“Welcome, dear guests, help yourself, please”, participants of the Exhibition and Trade Fair “Agrorus” are greeted by the Governor of the Leningrad Region Alexander Drozdenko. The accordion is playing, girls in folk costumes with red floral motifs strike up a Russian folk song – the Day of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region is declared open! The tour around the exhibition is made in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

All districts of the Leningrad Region represent their opportunities and achievements in the pavilion of EXPOFORUM: Gatchina, Volosovo, Tikhvin, Luga, Boksitogorsk, Kirov, Vsevolozhsk districts, and others. Residents of the region meet the Governor, Alexander Drozdenko, and other important guests with bread and salt, fermented baked milk, cheese, meat jerky and other homemade products. Girls and boys in folk costumes read poems, sing ditties, play the accordion and balalaika. Everyone wants to surprise the Governor with something special: beautiful loaves, an excavator spade, a colourful three-tier cake with the “Agrorus” logo and a pastry cream cow.

“At ’Agrorus’ we represent not only agricultural enterprises of the Leningrad Region, processors or farmers, but the districts of our region as well. Believe me, at the Exhibition and Trade Fair ’Agrorus’ we always find something new, interesting and fascinating“, the Governor says at the official opening ceremony.

Thus, for example, one can see a wide range of vegetables of the peasant farm enterprise Lebed, such as onions, peppers, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins and corn, at the booth of the Luga district. There is a great choice of meat products represented by Idavang Luga, and one of dairy products represented by the stud farm Rapti.

At the booth of the Tikhvin district one can see a great choice of bakery products made by the Tikhvin bread-baking complex: various sorts of bread, flaky pastry, turnovers, crescent rolls with different flavours and fillings.

The Vsevolozhsk district exhibited products of the stud farm Prinevskoye. The enterprise cultivates vegetables, potatoes, meadow mushrooms, and flowers; breeds cattle and goats, and processes its own products from cow and goat milk.

According to Alexander Drozdenko, the Leningrad Region is the current leader in agricultural production of the Northwest region with a share of 42%. The government plans the region to become one of top-15 regions of Russia before 2030. “We’ll have challenges: we are in the area of risk farming, we are seriously affected by weather conditions, we have no black soil, no guaranteed clear days and large fields. However, we are doing our best to be a top region in agriculture”, the Governor stressed.