Press Release, 24.05.2019

Nikolai Rybakov, Yabloko Deputy Chairman and environmentalist, visited Kostroma on 23 May.

Rybakov met with Valentina Yamshchikova, deputy of the Kostroma City Council and Co-Chair of the regional ecological movement “In the Name of Life”. Rybakov and Yamshchikova discussed environmental problems of the Kostroma region and environmental protection measures implemented in the Kostroma region.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov and Valentina Yamshchikova

After the meeting Rybakov visited a cattle farming enterprise at the invitation of Alexander Lazutin, Chairman of the Kostroma regional branch of the Yabloko party and head of the farming enterprise. The enterprise – ZAO Shunga – is one of the leaders in the cattle breeding sector in the Kostroma region.

Photo: Nikolai Rybakov, Nikolai Starikin and Alexander Lazutin

Rybakov also met with Nikolai Starikin, head of the rural settlement of Shungenskoye, and discussed with him the peculiarities of infrastructure development in the villages and the agrarian policy.

Photo: Nikolai Starikin, Nikolai Rybakov and Alexander Lazutin

After visiting the rural settlement in the Kostroma region and agricultural production facilities, Rybakov took part in the round table “Politics and Environment”.

The discussion was moderated by Nikolai Sorokin, head of the public organisation Kostroma School of Public Policy.

The problem of how to overcome the so-called “garbage reform” launched by the government on 1 January, 2019, was the most discussed issue at the meetings in Kostroma.

“As long as seven years ago, the government came up with the idea to create regional operators. As I expected, the structures associated with the present government became operators in most of the regions. The fact that nothing would change after that did not bother anyone then. Then a system was created where a regional operator received funding depending on the volume of garbage taken to landfills. If the garbage is collected separately, then little garbage is taken to landfills. Obviously, this is not profitable for the operator, and the operator will not introduce a separate collection of garbage.

From this year, even the regions where the system of separate collection began to develop, saw its collapse, because now the firms previously engaged in separate collection of garbage say that they cannot do this, as they would legally steal money from a regional operator,” Rybakov said.

At the end of the day, the politician held a meeting with the activists of the Kostroma branch of Yabloko.