To mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first State land reclamation organization of the Leningrad Region

     On December 4, 2025, a solemn joint meeting of the Scientific Council of the Federal State Budgetary Budgetary Institution API, the Federal State Budgetary Institution Sevzapmelovodkhoz and veterans of the land reclamation industry, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the founding of the first state land reclamation organization of the Leningrad Region, took place in the assembly hall of the Federal State Budgetary Budgetary Institution Agrophysical Research Institute.

     The solemn meeting was attended by: State Duma Deputy S.V. Yakhnyuk, and a representative of the Committee on Environmental Management of St. Petersburg; 46 veterans of the land reclamation industry; members of the Scientific Council section of the FSBSI API and teachers of higher educational institutions - FSBEI HE PGUPS, SPbPU and SPbGAU; heads and specialists of land reclamation organizations: FSBI Sevzapmeliovodkhoz Management, LLC LENVODPROEKT, LLC Melioration, LLC Agrokhimzem, Borodinskaya PMK-2, Mginskaya PMK-17, Novoladozhskaya PMK-18, Koltushskaya PMK-6, Lomonosovskaya PMK-12, Prigorodnaya PMK-8, Tosnenskaya PMK-7, Leningrad PMK-1, and the Federal State Budgetary Institution Kaliningradmeliovodkhoz; heads of agricultural enterprises: SEC "Kobralovsky", LLC "SPUTNIK", JSC PZ "Petrovsky", JV "Predportovy", JSC "Pervomaisky Breeding Plant" and LLC "Osnichevsky". In total, more than 70 people took part in the solemn meeting.

     The solemn meeting was opened with greetings to the assembled veterans of land reclamation, specialists in land reclamation, scientists and heads of agricultural enterprises by Yuri V. Chesnokov, Director of the Federal State Budgetary Budgetary Institution of the AFI.

     Sergey Vasilyevich Yakhnyuk, Deputy of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, addressed the participants of the meeting with a welcoming speech. In his greeting, Sergey Vasilyevich noted the high achievements of land reclamation companies in the Leningrad region and the growth of the country's agro-industrial complex.

     AndreyE. Reshetov, Director of the Federal State Budgetary Budgetary Institution Sevzapmeliovodkhoz, read out a welcome address on behalf of the Government of the Leningrad Region, Chairman of the Committee on Agro-Industrial and Fisheries Complex O.M. Malashchenko to the audience. The address noted that the successful functioning of the agro-industrial complex of the region is ensured by land reclamation measures, since more than half of its agricultural land belongs to reclaimed lands. Words of gratitude were expressed to the Management of Sevzapmelovodkhoz, the Agrophysical Institute, veterans and industry workers with the wish for further fruitful work on the introduction of new lands into circulation, the transfer of valuable experience to new generations of land reclamation.

       Then a short documentary film about the history of land reclamation development in the Leningrad region, prepared by the Sevzapmeliovodkhoz Department, was presented to the participants of the solemn meeting. The film through the ages featured footage from a horse-drawn plow and the first tractors to multi-bucket excavators working on reclamation construction in the Leningrad region.

The theme of the formation of land reclamation was continued in a short presentation entitled "People and Technologies" by Yuri Grigorievich Yanko, Honored Meliorator of the Russian Federation. The presentation included more than 30 slides in total: first, with reclamation equipment that worked on the construction of closed drainage, even in winter, in the Leningrad region, followed by photographs of specialists who led reclamation construction in the 1980s to the present day. The last slide concluded the text of the march of land reclamation with the words of N. Levant and the music of R. Vasiliev.

        Alexander Vasilyevich Kolganov, who worked as Deputy Minister of Agriculture of the Russian Federation in the 90s of the last century, pointed out the achievements of land reclamation in the Leningrad region and wished for further success.. The welcome address from Gulyuk Georgy Grigoryevich, Honored Land Reclamation of the RSFSR, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Land Reclamation and Water Management" contained congratulations to veterans and specialists of the land reclamation industry on a significant date and wished them success in their future work.

        The second film "Milestones of land Reclamation of the Leningrad region", prepared by specialists of the Agrophysical Institute, presented a brief history of land reclamation: starting from the first days after the Great Patriotic War and the adoption of a landmark resolution The Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1966 on the extensive development of land reclamation to the present. Large water management facilities are shown along with irrigation systems that ensured guaranteed crop yields in suburban farms and drainage construction technologies.

      Historical information "From the history of land reclamation in the Leningrad Region" was presented by Andrey E. Reshetov, Director of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Sevzapmelovodkhoz". The report noted that the first known facts about drainage in the Leningrad region relate to drainage works on the lands of monasteries, as well as work on the drainage of fields by profiling Finns on the Karelian Isthmus. The creation of the first land reclamation system dates back to 1855-1856 near St. Petersburg. The report presented in detail all the main points from the origin of the land reclamation industry of the Leningrad region in 1925 to its current state. An urgent problem is noted - the availability of unused land, which is being solved according to the current program for involving fallow lands in circulation. The topical issues of consolidating the inter-farm land reclamation network of the region were touched upon. The information on the closed land reclamation network of the Leningrad region, which currently makes up 118 thousand km, is presented.

The Director of the Department, A.E. Reshetov, performed the honorary mission of awarding diplomas to veterans on behalf of the receiver of the first state land reclamation organization of the Leningrad Region, Federal State Budgetary Institution Sevzapmeliovodkhoz.

After the ceremony, the director of the Agrophysical Institute gave the floor to Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Ivanovich Ivanov for a scientific report "Agromelioration as an urgent means of farming in the Leningrad region." The report began with an epigraph from 1929 by D.N. Pryanishnikov about the role of the Non-Chernozem zone in the sustainability of obtaining a guaranteed harvest in the country during droughts in our southern regions. The significant results achieved in the implementation of the agricultural development program in the Non-Chernozem zone, adopted in 1974, are shown. The program made it possible to implement what Pryanishnikov said only in the early 1980s, while the speaker pointed out that high results had been achieved with significant staffing. The attention of the audience was drawn to the recent critical weather and climatic conditions exceeding the existing norms of reclamation construction design. The need and key indicators of the current state program for the involvement of unused lands in the turnover are presented. At the same time, it was noted that nature takes its toll when fields are not cultivated, and they overgrow with woody and shrubby vegetation in volumes up to 154 t/ha of terrestrial woody biomass. The role of drainage in the region is outlined — first of all, it is the preservation of the crop during harvesting. Since the difference in biological productivity of land is not so high between drained and non-drained lands. At the same time, the difference in productivity of the "commodity" that ends up in the bins is already in the tens and hundreds of percent. The audience's attention was also drawn to the fact that in the Leningrad region one should not forget about irrigation, the effectiveness of which can be very significant. At the end of the report, the developments of the Agrophysical Institute were presented: meliorants, remote drainage inspection technologies, drainage flushing technologies and other developments.

      Sergey Vasilyevich Yakhnyuk continued honoring veterans by presenting diplomas on behalf of the State Duma Committee to specialists of the Sevzapmelovodkhoz Department.

       In the final part of the solemn meeting, veterans of the land reclamation industry Rosalia Ivanovna Babenko, Doctor of Agricultural Sciences Anatoly Ivanovich Osipov, and Chairman of the SEC Kobralovsky Bronstein greeted the participants of the meeting Alexander Yakovlevich, record wheat harvests on reclaimed lands in difficult weather conditions in 2025 were noted in the report presented by A.I. Ivanov.