From the village of Bychikha, Khabarovsk Region, Russian Far East:  Vasily didn’t bring a guitar this year.  Somehow, his guitar had broken, no one else in Vladivostok had a guitar they were willing to loan, and he showed up empty-handed.

No matter for all the participants in our annual Sosnovka conference, though.  Sosnovka gathers leading environmentalists from Siberia and the Russian Far East, with a few folks from Moscow sprinkled in for good measure.  Now in its 9th year, the friendship and trust among Sosnovka members runs deep.  They gather to discuss the most critical environmental issues affecting the region:  from large oil and gas pipelines to mining projects, from changes in Russian environmental laws to forests and protected areas.

As always, we never had enough time to delve deeply into the issues.  Too many issues, too little time.  But we touched upon the main issues in our conference discussions, and then people split off into small working groups or by twos and threes to talk about the issues that mattered to them.

It was great to see people from all over Siberia and the Russian Far East, covering territory more vast than we in the U.S. can imagine.  We had folks from Krasnoyarsk and Yakutsk, from Sakhalin and Magadan, covering the entire region from Altai in the west to Kamchatka in the east.

In the end, Vasily figured out how to get a guitar in Khabarovsk.  And thus, we continued the Sosnovka tradition, singing Russian folk songs late into the night, every night, and into morning.  Sure, people didn’t sleep much.  But everyone came away re-inspired and recharged, ready to battle for the environment in their remote regions for another year.  Sure, Sosnovka is great because of the issues we discuss.  But Sosnovka is even better because of the friendships and the people that provide the foundation for the environmental movement in Siberia and the Russian Far East.