Technopark’s information hub was demolished at Shies

On August 26, acting governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast Alexander Tsybulsky went to railway station Shies near which it was planned to build a landfill. After a meeting with eco-activists, he asked the employees of Technopark (the project's investor) to dismantle the tent where the company's information hub was located. This was reported by the press office of the government of Arkhangelsk Oblast.

During a tour of Shies, eco-activist Anna Shekalova asked Tsybulsky why the information hub tent of Technopark still remained at the railway station. The company's employees began dismantling it at the governor’s request. Activists also showed Tsybulsky ballast under an awning which was not included into reclamation, buildings with domestic animals, and the remaining equipment.

According to section foremaster Alexey Dorozhkin, reclamation is slow due to the fact that activists still do not let the workers bring fuel and equipment for dismantling buildings. Tsybulsky tasked acting minister of nature of Arkhangelsk Oblast Leonid Utyugov with sorting the situation out, and foresters — with controlling the reclamation. Also, the acting governor of the region plans to restore the train stop at railway station Shies.

"What have I seen today when I was at Shies? The fact that the level of effort to restore the land that could have become a landfill is simply huge. The buildings are being demolished and damaged land is being reclaimed at glacial pace. We are going to speed it up by filing pre-action claim letters, and then, if necessary, to adjudge issues with the company responsible for this.

The main thing is that the people I have spoken to today both in the village of Urdoma and directly at Shies, having expressed all the piled-up complaints quite emotionally, are ready, as it seemed to me, for give-and-take.

We agreed that we will start making changes to the general plan of Urdoma and negotiate with Russian Railways to restore the stop at station Shies when trains run on the Vorkuta - Moscow route.

Shies is a shorthand now, but it is a railway station historically, and the residents do need it. We will restore it."

Land reclamation began in the area where it was planned to build a landfill soon after the authorities of Moscow excluded Shies from its territorial waste management scheme for the next 10 years. Igor Orlov, the governor of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the proponent of the landfill project, resigned on April 2, 2020. Alexander Tsybulsky, the acting governor, opposed the waste placement at Shies. On June 9, the authorities of Arkhangelsk Oblast dissolved the agreement with Technopark.

The construction of a landfill at station Shies on the border of Arkhangelsk Oblast and the Komi Republic began in the summer of 2018 without permits. Residents of the two regions organized a powerful protest campaign: they regularly held rallies and pickets in the cities and set a tent camp with a 24-hour duty at the station itself.

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