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Five days after opening, Moscow’s newest park needs restoration

The employees of Moscow’s newest Zaryadye inaugurated on September 9 will start restoring its landscape next week, due to damage by vandals

© REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

MOSCOW, September 14. /TASS/. The employees of Moscow’s newest Zaryadye Park inaugurated on September 9 will start restoring its landscape next week, due to damage by vandals, the park’s chief botanist told TASS on Thursday.

"On September 18, we will start restoration works that will last for two or three weeks," Igor Safiullin said.

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Putin visits new park in central Moscow

Zaryadye, the first public park built in Moscow in over 50 years, is divided into four climatic zones: forest, steppe, tundra, and floodplains.

According to Safiullin, the rocky tundra, the pond under the floating bridge and reeds growing near the underground conservatory were mostly damaged by visitors who flooded to Zaryadye, and trampled on some 10,000 plants in addition to breaking a glass dome.

He said this happened mainly due to the inattention of visitors, who were too pre-occupied with snapping pictures to notice anything under their feet.

Zaryadye builders told TASS they had not expected any vandalism when they were planning the new park.

The park was inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin on September 9 when the Russian capital celebrated its 870th birthday.

The 130,000 square meter park was built near the Kremlin on the site of former Rossiya hotel that had been torn down in 2006.

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