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U.S. conservationist and author Laura Williams has made a home in Russia. By Maria Antonova Special to The St. Petersburg Times Russia is more known for Soviet-era environmental disasters than for environmental successes like its system of nature reserves, or zapovedniks. But the zapovednik system was what brought Laura Williams here in 1993, when she was sent by the World Wildlife Fund to open the organization’s first Russian office in Moscow. “There is no analogous system anywhere else in the world, but it is not widely known because the reserves’ purpose is more scientific, not recreational, like in the U.S.,” said Williams as she sipped orange juice at Starlite diner, a place she frequented in her Moscow days when she got nostalgic. Since then, she has moved to a tiny village in the Bryansk region, which has no roads,... [read full story]
