Protected Vyatka 360°

Protected Vyatka 360° is not a media project about nature. It is an attempt to solve a real problem: the protected natural areas of the Kirov region have almost no digital presence, and their inspectors have no resources to protect it.

The problem you only see from the inside

The project was not born out of an abstract interest in ecology. While filming natural monuments for я.ты.город., I saw from the inside what resources the local nature protection service really has, what is worth protecting and how little is known about many of the monuments. And then I accidentally ran an investigation: I discovered that my favourite view of the Nemda near Chimbulat, inside the state nature sanctuary “Pizhemsky”, had been sold by the administration at auction for 658 thousand roubles. The plot was immediately bought up and listed on Avito with a mark-up of a million. The story of the investigation and how it ended — the prosecutor’s office cancelled the deal. But a residue remained: a protected area that nobody protects in the digital sense.

A single inspector may be responsible for thousands of hectares of a sanctuary. One person, one UAZ, an enormous territory. Patrolling every kilometre is a utopia. I went out with inspectors myself and flew my own drone to record violations — simply because there was not enough equipment.

At the same time tourists and local residents are constantly in the forest. They see illegal logging and campfires in forbidden places. But there is nowhere to send a signal — there is no tool. The inspector drives hundreds of kilometres blind, not knowing the exact location.

In parallel: schoolchildren in Kirov have never been to the national park “Bylina” — it exists only on paper, still under construction, hours away by road. How do you instil a love for a place that is physically inaccessible?

Three modules, one system

The answer I have assembled is a combination of three parts.

M1 — EcoVyatka — a Telegram bot for tourists and concerned residents. A pocket reference on protected areas: routes, rules, history. Inside there is a RAG assistant for knowledge about the sanctuaries. And the main button: “Report a violation” with a geotag. A tourist sees illegal logging → presses it → the coordinates go to the inspector. He no longer drives blind — he sends a drone to exactly those coordinates. The gamification here is not for points: it turns a random visitor into a participant in citizen science.

M2 — Protected Vyatka 360° — VR tours of the remote natural areas of the region. At city events we put Quest or Pico headsets on schoolchildren — and they find themselves in a forest they would not otherwise see. The content is partly based on the materials of я.ты.город., converted into stereo and panoramas. The AI guide from EcoVyatka lives here no longer as text but as a 3D character (WebXR, a VRM avatar) — on information stands in the sanctuaries, on the screens of visitor centres as a fish-tank illusion.

M3 — Technical infrastructure — drones with thermal cameras and a network of 4G camera traps for remote monitoring. The logic is simple: more equipment → more recorded violations → more fines → less damage. Plus a preventive effect: a poacher knows that there are cameras in the forest.

How they reinforce each other

Here is the part I especially like.

• Signal → drone (M1 + M3): a tourist sends a geotag through the bot — the inspector does not drive 200 km blind but launches a drone to exactly those coordinates.
• Heat map (M1 → M2/M3): the bot collects statistics on signals → a map of violations is built → inspectors understand where to place camera traps, and the film crew understands which locations to shoot for VR first.
• Content from the forest (M3 → M1/M2): camera traps and drones catch not only poachers but also rare animals. Those frames go into the bot’s posts and into VR content. Zero waste production — the field produces media by itself.
• One character (M1 + M2): the AI guide lives on all the platforms at once. In Telegram it answers with text, the /360 command takes you into VR, where it appears in three dimensions. On the screen of a visitor centre it is a fish-tank illusion through camera tracking.
• A closed loop (M2 → M1): people see VR → fall in love with the place → come as tourists → use the bot → become citizen inspectors → send signals about violations.

This is not just a beautiful showcase of environmental education. It is a model of how the cultural and the digital layer can work for the real visibility of a problem.

The potential for integration

For now this is a concept and partly a prototype. But if the partners have real nature protection infrastructure, the system is not simply “shown” — it is embedded into existing processes: monitoring, education, the recording of signals. The difference between a demo and a working tool is only the presence of a partner with authority.

Stack

• WebXR + VRM — a 3D guide and immersive tours
• Telegram Bot API + Mini App — the bot and the web layer (independent of the fate of a single platform)
• RAG over the knowledge base about the protected areas
• drones with thermal cameras + 4G camera traps
• 360° panoramas and stereo video from my own filming

Original (Russian) →