The "Killed Pskov Roads" online community
This public movement comprising motorists advocates safe road traffic. Established in February 2008 as a group of like-minded persons in the VKontakte social network, the movement did its best to organize several protests, including the "Empty Canisters March along Killed Roads," in May 2008.
In April 2009, the movement's activists were invited for a meeting by the new regional administration, while organizing a protest about the poor condition of local roads. After the conversation, both parties agreed that the community will help draft road-repair programmes and will also facilitate public control over roadworks.
The movement currently has 6,300 members.
In 2011, the organization launched active cooperation with the United Russia Party's Pskov regional chapter in order to facilitate public control over road works and maintenance operations and the quality of local roads (the so-called quality control laboratory). Entitled the "New Roads of the Russian Cities" the project focuses on the repair of 160 courtyards in Pskov, as well as roads and courtyard territories in the Pskov Region's district centres.
The movement conducts other social work, including charitable motor rallies and local orphanages.
The "Social Technologies Bureau" non-profit partnership
Established in 2007, the partnership conducts applied sociological research and tries to promote local self-government. It prioritizes public monitoring of the situation in the municipal utilities sector and explanatory efforts regarding the creation of homeowners' associations.
In 2010, it received a regional-administration grant for implementing the "Municipal Utilities Consultative Services" project. The grant stipulates support for non-governmental organizations. Under the project, a pilot home owners' association is being established. The partnership also assists existing homeowners' associations, facilitates courtyard improvement and renovation and the introduction of energy-efficient technologies with the active involvement of homeowners' associations. Moreover, it regularly surveys the municipal utilities and infrastructure market. All in all, the partnership has implemented 37 sociological research projects.
The "Help Along" community of independent volunteer initiatives
The movement was established in March 2010, evolving from the Online Community of Concerned Individuals (http://pskovhelp.ru). It initially functioned as an independent group of volunteers collecting material and humanitarian relief aid for underprivileged families. In May 2010, community volunteers set up the www.pskovhelp.ru website. In June 2010, they established contacts with the Pechory Orphanage and proposed gathering a group of entertainers, including artists, dancers, and actors, to organize a performance at the school, rather than collecting humanitarian relief aid for its pupils.
Until late 2010, the "Help Along" community and the Pskovskaya Pravda newspaper conducted 12 similar trips to similar guardianship and welfare institutions in the three districts of the Pskov Region.
By early 2011, activists of the "Help Along" community and the Pskovskaya Pravda newspaper focused on helping orphaned and abandoned children.
The organization and the Otkazniki.NET volunteers association jointly decided to prioritize the following four aspects in the Pskov Region:
1) facilitating the adoption of orphans, including the circulation of information on children from the federal database and adoption options together with the regional education department;
2) providing material and humanitarian relief aid to medical and social institutions where abandoned children live;
3) facilitating the social adaptation of orphaned children, including cooperation with future graduates in order to expand their communication skills and information about the social environment;
4) creating a methodological base for an expanded "smart" volunteer movement.
Moreover, it continues to collect humanitarian relief aid, including food, clothes and toys, for underprivileged, financially embattled families.
Documents for the registration of the regional public association Community of Effective Volunteer Initiatives were submitted in May 2011.
The Pskov regional chapter of the Union of Russian Writers, a national public organization
The Pskov regional chapter of the Union of Russian Writers was established in December 1967 when the first Pushkin Poetry Festival was held there.
The organization conducts systemic cultural-educational activity, helps publish books by Pskov writers, and cooperates with young authors. It organizes literary workshops, regular meetings with readers, creative soirees and contests. The organization also deals with children and teenagers and helps organize Pushkin Poetry Festivals.