2.5 thousand mature trees are being restored in Moscow

The structures of the capital’s mayor’s office announced a competition for the “care and restoration of green spaces” in Moscow. We are talking about watering, whitewashing and loosening 2.5 thousand adult lindens, maples, elms and apple trees on Rublevsky, Mozhayskoye highways and in other areas of the city. The authorities are ready to pay 1 billion rubles for this work, as well as planting “fallen” trees within three years. Moscow regularly holds such three-year competitions for the care of trees and shrubs: in 2022, for example, about 3.4 billion rubles were awarded at three tenders. Three-year contracts in such an industry are reasonable because they allow you to control the work of the contractor, experts interviewed by Kommersant believe.

The competition for the “implementation of measures for the care and restoration of green spaces” was announced by the State Institution “Directorate of Capital Repairs”, subordinate to the Capital Department of Capital Repairs. The contractor is expected to take care of 2.5 thousand trees at nine sites, including Rublevsky and Mozhayskoye Highways, Bolshaya Akademicheskaya Street and Volgogradsky Prospekt. We are talking about adult lindens of the Pallida variety 4 to 7 m high, maples 4–5 m high, New Horizon elms 5–8 m high and ornamental apple trees. The documentation says that the contractor must ensure the care of green spaces – watering, whitewashing, loosening the soil, cleaning the “tree near the tree” from debris, and in case of death of plants – their restoration. In the latter case, the contractor is invited to be guided by the order of the Moscow Department of Housing and Public Utilities of October 17, 2022, which allows a ten percent “dead rate” of deciduous trees in the first three years after planting (and conifers – up to 15%). The work must be carried out within a period of 1080 days. The amount of the contract is 1 billion rubles. Applications are accepted until August 21st.

The Moscow authorities regularly hold similar three-year competitions for the care and restoration of trees and shrubs. So, in 2021, a corresponding tender was held for 1.2 billion rubles, and in 2022 at least three major tenders for these services were held for a total amount of about 3.4 billion rubles. So, the winner of the tender for 1.5 billion rubles. At the end of last year, Evropark LLC became LLC, which will have to take care of 4.2 thousand trees and 105.9 thousand shrubs for three years. At the same time, the list of addresses includes public gardens near the complex of buildings of the presidential administration of the Russian Federation and the Security Council of the Russian Federation in Ipatevsky Lane, the building of the Ministry of Labor on Ilyinka Street, the space near the Rozhdestvensky Monastery and the Moscow Architectural Institute on Rozhdestvenka Street, Kievsky Station Square, the park of the Northern River Station, the building of the State Traffic Inspectorate on Kremenchugskaya street. The same Europark LLC became the winner in 2022 of another similar competition for the care of trees and shrubs for 583.9 million rubles.

Nadezhda Kosareva, president of the City Economics Institute Foundation, considers it justified that the city authorities conclude long-term contracts for such services. “Such a contract allows you to control the contractor’s responsibility for the state of green spaces for a long time. If the period is short, it is not clear whether the contractor’s actions result in long-term plant sustainability. And then they ran, or they imprisoned, and the next year everything died, ”says Ms. Kosareva. “In theory, such contracts are reasonable. Trees in the city should be handled by special companies, they should have special qualifications and be responsible for the condition of the trees. But how will such companies work in practice and will they have the qualifications (for tree care.— “b”), time will tell,” argues Daria Besedina, a member of the Moscow City Duma commission on environmental policy (recognized as a foreign agent).

Alexander Voronov