“Give the earth a garden”: ENU hosted a training seminar by ecologist Yu. Gashek

The Eurasian National University hosted a week-long training seminar "Give the earth a garden" by environmentalist and eco-volunteer Yuri Gashek, organized on the initiative of the university's Ombudsman Neli Shapekova.

Chairman of the private foundation "Give the earth a Garden", head of the public association "Atameken-Rodina" Yuri Gashek at the seminar told the university students, staff and graduates about the importance of caring for the earth, about a conscious approach to planting green spaces to improve the environment, respect for nature and much more.

Yuri Gashek and his associates have been cultivating trees for 20 years. During this time, a team of eco-volunteers has grown and distributed tens of thousands of trees, and conducted 700 events.  7 thousand children attended his seminars. Each child was given the opportunity to plant a tree.

Yuri Gashek calls the cultivation of trees his main function and finds a vital meaning in this matter. In an interview with the press service of the Eurasian National University, Yuri Gashek spoke in more detail about the origin of the movement, about people's attitude to caring for the environment, and the upbringing of the younger generation.

Hello, Yuri Lvovich! Welcome to our university. Please tell us how your movement originated.

Yu.G.: We believe that thought precedes human action. We were worried about why our air and water were getting dirtier and we were getting sick more often. We thought about solving this issue for a long time, we didn't sleep at night, and we realized that we were moving away from the laws that earth had developed for us. We are losing touch with it and are plunging more and more into the artificial world. Therefore, we do not observe the laws of nature, we invent our own. We have not yet been able to build a relationship with the entire universe, but in nature this relationship is arranged.

We started to get in touch with nature. We began to slowly carve up the earth, communicate with it, and it began to tell its her secrets. So we came to the conclusion that we want to do this. We see this as the meaning of life.

However, there is a problem that we environmentalists, alas, cannot solve. The thing is, we need followers. We environmentalists alone will not save the whole earth and we will not remove all the garbage. Every person living on earth consumes the resources of the earth, and in return, unfortunately, no one returns anything except garbage.

We realized that this situation needs to be massively changed. People should clean up the trash after themselves. It can't be done because it has to be done, it can be done because I love it. We suggest that people change their way of life: to live in harmony with nature, for example, in low-rise buildings. Plant a lot of trees around oneself, grow a garden.

After all, every man doesn't just have to grow a tree in their life, each must grow a garden. They don't just have to build a house, they have to build a house that won't harm the environment. They should not just give birth to a son, but create a whole family. It is necessary to create convenient conditions for this. Nature will help us raise a large number of children, be healthy and improve our environment.

We have been doing this since 2003. We started for ourselves. We thought about how we could live in good conditions. When we started creating gardens, we realized that happiness on earth can only be universal. If I'm living happily in my garden, and there are fires or wars all around, I know I'm going to get hurt too. Everyone on earth should have happiness. So that no one wants to do anything obscene, so that no one wants to eat my apples, so that people understand that my apples grew for me with a composition specifically for me, for a neighbor it can generally be poison. When people understand all this and start growing apples nearby, our whole land will become a blooming garden, then, I think, the problems will go away by themselves.

- Since 2003, have you noticed positive changes in societies in terms of ecology?

Yu.G.: Society is changing. We have a Public Nursery project where we distribute seedlings for free. We used to give out trees, and people took them, but they didn't always plant them. We began to demand that people treat the seedlings well. People promised, but they still weren't always responsible about planting trees. Then we began to demand: "To get seedlings, you must meet two conditions: prepare the wells in advance, send a photo, a video report." As many holes as we've seen, you can get as many trees. The second condition is that you have to demonstrate the irrigation system to us. You can't imagine what an outburst of emotions people had. Decades later, people have already realized that they need to prepare for tree planting. There are a huge number of people on earth who have understood this, accepted it, and really want to help the earth recover.

- What can you say about the students' attitude to this issue?

Yu.G.: We are children of Mother earth, and a spark of our love for her lives in the heart of every child. If we fan this flame, help them develop, and the children react to it willingly, then everything will go as it should. If you do not tell the children about this, they will ignore this information and will not fulfill their function as a creator on earth. The children are very responsive, the bad thing is that we are not a worthy example to them today. We ourselves live like parasites on the body of the mother earth, we consume resources, except for garbage, we do not return anything.  Parenting is, first of all, educating oneself.

Each student who listened to the lecture planted a seedling in a pot, took it home for cultivation, and will grow it in a pot until the summer, then plant it either in the village, in the courtyard, on the territory of the university.  It should be planted where you will give him decent care.

- Tell us about the organization's plans?

Yu.G.: As we understand it, people are not particularly interested in planting trees. We try to fill any tree planting with ideological content. Together with the ENU, we decided to link the spring tree planting to the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. People will willingly plant trees in honor of the Victory. We want to create gardens of love, parks of happiness, and a garden of family. Our goal is to make tree planting interesting, so that people plant trees not because they need to, but because they like, love, and want to. It always turns out better of one’s own free will.   

- Thank you for the interview!