Published on: 2026-11-09
Source: Preserved Embassy Foundation – Fund Zapovednoe Posolstvo –
An important disclaimer is at the bottom of this article.
At the Central Exhibition Hall “Manege,” on the platform of the International Wildlife Festival “Golden Turtle,” a session of the volunteer program of the Potanin Foundation School took place. The meeting was held as part of the 10th Gathering of Friends of Protected Islands. The session was led by Yulia Vereshchak, Director of International Projects at the “Protected Embassy” Foundation; participating in the discussion were Potanin Foundation Program Director Yulia Lizicheva, staff members of reserves and national parks, volunteer scholars, and camp leaders of the project.
The School is the largest environmental and volunteer initiative of the Potanin Foundation, combining education, practice, and contribution to the preservation of natural and cultural heritage. It has been implemented for five years in partnership with the “Protected Embassy” foundation. During this time, 68 protected areas and cultural heritage sites have joined it, 160 volunteer programs have been conducted, and more than 1,300 volunteers have worked in specially protected natural areas across the country—from the Kola Peninsula to the Far East. Today, the Potanin Foundation School is one of the largest volunteer programs in Russia’s protected areas and cultural heritage sites.
“It may seem that becoming a volunteeryoNuclear power in a protected area is simply to take and go. But then it turns out that these can be complex territories, mountain systems, specific types of work, and you need to prepare for this so that the result is an effective project for many years, — she opened the meeting. Yulia Vereshchak, Director of International Projects at the “Protected Embassy” Foundation. — A few years ago, we started work at the Foundation’s School from the basics: explaining what a protected area and a reserve museum are, and why volunteers are needed. Today, the School has reached a qualitatively new level — it is a large joint effort of all participants: the territories have already experienced the power of volunteer assistance and offer volunteers more systematic and long-term involvement.
Yulia Lizicheva explained that over five years, volunteer activity has gone beyond physical labor: volunteers not only clear trails, repair bridges and monument fences, but also digitize historical libraries, develop tours, create media content, ecological educational games and quests, and conduct career guidance lessons in local schools. A special focus of the recent season is scientific volunteering: program participants ringed birds and assisted specialists in field research. “Volunteers of the Potanin Foundation School are often specialists in terms of working with natural heritage: biologists, geographers. However, it is not necessary to be a biologist to contribute to science,” emphasized Yulia Lizicheva. “For a volunteer, a concrete, tangible result of work is important: the feeling that you are on the ground doing something that truly brings benefit. This is both help for the territory, a contribution to personal development, establishing new connections, and a kind of digital detox.”
Polina Smirnova, Deputy Director for Environmental Education of the Sochi National Park, shared: “Volunteering for us is an important tool for engagement and public support. The results exceeded expectations: two participants of the shift applied for grants — to the Presidential Nature Fund and to the Potanin Fund — using, among other things, the experience gained and our recommendations. The effects are only positive, so next year we will most likely hold several volunteer camps.”
In the Baikal region — the Republic of Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, and Zabaykalsky Krai — eight sessions of the Potanin Foundation School have been held. “I have met newcomers several times who applied for the Potanin Foundation scholarship contest specifically to get into the Foundation School and go to the volunteer camp. When the young people come back — already with grants, already in teams from other territories — you realize: it was all worth it,” said Radzhana Rygzynova, Executive Director of the Baikal Association of Reserves and National Parks “Baikal’s Protected Necklace” and curator of the Baikal region.
Yulia Devashchenko, chief specialist of the sociocultural activity department of Kenozersky National Park, has participated in the program from both sides — as a volunteer and as a park employee. She emphasized: “Working from the perspective of a specially protected natural area and from the perspective of a volunteer are two different stories, and it is very valuable to understand each other’s tasks and characteristics.”
Albert Khayrutdinov, a 2022 Potanin Foundation scholarship recipient and camp leader at the Bolshaya Kokshaga Reserve (Mari El Republic), has already visited four territories — from Krasnoyarsk Krai to Mari El. “The leader of the volunteer program is a link between the volunteers, the territories, and the foundations: it is important that volunteers understand why they are here, and that the territories receive something more than just working hands,” he noted.
Maria Stalnova, a lecturer at Tomsk State University and a volunteer for the program, visited the shift at the Krasnoyarsk Stolby National Park for the first time, and now she tells her students about the protected areas. “At each shift, such different people come together — philologists, geologists, historians, geographers, medics — and start sharing experiences, working together for the common good,” she added. According to her, volunteers return to the project year after year because they see real results, the bright eyes of the area’s employees, and feel connected to something significant.
Concluding the session, Yulia Vereshchak noted that the main value of the project is the long-term connections: camp leaders return to other territories, volunteers come on their own and bring friends and families, participants launch their own grant initiatives, and some get jobs in nature reserves and conservation organizations. “This synchronization over five years is like磨ing each other: we learn to work together, and projects become stronger. We move forward in unison, and I really hope the project will expand, because the territories and sites we work on are the national heritage of our country.”
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