Caspian seals in Krasnaya Presnya

Still, something in heaven exists and obviously favors our intention. On Sunday, July 23 (the Russian Geographical Society Day) we had a lecture in wonderful Krasnaya Presnya Park (Moscow). The lecture was titled “One fine summer day, a seal would disappear in the Caspian”. It was scheduled for half past eleven in the morning; and we would say it was not the best time for public speaking. Simply because the public is not enough at such time – it is a weekend, everybody gets up late, having leisurely breakfast and so on… In general, at the scheduled hour, under the roof of our improvised lecture hall, a dozen listeners gathered (many thanks to those not indifferent people). Then something rumbled in the up to now cloudless sky, winked once or twice and came down with downpour – it was downpour like a waterfall, with lightning and thunder. Five minutes later, our hall was filled with a lot of people.

Muscovites were shown photographs of seals (heartfelt thanks to Yevgeny Polonsky, Migriy Baymukanov and Esbol Kasymbekov), and also demonstrated a remarkable (and, incidentally, almost the first in the history) documentary film about Caspian seals “Secretes of the Caspian seal haul outs” (link) created by specialists from the Institute of Hydrobiology and Ecology (Kazakhstan).

Many thanks to heaven, the Russian Geographical Society, the management of the park, volunteers – Marina Minayeva, Alya Alyautdinova, Liza Kalinina – and all our listeners.

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