ETVPLUS — broadcast
20260806 110000 UTC
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[00:00:00] this is a real survival course. The biggest challenge
[00:00:03] is a challenge to yourself, one on one with
[00:00:06] the forest. Saturday at 17:10 on ETV+.
[00:00:48] Today's program features the Tartu Botanical Garden -
[00:00:51] a treasure trove of knowledge about the plant world. Lichens
[00:00:54] particularly captivated me because they are very mysterious. They are
[00:00:57] a piece of .
[00:01:30] Sunny, compact, green, incredibly cozy – these are all
[00:01:33] epithets for Tartu. Science and art go hand in
[00:01:37] hand here. Tartu is a city for people. For example, the municipality
[00:01:41] organized bicycle rentals for citizens. Schoolchildren can
[00:01:45] borrow them for free. And these are the famous Tartu
[00:01:48] red buses that run on biogas produced in
[00:01:52] Estonia. But first and foremost, Tartu is
[00:01:56] a student city.
[00:02:00] To engage in environmental protection, one needs to understand how
[00:02:04] this environment functions, and for that, education is needed. People
[00:02:08] come to Tartu for this, as it hosts the oldest and most
[00:02:11] prestigious university in
[00:02:13] Estonia.
[00:02:18] Tartu University was founded by Swedish King Gustav
[00:02:21] II Adolf in 1632.
[00:02:24] The greatest scientists of their time taught and
[00:02:28] studied here, for example, from 1810 to
[00:02:31] 1814, the founder of embryology, naturalist,
[00:02:35] and geographer Karl Ernst von Baer studied in Tartu.
[00:02:38] The scientist, who came from Baltic German nobility,
[00:02:42] returned to his homeland in the twilight of his days, considering his career in
[00:02:45] St. Petersburg and the Academy of Sciences completed. When
[00:02:49] Estonia in 1992 introduced its national
[00:02:53] currency, the kroon, Karl Ernst von Baer was depicted
[00:02:56] on a two-kroon banknote. Currently, Tartu University has
[00:03:04] four faculties: Arts and Humanities,
[00:03:08] Social Sciences, Medicine, and the Faculty of
[00:03:12] Science and Technology.
[00:03:14] The university buildings are
[00:03:18] located in different parts of the city, and
[00:03:22] this includes the botanical garden. The Tartu
[00:03:25] Botanical Garden is a treasure trove of knowledge
[00:03:28] about the plant world. A scientific
[00:04:30] specifically lichens. I had a general interest in all
[00:04:34] nature, in the environment,
[00:04:36] in plants, mosses,
[00:04:39] in forests, but lichens specifically captivated me because
[00:04:43] they are very mysterious, they are very unclear, there is still
[00:04:46] a lot undiscovered in them, this attracted
[00:04:49] me the most.
[00:04:51] Lichens can come in the most bizarre forms, this is
[00:04:55] for example, a bearded lichen, because it looks like a real
[00:04:59] beard. And this is pulmonary lobaria, it resembles lung
[00:05:02] tissue, in the past it was used in medicine as a medicine,
[00:05:06] with its help they tried to treat lung diseases, but
[00:05:10] unsuccessfully, generally lichens can be found
[00:05:13] almost everywhere, these spots on tree trunks are also
[00:05:17] lichens. Polina, why are lichens
[00:05:20] so interesting? Well, let's start with the fact that lichen is not
[00:05:24] just one single organism, but several at once.
[00:05:28] Lichens are a symbiosis between a fungus and
[00:05:31] an alga or cyanobacteria, meaning it's a small
[00:05:35] ecosystem within this thallus or
[00:05:38] frond or lichen body, as we call it. When you, as a
[00:05:42] professional scientist, look at a lichen, what do you see,
[00:05:46] what information do you get? In fact, lichens can tell us
[00:05:49] a lot, for example, about the environment.
[00:05:52] Lichens are very good indicators of air quality,
[00:05:56] and they also
[00:05:58] can show how valuable
[00:06:02] certain forest communities are from a nature conservation
[00:06:05] perspective. They are very sensitive to environmental
[00:06:08] changes, and some lichens cannot tolerate pollution.
[00:06:43] bacteria, other micro-fungi live in the thallus
[00:06:46] of the lichen, and why is this important, why is this
[00:06:50] interesting? I already mentioned that lichen is not
[00:06:54] just one organism, but it is a symbiosis between a fungus and
[00:06:57] an alga, but in laboratory conditions it is almost
[00:07:00] impossible to grow a lichen to reproduce
[00:07:04] this symbiosis in laboratory conditions, and one of
[00:07:08] the hypotheses why it is impossible to reproduce, impossible to grow a lichen is...
[00:07:12] other microorganisms located inside, with
[00:07:15] the help of modern DNA sequencing
[00:07:19] technologies, we want to find out who lives in
[00:07:22] lichens, what other microorganisms make up this symbiosis.
[00:07:36] These greenhouses are also part of the Botanical Garden
[00:07:39] of Tartu University, however, usually... access for visitors
[00:07:43] is closed here, here botanist scientists are engaged
[00:07:47] in their research. Marina, tell us, what is the essence
[00:07:50] of your experiment? Here
[00:07:53] we grow different types of onion plants in different
[00:07:57] soils that we collected throughout Estonia and, and what we
[00:08:00] want to find out is how different plants, what their
[00:08:04] relationships are with microbes that live in
[00:08:08] the soil, and some plants have a
[00:08:10] negative relationship with these microbes, meaning they usually
[00:08:14] get sick from them, while for others it's the opposite, they seem to
[00:08:17] cooperate with these microbes, these microbes help them extract
[00:08:21] nutrients from the soil, we want to understand
[00:08:24] why some plants have one relationship, and others have another, how can
[00:08:28] this knowledge be useful to us? Right now we are looking at what
[00:08:32] happens in nature, we want to understand the full spectrum
[00:08:35] of nature, what different plants can actually do in nature, and of course this
[00:08:39] can then be applied, for example, in agriculture. So we have
[00:08:43] some crops, we know that we have many problems with
[00:08:46] pests, so we use many pesticides,
[00:08:49] using our knowledge of nature, we can apply it to
[00:08:53] agriculture, we hope in the future.
[00:08:54] Marina Semchenko graduated from
[00:08:58] Tartu University, where she also defended her doctoral
[00:09:01] dissertation. Recently, she returned to Estonia from England,
[00:09:04] where she worked at the University of Manchester. She has
[00:09:08] a publication in the journal Nature, the most authoritative
[00:09:11] scientific publication in the field of biology. For example,
[00:09:14] we have one plant, in
[00:09:17] this pot - the soil is dead, let's say, here
[00:09:21] all microbes, bacteria, fungi, all killed by gamma
[00:09:24] radiation, so nothing grows here, it's dead soil, and
[00:09:28] this plant is very happy there, and here is the same
[00:09:32] plant, but in living soil, as it is in nature, we see that this plant
[00:09:35] does not like it at all, here in this soil there are many
[00:09:39] pests that subject this plant to diseases,
[00:09:42] therefore it cannot grow, and there are many
[00:09:46] such plants, and usually agricultural plants also
[00:09:49] show such a result, that is, the cleaner the soil, the better
[00:09:52] the plant feels, well not cleaner, but simply that there is no life in
[00:09:56] it, but on the other hand we have such plants in nature, which
[00:09:59] on the contrary, here now it is dead soil, this
[00:10:03] plant barely survives at all, that is, the sprout did not even start to grow, and
[00:10:06] here is living soil, and this plant wants to live in...
[00:10:10] living soil, and we want to understand what is in this soil and how they
[00:10:14] cooperate with it, why this plant grows better in living
[00:10:18] soil.
[00:10:19] Tatiana Oja, née
[00:10:28] Halina, graduated from Voronezh University and came to Estonia in
[00:10:31] the late seventies, following her husband, ecologist and
[00:10:35] geoinformatician Tõnu Oja. Currently, Tatiana
[00:10:39] Oja is an associate professor at the Department of Botany
[00:10:42] of Tartu University. One of her latest projects,
[00:10:46] in which every resident of Estonia can participate, is dedicated
[00:10:50] to the study of the spring primrose. This project
[00:10:53] belongs to so-called citizen
[00:10:57] science. Citizen science is a relatively new
[00:11:00] phenomenon, where the entire society,
[00:11:02] from junior schoolchildren to
[00:11:06] pensioners, is involved in scientific
[00:11:09] research. Moreover, these are people who, so to speak,
[00:11:13] have no connection to science, but they are people who
[00:11:16] enjoy being in nature and who
[00:11:20] enjoy acquiring new knowledge.
[00:11:23] The spring primrose blooms in late spring,
[00:11:26] early summer. Everyone who goes into nature during this
[00:11:30] period is encouraged by Tartu University and Tatiana
[00:11:33] Oja to participate in a special scientific project. The flowers
[00:11:37] of the spring primrose have one feature: they can be divided
[00:11:40] into two types: flowers with long
[00:11:44] pistil styles are L-type
[00:11:47] flowers. Flowers with long stamens are
[00:11:51] S-type flowers. This phenomenon is called
[00:11:55] heterostyly. It is
[00:11:59] an adaptation for cross-pollination.
[00:12:02] The spring primrose will need
[00:12:04] to be photographed and the photo shared with scientists.
[00:12:08] All details are on this website.
[00:12:11] By studying how the primrose fares
[00:12:14] in Estonian populations, we will gain
[00:12:18] information about other species of insect-pollinated
[00:12:22] plants. And at the same time, we will gain
[00:12:25] information about changes in the landscape and how
[00:12:28] these changes affect the habitat
[00:12:31] of the primrose and insect
[00:12:34] pollinators.
[00:12:43] The Estonian University of Life Sciences, or Eesti
[00:12:46] Maaülikool, is also located in Tartu. It is here
[00:12:50] that professional
[00:12:51] ecologists are trained.
[00:12:55] The University of Life Sciences was founded in
[00:12:57] 1951 and was formerly
[00:13:00] called the Agricultural Academy, but in 2005 it was
[00:13:04] reconstructed and renamed. It is the only
[00:13:07] higher education institution in Estonia whose priorities in
[00:13:10] academic research practice
[00:13:13] are sustainable natural resource management, necessary for human
[00:13:17] existence, as well as environmental protection and
[00:13:21] natural heritage. Here, animal husbandry is taught.
[00:13:55] Also, in our department, we study the migration of grey cranes
[00:13:58] to Africa and back to Estonia. We develop natural
[00:14:02] technological solutions to reduce the impact of heavy
[00:14:05] rainfall in urban areas, so that water drains more into
[00:14:09] plants and so on. The spheres in which we work and
[00:14:13] that fall under the definition of ecology are very numerous.
[00:14:16] For the average person, the word "ecology" implies a careful
[00:14:20] attitude towards nature, but that is far from everything that
[00:14:23] this concept encompasses.
[00:14:28] Graduates of the Estonian University of Life Sciences work in
[00:14:32] many government agencies and commercial structures,
[00:14:35] for example, in environmental departments, the State Forest
[00:14:39] Management Centre, and large industrial enterprises. They
[00:14:42] are mainly responsible for monitoring the ecological situation in the
[00:14:46] country.
[00:14:51] For example, in Estonia, the number of field and forest
[00:14:54] birds has decreased. Insects, various pollinators, such as bumblebees and
[00:14:57] so on, accordingly, cause concern, as do the plants that
[00:15:01] these insects previously pollinated, flowering plants, meadow
[00:15:05] plants, and so on. These are all complex problems. Natural
[00:15:09] communities whose members are closely interconnected, we
[00:15:12] have reason to worry about them, although the situation in Estonia is
[00:15:16] not as dire as in other European countries,
[00:15:20] where intensive agriculture has been practiced for a prolonged period
[00:15:23] of time, however...
[00:15:37] This is a piece of tropical forest in an ordinary after-school
[00:15:41] club. This is probably where the most
[00:15:43] beautiful young people, the most beautiful people of our city, dress. The
[00:15:47] Estonian Fund for Nature is based in Tartu.
[00:15:50] Any city would envy
[00:15:58] such an architectural object. This is the Tartu Nature House.
[00:16:01] Seventy years ago, there was a young naturalists' station here,
[00:16:05] and now it's a modern, landscape-integrated educational
[00:16:09] center for children and adults.
[00:16:11] The Nature House, surrounded
[00:16:16] by a park, is its logical continuation. It is lower
[00:16:19] than the surrounding trees, and therefore almost invisible
[00:16:23] from the street. The space inside the building is enlarged
[00:16:27] by the basement floor. Natural materials are used in the decoration,
[00:16:30] which makes the Nature House literally blend in with the plant world
[00:16:34] outside. Why does your wonderful
[00:16:37] Nature House have such an interesting architectural
[00:16:41] form? This house is designed
[00:16:44] in the shape of a stump with three branches. One
[00:16:48] branch points north, another east, and the third
[00:16:51] west. And this house blends very well with the surrounding
[00:16:55] park. This building would not have such significance if
[00:16:59] it stood in an empty space. The fact that it
[00:17:02] harmonizes with the surrounding park gives it
[00:17:05] value. This form is also associated with...
[00:17:24] The main finishing material here is, of course,
[00:17:27] wood, there is a lot
[00:17:29] of it here.
[00:17:34] The Nature House is a so-called passive house, meaning it
[00:17:38] uses technologies that maximally reduce the burden
[00:17:41] on the environment.
[00:17:42] This is a piece of tropical
[00:17:45] forest in an ordinary after-school club, and exotic
[00:17:49] plants for our latitudes grow here,
[00:17:52] avocados, coffee, this is a real
[00:17:56] banana tree, they bloom
[00:17:59] and bear fruit here.
[00:18:00] Here's how a Monstera blooms,
[00:18:08] a popular indoor plant. However, seeing
[00:18:11] such a flower in a home environment is a great
[00:18:15] rarity. Also, red-eared sliders
[00:18:18] live here in the winter garden, and one must be careful
[00:18:21] with them. Despite stereotypes, these are
[00:18:25] quite fast creatures, and with their
[00:18:27] beak they can inflict a minor
[00:18:30] injury.
[00:18:32] What kind of classes
[00:18:34] are held here?
[00:18:37] This is much more than just an after-school club. The after-school
[00:18:41] club continues to operate in this building, with clubs open for
[00:18:45] children, nature lovers, ornithologists, and also,
[00:18:48] for example, training in nature-friendly design
[00:18:51] is offered here, environmental research is conducted,
[00:18:54] and clubs focused on technology operate. In the mornings,
[00:18:58] schoolchildren and groups from kindergartens come here, and our
[00:19:01] doors are also open for conferences and seminars,
[00:19:05] you can even celebrate a birthday here.
[00:20:10] The Estonian Nature Fund is a free association dedicated
[00:20:14] to nature protection, which was established in
[00:20:16] 1991. It is a non-governmental
[00:20:20] organization, independent both politically and
[00:20:23] economically. The Fund provides assistance where
[00:20:26] it is necessary to combine the efforts of state scientific
[00:20:29] institutions, enterprises, and active citizens with the aim
[00:20:33] of protecting common natural values. The fund's logo depicts.
[00:20:40] in Estonia, which are most at risk of
[00:20:43] extinction.
[00:20:51] Environmental anthropologist Joonas Pärn is involved
[00:20:54] in the Kalafor program run by the Estonian
[00:20:58] Nature Fund, which means "fishfork." The program
[00:21:01] focuses on the fish we consume
[00:21:04] as food.
[00:21:06] The point of Kalafor is to help all fish lovers understand
[00:21:10] which fish consumption is more environmentally friendly and
[00:21:13] which is less so, that is, not all fish species are doing well in
[00:21:17] nature, and an ordinary person may not know
[00:21:20] this. This is what the Estonian Nature Fund, together with the World
[00:21:24] Wildlife Fund, is trying to do: first and foremost,
[00:21:28] to give people information about which fish are better
[00:21:31] to buy, but we also work with fishermen and fish
[00:21:34] sellers. Information on various fish
[00:21:38] species and the environmental friendliness of their consumption
[00:21:42] is published on the kalafor.
[00:21:44] ee website. Already from the name of the program, you can
[00:21:47] guess that fish market products are conventionally divided
[00:21:51] into three categories: red, yellow, and green.
[00:21:54] Red category fish are not recommended for consumption,
[00:21:58] while green are unlimited.
[00:22:02] Here we see fish caught in Estonia in Lake Peipus, or
[00:22:05] farmed in Estonia. All of them are in the green
[00:22:08] category. It's interesting that when we started studying how
[00:22:12] Estonian fisheries and aquaculture differ from
[00:22:15] global ones, we realized that the simplest advice we
[00:22:18] can give is to buy.
[00:22:50] Marine species such as Baltic herring and sprat can be consumed
[00:22:53] more often. For large predators such as cod, things
[00:22:57] are much worse than for smaller species. However, for
[00:23:00] freshwater fish, the situation is better. Bream and pikeperch
[00:23:04] are large fish, but currently their populations in Lake Peipus are not
[00:23:07] threatened, so they can be consumed with a clear
[00:23:10] conscience.
[00:23:20] Once upon a time, various devices were produced here, some
[00:23:24] of them highly secret. Now, however, this is a culture factory,
[00:23:27] and the aparatehas
[00:23:29] gentrification in Tartu.
[00:23:33] For a long time, this was an industrial wasteland, former
[00:23:36] production buildings awaiting a new owner. Now, however,
[00:23:40] life has returned here, it has found new meaning.
[00:23:44] Speaking of the environment, we must understand that in an urban
[00:23:47] area, we are talking about the environment surrounding
[00:24:00] its residents. Therefore, the utilization
[00:24:02] of territories, especially territories
[00:24:05] located in the very center of the city,
[00:24:08] beautifies the city and improves the quality of life for all
[00:24:10] its residents.
[00:24:14] Like many such objects around the world, the Apparatus Factory in
[00:24:18] Tartu has its own rich real history, a part
[00:24:22] of which the new owners are trying to preserve,
[00:24:25] like this cosmic canvas, created over half a century
[00:24:29] ago. What was here before, what kind of
[00:24:32] apparatus did the apparatus factory produce? As
[00:24:35] the name of the factory suggests, various apparatuses were indeed
[00:24:39] produced here. The public knew only about a small part of the
[00:24:43] products manufactured here, for example, taximeters, umbrellas,
[00:24:46] zippers, various small items,
[00:24:50] for example, espagnolettes for windows, which were in every home. In the shadow
[00:24:54] of civilian items, items for the defense
[00:24:56] industry were also produced here, but the workers could
[00:25:00] not know their purpose. It was a very large factory. In its heyday
[00:25:04] in the seventies, 1,500 people
[00:25:07] worked here.
[00:25:10] In the nineties, the Apparatus Factory declined, like most
[00:25:13] Soviet industries. Its transformation
[00:25:16] began in 2006, and the culture factory itself
[00:25:27] I admit that even 20
[00:25:30] years ago something could have been simmering here, for
[00:25:33] a modern, greener,
[00:25:36] more comfortable city for its residents, it is unacceptable
[00:25:40] in modern times for any polluting
[00:25:43] industries to be located in the city
[00:25:45] limits.
[00:25:48] This cat's name is Johanna. Gutenberg, after the German
[00:25:52] inventor of printing. The kitten was named by the staff of the Estonian
[00:25:55] Museum of Printing and Paper when he settled there in
[00:25:58] 2012. The cat moved to the Apparatus Factory.
[00:26:32] If cars can't reach the door, their business
[00:26:35] will go bankrupt. But the opposite happened: outdoor
[00:26:38] cafes appeared. Of course, a fire truck or ambulance can
[00:26:42] pass through here at any time, but loading and unloading goods
[00:26:46] can only be done during certain morning and
[00:26:49] evening hours. This means that during the day, children
[00:26:52] can safely play here in the yard, people can sit in cafes, and
[00:26:56] there is no dust brought by
[00:26:58] cars.
[00:27:09] Sasha, as a resident of Tartu, how did you react to the appearance
[00:27:12] of Aparadi Tehas in your city? With joy. It
[00:27:16] was a blank spot on the city map
[00:27:20] for many years. Here we can see
[00:27:24] enterprises of completely different
[00:27:26] directions, bars, or even the trendiest
[00:27:30] second-hand shops in our city.
[00:27:32] This is where probably the most beautiful young people, the most
[00:27:36] beautiful people of our city, dress.
[00:27:53] Watch in the next episode, go gas,
[00:27:57] wow, gas, of course, is considered a much more environmentally
[00:28:00] friendly type of fuel than...
[00:28:06] gives not only milk, but also valuable raw materials for
[00:28:09] gas production, this is a witch.