Last Sunday the second Children Eco Festival was held under which an extensive program of the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Biosphere Reserve was presented to public. All the guest enjoyed a busy and exciting city event built around the eco theme.

The event organizers — the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the Department for Environmental Management and Protection of Moscow, have chosen a beautiful Pushkinskaya embankment near the Crimean bridge as the event location. Right in the center of the venue there was one of its most popular places – an area of creative workshops by the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Biosphere Reserve and Losiny Ostrov National Park where children could have a shot at magnets making, coloring competition, jigsaw puzzle and a quiz.

The coloring competition “The nature of Moscow region” was held in the most “democratic” way — children painted plant and animal templates, signed and put them up on the stand for voting. Any visitor could vote, all you had to do was to come up to the stand, pick the drawing you like, write down the name of the author and the drawing number on a piece of paper and then drop it in a special box. After counting the votes the winner was announced. It was Anastasia Shabunina, 12 years old.

“Tell the difference between the European and American bisons” was a team competition in collecting jigsaw puzzles which aroused a great interest. In 30 minutes one team continuously changed another. Everyone wanted to look at the jigsaw animals and listen to an interesting and informative story about their peculiarities by the eco-awareness expert from the Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Biosphere Reserve. The quiz “Guess whose home it is” turned out to be quite complicated, however it did not upset the participants. An interesting story by our expert helped everyone to deal  with the tasks.

There were so many children who wanted to make DIY magnets, that they even formed a small line. The kids painted the templates of animals, made some handcrafted wool patchwork and stuck  the magnet line. At the same time our expert talked about chosen animals and peculiarities of their environment. Adults took an active part in the workshop together with kids. They took home the souvenirs they had made as a memory for the event.

Even the nasty weather could not cloud the festive mood. At the event everyone could take a photo with costumed bisons. The carnival procession of minstrels and circus performers caused a storm of cheers from public. The event ended with a concert of well known performers and children on-stage performance groups.

P.S.: The Prioksko-Terrasny Nature Biosphere Reserve employees thank all the volunteers for their enormous help in the organization of the event.