ИСТИНА

We are from Moscow – a city that saw over 500 parks redeveloped over the last five years. Quiet natural green spaces now feature playgrounds. The authorities believe that the city’s green areas should serve a recreational function. The voices of biologists who find this approach destructive to the local ecosystems are barely heard. But it seems with a one green space we proved that a park can be equally comfortable for people and plants, for birds and insects. This area is next to my house. For some reason people forgot about this plot of land, and it developed an interesting living ecosystem. We found 18 rare species of plants and insects here. Local administration was going to tile it and install sporting grounds. But local residents counter-proposed their own project. A few hundred people voiced what they wanted to see done with this area. And the answer was: more nature! Based on their wishes, a project was designed. Our project is a meadow, where man made features serve as accents to natural beauty. The administration’s original project included sealing 60 percent of the area, but we reduced that down to 15 percent. Our version was created as a result of a unique collaboration between biologists, architects and landscape designers. In our country we have never had all these specialists come together to design a park, working as equals. And on top of that – pro bono. Usually the architects build park projects. It's really strange. Landscape designers are hired only for private projects, such as private backyards, and biologists are never invited at all. Our project is also a manifestation of the protection of local flora. Quite often greening efforts make use of beautiful ornamental yet alien species, and this often causes irreversible consequences to the local native ecosystems. We selected only plants native to Moscow. Finding “common” species available for sale was a challenge in its own right. The project is still underway, but we believe: it's a small yet very important step for us to enable cities to live in harmony with nature.