Another day, another place of natural beauty being ruined by Instagrammers. This time, it’s a flower field in Siniy Utes near the city of Tomsk in Siberia, Russia. Hundreds of bloggers and Instagrammers frequent the place on a regular basis, and though the flower field is an undoubtedly beautiful backdrop, the foot traffic is actually destroying the place.
Photo: misstatyana0367/Instagram
Scientists Ask Tourists to Stop Taking Pictures in Siberian Flower Field, but Instagrammers Know No Bounds
The field, however, belongs to the Siberian research institute of agriculture and turf, and it’s full of beautiful purple plants (known as phacelia tanacetifolia) used for research. Biologists are asking people to stop coming in such massive numbers, as they are destroying the plants and flowers and interfering with research efforts.
According to some Instagram users, there are ribbons fencing the meadow and signs clearly expressing that it is forbidden to go in and trample the flowers, but that hasn’t stopped those in desperate search for likes to pose in the “Siberian Provence.”
Anastasiya Degtyareva, responsible for the shot above, expresses her frustration in the caption, “The rebellious soul of a Russian person will not tolerate any restrictions. There are signs and ribbons, people have been asked on social networks and online to not go in this field, but they even get there by taxi, and besides, there are a lot of empty bottles. Not only do they trample the meadow, they also litter.”
We prefered when Russian instagrammers swam in “Siberia’s Maldives,” AKA a dump for nearby coal plant waste — it was a lot funnier. 