. Alas, not only this water is not fit for drinking, but it is also it is undesirable to swim in it. This can lead to the ingestion of, for example, intestinal viruses into the human body, and lead to serious health consequences.

Together with the candidates from the Yabloko party in the Arkhangelsk region – one of the leaders of the Stop-Shies coalition Oleg Mandrykin, engineer Maxim Piskunov, legal adviser Oksana Vladyka and volunteers, we visited the Mironova Gora radioactive waste storage facility in Severodvinsk, which was built in the 1950s.

Everything from the radioactive equipment of damaged submarines to the clothes of the decontamination groups was taken to the bunker then. The clay soil was to become a natural barrier to groundwater penetration. The storage was filled up back in 1979 and forgotten. But concrete containers began losing their leakproofness and were filled with water. In the 1990s, environmentalists sounded the alarm, and in the early 2000s, the federal and the regional budgets found money to finally make the territory inaccessible to people. But this is a short-term decision and the fate of the Mironovaya Gora storage has yet to be dealt with.

Radiation is dangerous because it is not visible, and its consequences in the form of oncological diseases manifest themselves years after the radiation injury. Severodvinsk is a city where many potentially dangerous works are carried out. Therefore, there must be a system of reliable information for citizens in the event of radiation incidents, and also there must be a very serious level of medicine and the services of the Ministry of Emergency Situations so that to provide aid to people in the event of an incident. But the best thing is to eliminate such objects of accumulated environmental damage altogether. Yabloko stands for this.

Together with local activists, we discussed the problem of construction in the city centre, where they want to erect a complex of new buildings “Kvartal 100” in the green area. Instead of improving the green oasis on the shores of Lake Teatralnoye (between the Drama Theatre and the Central Department Store) and providing the residents of the city with a park for recreation, the local authorities decided to cut down more than 2,000 trees and give the expensive land to developers.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov together with Yabloko activists, candidates and volunteers at the construction site in the centre of Severodvinsk

Creation of green areas where people could repose, recreate themselves and improve their health is an urgent task for most cities in our country. A ban on the destruction of green areas in the cities should be introduced at the legislative level so that to prevent the city authorities from disposing of such land as their own.

This territory was given by the former Governor without competition or tenders to the general developer, who today is going to build 11 high-rise buildings there. Thanks to our activists, this area can be still defended. To destroy such a landscape by the hands of the authorities is a crime against the inhabitants of the city. There are places for housing construction in the city, but no site so that to create a good park for people.

The holiday Dervish80 is being held in Arkhangelsk these days in honour of the 80th anniversary of the arrival of the first convoy Dervish to the port of the city [that was sent by the allies in the Anti-Hitler Coalition to Arkhangelsk during the Second World War]. A caravan consisting of six ships from Holland and Great Britain arrived in Arkhangelsk on 31 August, 1941. It delivered the most important strategic cargoes to the city, including 3,800 antisubmarine bombs and magnetic mines, 10,000 tons of rubber, 1.5 tons of branded boots, tin, wool, and inventory. In total 78 Arctic Lend-Lease convoys (about 1400 merchant ships) carried out humanitarian aid to the USSR for the four years of the war. They provided very important support to our country during one of the most difficult periods in history. For us, this experience should be a lesson – in the fight against evil, we all need to be able to unite. Not to break, but to establish international relations.

In Arkhangelsk, I met with Alexander Peskov, journalist of the Dvina Segodnya publication, to discuss Yabloko’s proposals to change the situation in the country.

I also met with the local activists of the party: Alexander Kozenkov, a candidate for the State Duma, an entrepreneur, a member of Opora Rossii, Ruslan Akhmetshin, Deputy Chairman of the Arkhangelsk branch of Yabloko, and environmental activist Artyom Kanayev. We discussed topical issues related to the elections and the situation in the country.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov on the Dvina embankment in Arkhangelsk

I walked along the Dvina embankment, talked to the residents of Arkhangelsk and, together with a team of volunteers, handed them our newspapers and leaflets. The next destination is Voronezh.