The Tragedy of the Gorensky Forest: From Wild Woodland to Amusement Park?

Environmental problems continue. Step by step, the last fragments of wild nature are being torn apart: from untouched protected lands to small protective forests around our cities. And every time there are “a thousand reasons” why it is supposedly important to devastate wild nature!

I received a letter from residents of the Moscow region, people are asking for help to protect their native forest. To begin with, here is a short quote from the letter by Maria Popova:

“Dear Pavel! First of all, I want to thank you very much for the publication 2 years ago, when we fought against two highways through the Gorensky forest! (Balashikha, Moscow region.) At that time the forest was saved thanks to the mass outrage of residents, and your contribution to this cause was very valuable at the initial stage, the most difficult, when the media were still silent. And now, my comrades, defenders of the forest, and I again ask very much for your help in terms of publicity. The authorities have now decided to turn our forest into a city park, with 2.3 billion of our people's rubles. This is despite the fact that the city has a lot of other problems to solve, and supposedly there is no money. However, this time we are not such a crowd. (( Residents do not run en masse to save the forest, most either don’t care, or they do not see anything bad in parks, everyone has to be explained.”

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“Perhaps some of my neighbors read you — please publish. Moreover, the construction of parks in forests is a disaster not only for our forest, half of the Moscow region has been plundered in the same way. People who love nature all over the region cry, fight, but very little can be preserved. Back then, when my neighbors and I fought against the roads, what helped us was the fact that the ‘wise’ designers wanted to lay the road through residential areas, which, of course, caused indignation (nobody wants a highway under their windows). However, I will admit honestly, most people don’t really care much about nature. Work, home, money — that’s understandable, but forest — who needs it… To cancel this outrage at least in our Gorensky forest, there must be a lot of people — like last time, when we fought against the roads, otherwise we won’t cope.”

That is the letter. Everything is very simple — officials simply cannot calm down and by any means try to squeeze out short-term profit from the destruction of one of the last corners of wild nature! Everything is primitively banal: there is a piece of forest, and every day our bureaucrat, drooling, thinks, “how to monetize this land, how to make money.” Building roads, for example, is very profitable — at least “kickbacks” from construction companies, and then renting out areas along the roads for gas stations, shops, and services. In addition, subsidies from the state can be pulled in and mercilessly embezzled.

But it didn’t work out with the roads. I remember this problem! We helped to fight. People defended the forest’s right to life. So the bureaucrat doesn’t sleep at night, thinking: “How could it be, such a tasty piece is wasted?” — and came up with a new scheme, now “modernizing the forest” into a park. The scheme is also old, budgets have long been siphoned off on renovations! How do they joke in Moscow? “Relaying the tiles every year — profitable indeed!” This is the same story here.

Let’s maximize publicity and help the defenders of the Gorensky forest in their difficult struggle for Life.

The Tragedy of the Gorensky Forest

The Gorensky forest park is located in the city of Balashikha, Moscow region. It is a large green massif of 1358 hectares, I have been there several times when passing through Moscow. I remember returning from a meeting in Moscow (Public Chamber) and stopping by acquaintances in Balashikha, I went there to breathe fresh air precisely in the Gorensky forest. Old trees, a large massif, which is primarily a PROTECTIVE forest for the residents of the district.

The forest park was created in 1935 and is part of Moscow’s protective green belt. Therefore, when I say that this is a protective forest, I mean its real practical purpose — to protect the residents of Moscow and the region from air pollution, to preserve health, and, after all, to provide a place for birds and wild animals to live.

But in recent years the forest has been at the center of scandals. In 2023–2024, residents of Balashikha managed with great difficulty to protect it from a project to build highways that threatened to cut the forest into two parts: a multi-lane highway through the forest park and a duplicate of the Shchyolkovo highway. People collected thousands of signatures against the destruction of the forest, appealed to federal authorities, shook the media as best they could. Under public pressure, in January 2024, the head of Balashikha S. Yurov officially stated that the road through the Gorensky forest would not be built.

But meanwhile, the regional authorities decided to “monetize” the forest massif in a different way — not through road construction, but through the so-called “improvement” into a city park. The project is declared grand, a large tender has been placed, and 1.35 billion rubles were allocated for the first stage of construction.

Defending forests from “total transformation” into parks is very difficult, because this is supported by the leadership of the region itself. In forest massifs, instead of local refuges of wild nature, there appear lights, music, shopping stalls and pedestrian paths. Also children’s and sports grounds, restaurants, various establishments are installed. Thus, the forests lose their ecological significance and constant exploitation begins! Which naturally leads to ecosystem degradation.

And it is also difficult to protect forests because public opinion always diverges. The overwhelming majority is not interested in how birds and animals will survive if their home is taken away and exploited! It is much more interesting that housing prices rise near parks, which means each resident “becomes a little richer.” You can take children for a walk, you can ride carousels in the park or sit in a restaurant among the trees.

Few people ask the question that in fact part of the century-old trees will be cut down. The undergrowth will be destroyed. For example, in Kuchino forest (now Vishnyakovsky forest park) in 2024 works on improvement were already carried out. Ecologists report that thousands of trees were cut down and dozens of infrastructure facilities were built (cafés, eco-cafés, food courts, parking lots and so on), according to their estimates, about 1000 constructions in total. There were significant cuttings around the reservoir — residents noticed that the Vishnyakovsky pond “with several water outlets” had become shallow, and green plantings on the banks were cut down, all the fauna that lived in it was destroyed. There are similar cases in other forests, where the authorities rushed to create “recreational parks.”

Local residents say that in the forest there are many Red Book species of plants, birds and animals! Once the destruction of their refuge begins, these species will simply become extinct one after another. And people are asking a fair question: maybe it is better to transfer such forest massifs into specially protected natural areas and preserve them by all means as PROTECTIVE FORESTS? And not to destroy everything our bureaucrat-officials can reach?

People say that the real cost and scale of the work in the forest massif is much greater — according to their data, it is about no less than 2.3 billion rubles. That is, this will be precisely a large-scale development of wild nature with no less large-scale appropriation of budgetary funds.

Currently, the project to turn the Gorensky forest into a recreation area is at the stage of design and approvals. Local residents, those who understand the problems for wild nature and people, are trying to defend the forest as best they can! But when the entire bureaucratic system works only for profit, and a “recreation park” instead of a wild forest looks more attractive to many residents, including due to rising real estate prices, it is really very difficult to achieve changes.

And all because everyone is looking out for their own “selfish” interests.

Let’s support the defenders of the Gorensky forest — spread the material everywhere, tell your friends about the problem, help to maintain public resonance.

© PAVEL PASHKOV