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Russian Forest

Lyudmila Zinchenko

For all the nations whose hab­itat is con­nec­ted to the forest, the lat­ter
has never been simply a zone of dense veget­a­tion. The forest beck­ons and
entices. It is a mys­tery, a place of power and a sac­red domain, sur­roun­ded by count­less myths, legends and super­sti­tions. The forest is full of secrets and con­tra­dic­tions. Rus­sian forest and it’s image in numer­ous clas­sical art­works has been a part of national cul­tural DNA for centuries.

Rus­sia has more than a fifth of the world’s forests, which makes it the largest forest coun­try in the world. Today, the con­sid­er­able poten­tial of Rus­sian forests is under­u­til­ized and Russia’s share of the global trade in forest products is less than four per­cent. It seems unfeas­ible that Rus­sia could run out of forest. And yet it is hap­pen­ing, at least with com­mer­cially usable forests, envir­on­mental ana­lysts say. There are sig­ni­fic­ant profits to be made selling tim­ber to China in par­tic­u­lar, and there have been alleg­a­tions of illegal log­ging within Russia.

Tags: forest, lumber, obscura, pinhole, woods