Deforestation - Kharkov Style

I love trees.  I love their agelessness, the energy they emanate, and the calm they provide when you are in their midst.  Trees are majestic.  Trees give us shade.  Trees give us oxygen.  In short, trees are pretty cool.

When I decided to rent my current apartment back in May of 2009, one of the key attractions of the building was that it was surrounded by trees.  The main street, and especially the area around my building, had an abundance of trees.  It was like a park.  It was a stark contrast to the almost treeless area around my old apartment, which fronted to a busy, noisy and dirty main street.

But my new place had nice, big, mature trees with broad, leafy limbs that reached out and formed a beautiful canopy.  They provided shade and kept the area cooler in the hot summer sun.  I could always be sure that my apartment would not suffer being overheated by the direct rays of the sun. 

Having so many trees around made me feel less like I was living in a big city.  From the street, it was almost impossible to actually see my building.  It reminded me – if only a bit – of my forest home in the Colorado mountains.  Of course the types of trees were different, and there were a lot more people and cars around (and no bears), but I did say that the resemblance was “only a bit.”

So I was shocked a couple of years ago when some men appeared outside my building to cut down some trees along our street.  Some residents complained, and the incident received some news coverage.  But the cutting was not stopped.  Last year, some more trees were cut down and hauled away. 

Recently, more trees were cut near my building, and when I returned home yesterday, I found that still more had been removed.  This is very sad and disappointing.  The charm of this place is being lost as these trees come down.  I am afraid that once the remaining trees fully unfold their leafy greenery, it just won’t be the same as it was.

But the big questions that remain are “who” and “why.”  Just who are these people that are taking the trees?  Are they from the city or regional government?  I don’t think so.  Are they just tree “poachers” who are cutting trees around the city to sell the wood?  Possibly.  I really don’t know the answer to this question, and no one I have asked seems to know either.

And why are these trees being cut?  The trees make the street more beautiful, and in this city, we need what few areas of natural beauty we can find.  The trees appear healthy, and I haven’t seen any signs of interference with power lines or other aerial utilities.  So, again, I wonder if they are being harvested to put money in someone’s pockets.  In this country, it would seem likely.

When the first trees came down a few years ago, someone said that they were “illegal” tree cutters.  But probably they were at least semi-legal, meaning they might have been doing something that was not actually legal, but they were paying a bribe to the authorities to let them do it.

As a foreign expatriate, I am in no position to do anything about this, of course.  I can only watch as the parklike environment I have enjoyed is removed piece by piece.  I hope there is a limit to their destruction and that the trees closest to the building will not be lost.

Perhaps this is another sign for me to consider in the future.