YEPs in Action ... Meetings and Events ... 20111120 - Meeting and Event - St-Petersburg, Russia

First part of Russian Meeting and Event

in St-Petersburg, Russia on November 20 and 21, 2011

written by Russian YEPs Alisa Baranskaya, Elena Kiseleva and Maria Baranova

On Sunday, November 20th, we, Russian young explorers Alisa Baranskaya, Elena Kiseleva and Maria Baranova gathered together for the ACT Project in Molodezhnoe, a village on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. This territory belongs to Kurortny district of St.Petersburg and is often called as Finnish Riviera for the beauty of area.

However, this wonderful place is strongly polluted. In summer and autumn a lot of people arrive here from the city to rest, and as there are no rubbish bins, they throw all the litter right on the ground where it stays.

Together with locals and Russian youth sailing team under the leadership of Vladimir Semenovich Kulikov, a member of the Council of Senior Coaches of the Special Olympics Committee of St. Petersburg, we started to pick up plastic, glass, and metal in the forest and gradually moved to the shore of the Baltic sea. We never thought we fill so many garbage bags in only some hours! When the empty garbage bags were over, we went to have some tea with Vladimir Semenovich and his students, made a presentation of Pangaea and talked about possible ways to make our environment a better place to live.

The next day started with a meeting with Ilya Chechkin, a representative of a photo center Foto-one and one of the organizers of a major photo competition in St. Petersburg. We discussed our presentation of Pangaea in December. Then, we planned to have a lecture at St. Petersurg State University, but before that visited Nespresso Boutique Bar. We were welcomed by its friendly staff who were glad to see the Pangaea ambassadors.

During our presentation at St. Petersburg University, we told students about Mike Horn, the Pangaea project and possibilities to join the YEP community. At first, we expected to give a 40-minute speech, but students got so interested that didn't want to go away, and we spent with them some hours, answer all their questions and spread flyers. It was a pleasure to see such a friendly atmosphere.

Our presentation at school was transmitted to the next day.

Elena and Maria coudn't participate in the presentation as they returned to Moscow, so Alisa was alone to give the presentations. Alisa Baranskaya told pupils about Mike Horn, showed them some videos and made a presentation of an eco-friendly way of life. The teenagers seemed really interested, they asked a lot of questions, wanted to see more videos, which Alisa eagerly agreed to show. It is so pleasant to tell the youth about something they had never seen, and see the understanding in their eyes. She hopes that after this lecture most of them will not forget to turn off the tap when they clean their teeth or to switch off the light when they leave the room.

Now we are preparing a presentation of Pangaea in December. We are sure it will be successful, so we can't wait for this moment!

Russian YEP Meeting, Photo and Presentation Events - Cleanup 1

1-3 / 9 items

Russian YEP Meeting, Photo and Presentation Events - Cleanup 2

1-3 / 10 items

Russian YEP Meeting, Photo and Presentation Events - Presentations

1-3 / 14 items

NB: This consitutes the first or this two part project. This project has been sponsored by Pangaea and Mike Horn to cover the expenses of the three Russian YEPs (400 EUR).