Forest | part 1

  "It must be expensive to cut a tree." How to grow a forest in a city, what reforms are needed in the structures responsible for landscaping, and how caring citizens can help here

American scientists prove that trees have a beneficial effect on the psychological state of a person. If trees and bushes are planted in a vacant lot or an abandoned lot, there is less chance of crimes being committed there. Trees provide shade, improve air, purify water with roots and control noise. And what does the person answer them? Together with the coordinator of the Trees of Petersburg movement, Maria Tinika, we figured out how plants survive in cities, why it is important to keep an eye on them and how to plant a tree on our own.

- Why do people need trees?

- First, they are important for relaxation. For example, the Champs Elysees, one of the first boulevards in Paris, was originally a promenade for the nobility. Second, they provide concrete benefits. In the 1920s – 1930s, trees in St. Petersburg were considered an essential element of a healthy city. In the first place was the function: treatment, protection from noise, dust, dirt. Aesthetics faded into the background. There was no such thing as landscaping.

At that time, trees were occupied by landscapers, biologists, and the sanitary service. Planting was not considered a gardening art. The trees in Pavlovsk and Gatchina were designed to improve culture, and in St. Petersburg they are “workhorses”.

Third, trees symbolize something important to people. During the blockade of Leningrad, not a single tree was cut down. Instead, 16 thousand wooden buildings were dismantled for firewood, and in 1942 new trees were actively planted. The blockade was broken - and 12 squares were broken in the city, and when the war ended, two Victory parks were laid. People on the verge of survival went to trees as a symbol of life and the future. This sacred attitude persisted in Leningrad for ten years, from 1944 to 1955. Then they planted about 1.5 million trees, greened 300 streets. For comparison: over the past 30 years, not a single one has been greened in the city.

- Why did they stop planting trees in St. Petersburg?

- The significance of the tree for city management has greatly decreased, the meanings have shifted. Trees are now being dealt with not by biologists and gardeners, but by architects. They began to look at the landings from the point of view of aesthetics: beautiful / ugly, obscures / does not obscure. The most amazing thing is that it happened only here. Abroad in the 1970s, they realized the horror of climate change and the importance of trees, they began to actively study this problem. In 1992, the UN conventions were adopted, according to which countries had to think about reforestation, about the preservation of trees in the city.