Hogweed is taking over Russia, local authorities and citizens are giving up. Is there a way out?

Elena Petrova, Tatyana Sviridova

How do the authorities fight a plant that was first brought to Central Russia during the Soviet era, and then its harmfulness was realized and declared invasive? They fine the population. In the Moscow region, the fine is from 2 to 5 thousand rubles until June 1. Now the fine for hogweed on a private plot will be 5 thousand rubles.

The high offices have not come up with any other ways to combat the harmful plant. Citizens accuse the authorities of inaction, officials scold citizens and say that they themselves will not lift a finger to help themselves and their homeland.

Roman Gavrilin has a plot of land in the village of Pavlishchevo in the Medynsky District of the Kaluga Region. Several years ago, before the introduction of fines, residents discovered huge thickets of dangerous weeds and began to fight them. There was especially a lot of it on the Vereya-Medyn regional road. At first, they wrote to all authorities - to the administration of their rural settlement, to the district, to the governor of the Kaluga Region, to the forestry management, to road workers, to the Dobrodel portal.

— We waited and waited for an answer... and the hogweed grew and began to bloom. We collected about 30 thousand rubles and invited specialists from Kaluga. With this money we managed to treat the territory along the Vereya-Medyn road from the village of Subbotino to Kremenskoye, — Roman Gavrilin told Novye Izvestia.

A one-time treatment did not help. A year later, the hogweed began to take over more and more hectares. Residents again wrote to all authorities and again received no response. This time they managed to collect 24 thousand and again call the service for the treatment. The service has become much more expensive. Now the treatment of one hundred square meters costs 370 rubles, says Roman Gavrilin:

— This year we treated 70 acres. But it was spotty. They were very angry with us, saying that in the time they spent spot-treating “our” hogweed, they would have treated a whole hectare and earned a lot of money. In short, they won’t come to us anymore. They categorically refused.

Concerned residents bought a “gun” and are treating the roadsides with herbicides without waiting for anyone.

The head of the administration of the rural settlement of Kremenskoye, Lyubov Matrosova , to whom the residents of Pavlishchevo turned, has been working in this position for 41 years and knows everything about hogweed. She knows especially well how much the fight costs her meager budget. Of the 5 million rubles that were in the treasury of the rural settlement last year, 120 thousand went to cultivating lands infested with the plant. The Medyn-Vereya road is of regional subordination, but last year Lyubov Matrosova cultivated her plot. In essence, this is money wasted:

— The roads of our rural settlement — I do that, but I won’t do it at the regional level. I spent so much money last year, and now I look, and it’s all the same. I have one road, and there’s a forest there. I starved it out, and the next year it came back from the forest.

The forestry department is subordinate to the Ministry of Agriculture. There is no coordination of actions. Where there was none, I drove this year, and so what? The devil take it! You, Lyubov Vasilyevna, do it, you are rich. Only this year I am not rich at all. I ran out of money.

According to media reports, the regional budget allocated 3.1 million rubles in 2023 to combat hogweed. The ridiculousness of this amount is astounding. The authorities themselves say that the area of ​​hogweed infestation in the Kaluga Region is about 3 thousand hectares, of which over 1.6 thousand hectares are in the Medynsky District. The allocated amount is barely enough to treat 200 hectares once, not to mention 3 thousand. Companies that treat land from the plant give a figure of about 5 thousand hectares.

Budgets for fighting hogweed in the Central Federal District have begun to grow, but they clearly cannot keep up with the speed of the hogweed's spread.

Lyubov Matrosova has not received a penny from the regional fund, she has not even heard of it. The settlement administration has no resources, and fighting the villagers with fines is useless, says the official. Those who can pay, fight the hogweed themselves, and where it blooms wildly, you will not find the owners due to their antisocial behavior - the villagers drink heavily.

— The administrative commission imposes fines. If the hogweed was 5 cm, by the time it gets to the point of receiving a fine, it will already be 125 cm. Those who fight, they do so without any fines. How many times has this happened: all these fines hang in the air. And these comrades spit on us, because I have never seen them sober. And then the commission will come to me and fine me for inaction.

The most alarming thing about hogweed is that it has begun to actively spread where it has never been before, says Alexey Yaroshenko, head of the forestry department of the Nature Conservation Association:

— I think there is no real data right now. These are estimates anyway. Millions of hectares already. Not a million, but the first millions of hectares. But there is no exact data. Of course, these are not hundreds of thousands of hectares, of course, millions of hectares. It is definitely growing. Hogweed is taking over new territories, and, what is especially sad, it is moving north and northeast, where it was not before. And this is happening quite quickly.

Ekaterina Orekhova lives in the Leningrad Region. She has accumulated a lot of experience in fighting both officials and the hogweed itself. The volunteer recommends that anyone who wants to get the authorities to take action write to the State Services app “Let’s Decide Together .” The application should be formulated as precisely as possible and include the geolocation of the thickets, Ekaterina advises:

— Yes, it takes a lot of time, they drag out the deadlines. The larger the object you are complaining about, the longer the red tape will last. If you have a "borshchmore", a huge overgrowth, then you act exclusively by pressuring the authorities. If you have small pieces, up to half a hectare, but they are beyond your means, then you can look for money, hire private individuals. But, from my point of view, hiring private individuals is not an option at all.

One plant produces up to 8 thousand seeds, and no matter how hard the services try, you will have to clean it up yourself, says a volunteer:

— Municipalities and any called office flood everything without looking. If you remove it pointwise and carefully, all the flora around is preserved. In my area, liverwort, anemone, and geranium bloom. If I didn’t remove the point growth, everything would turn into “borschmore”. I go through with a small pocket sprayer, and treat each plant separately, leaf by leaf. It doesn’t cost anything. In the “Svetofor” store, a liter bottle of very liquid herbicide costs 100 rubles.

Agroecologist, head of the StopBorshevik project Anton Gladilin advises those who care to hold clean-up days and promote them everywhere. This really hurts the administration. Everything else doesn't work, and citizens get formal replies:

— They start to stir if they see a clean-up day, that people are self-organizing, and it’s not under control, they’re doing everything right, you can’t find fault, the administration starts to worry. We call this creating a public demand.

In parallel, it is necessary to process. This lasts for more than one year.

Each region is trying to combat hogweed, but there are no impressive results anywhere. In the Moscow Region, 300 million rubles were allocated for this program, Anton Gladilin told Novye Izvestia, but in fact, different commissions allocate different amounts. Everything depends on the efforts of lobbyists. Mytishchi was allocated a lot of money because there is a powerful lobby there, but in neighboring Korolev, overgrown with hogweed, there is no money for this.

— They hold tenders, but the budgets are small. It takes 15-20 thousand rubles per hectare to treat with herbicides. They start tenders for 7 thousand per hectare. This is impossible. The contractors' profit is even less. There are auctions for reduction. The situation is absurd. The contractors take on this, then give up, refuse the tender, because they understand that they simply cannot, — says the volunteer.

In the administrations themselves, bureaucratization has reached unprecedented levels. A former official in Fryazino said that eight signatures need to be collected to treat one plot. The spraying itself was carried out quickly, but it took weeks to report.

— Most of the lands where hogweed and goldenrod grow are lands of undivided state and municipal property. Mostly, this is abandoned agricultural land. I think that 70 percent of hogweed thickets are on such lands , — says ecologist Yaroshenko.

The worst situation is when abandoned agricultural lands stretch along the roads. Road workers are only responsible for the roadside and mow it when they can. Forests could be planted on such lands, since hogweed is a plant of open spaces, it dies in the forest, but the Ministry of Agriculture is on guard of no man's land. And it is important for officials to find the scapegoat.

— The Ministry of Agriculture is standing like a wall, but categorically does not allow the use of abandoned lands, they do not let anyone in. Let them overgrow as they overgrow. The scapegoats are the municipalities. According to the law, they are responsible for everything. If something happens, they are fined and jailed. It seems like the problem has been solved. But in reality, it is not being solved, — Alexey Yaroshenko states.

In 2024, the State Duma suddenly became concerned about the hogweed problem. Deputies even passed the law in the first reading. Then the matter died down. As environmentalists say, there are enough such unadopted laws in Russia. Amendments to the scandalous "Law on Baikal" have not been adopted for several years. But, unlike the division of the last untouched area with huge tourist potential, no one wants to seriously deal with hogweed. The same situation is with forest fires - municipalities are responsible for fighting fires, and they have neither money nor authority. But the bill also did not contain a fundamental decision on what to do with abandoned lands.

Of course, one can blame the unfriendly America for the spread of hogweed in Russia, as one of the co-authors of the failed law on invasive plants, the United Russia deputy Timofey Bazhenov, is now doing . But this does not help matters.

Meanwhile, hogweed is taking over a new million hectares.