Rzhevsky park, Protected urban park in Saint Petersburg, Russia
Rzhevsky Park is a green space in Saint Petersburg with tree-lined pathways and open fields to explore. The grounds feature different zones of natural growth connected by a network of walking paths throughout the park.
The forest was first surveyed in 1848 under the name "Oktinsky military settlement dacha"; the 1833 plan saw Russia's first forest management survey carried out on its territory, then 5,747 hectares. On 22 March 1902 it became a teaching forest of the Saint Petersburg Forestry Institute, today the Forestry University, and on 20 October 1922 it was named a teaching and experimental farm. Its area shrank to 1,111 hectares by 1970.
The forest park is the training and experimental woodland of the Saint Petersburg State Forest Technical University, run as the Okhtinsky leskhoz from its address at Sosnovy Prospekt 2. Volunteers clear litter from the grounds, which by some estimates receive up to 3 million visits a year; letters asking municipal, district and regional administrations for help were answered that the park is not under their authority.
The park lies on Saint Petersburg's eastern edge and in the southwestern part of Vsevolozhsky District. The Koltushskoye Highway and the villages of Zanevka and Novosergiyevka border it to the south, and the settlement of Yanino-1 to the east. The nearest metro stations, Ladoga and Prospekt Bolshevikov, are both about 4 km away.
The park is not yet a protected area: a 2081-hectare protected zone combining it with Kovalyovsky and Kudrovsky forests is only planned for 2035. Its 17.26 km² roughly equals the combined area of Vasilyevsky and Petrogradsky islands. Near the Ring Road stands a monument to those killed in the 29 May 1985 plane crash, whose plaque and propeller blade were stolen in the 2000s and later restored.
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