Veronika Zhilkina: Volunteering is Contagious and Energizing

25 december 2025

Our December issue of the About People and Good Deeds column features Tomskneftekhim’s leading specialist Veronika Zhilkina discussing her journey in corporate volunteering where environmental stewardship, education, and helping animals become a part of one’s daily life. Zhilkina expounds on why caring for the planet is more than some abstract concept for her but instead a matter of personal responsibility, how eco-lessons for school students can be turned into a conversation about our shared future, and how minor initiatives are effecting real change. In her interview, Zhilkina reflects on the importance of leading by example, on volunteering together with one’s family members, and on how one spontaneous idea can inspire dozens of colleagues to perform kind and needed deeds.

You have been an active participant of various volunteering initiatives associated with ecology, education, and helping animals. How did it all start for you, and at what point did you arrive at the realization that volunteering was, indeed, "your thing"?
I guess it all started for me with a simple thing: I just started doing it. There hadn't been any unusual signs and no breakthroughs. These were small, barely noticeable steps at first, and with time their number started to grow. I'd even venture to say that volunteering had always been a part of my life. It's just that as time went by, I started talking and writing about it more, consciously expanding the realm of the kind deeds I was involved in doing.

Nearly all of your 2025 activities were in one way or another associated with the environmental agenda. Why did the topic of environment become so central for you?
Conservation is truly close to my heart. I have a master's degree in geography, a diploma in international tourism, experience working as a geography teacher at school, and I have been a member of juries at environmental conferences catering to Seversk schoolchildren. I travel a lot and almost everywhere I go I see a recurring problem of waste. The more you face it, the stronger is your desire to go beyond talking about it, and instead do something about it. I want to live on a beautiful, clean planet and feel that I am really contributing to making that a reality.

You've collected plastic waste, taken part in an eco-marathon, wrote an article about eco-friendly travel. What do you think is the easiest way for an ordinary person to embark on an eco-friendly lifestyle journey?
I have taken part in three of SIBUR's corporate eco-marathons. On top of that, this year I also took part in an eco-marathon organized by Rosatom, where I ended up as one of the event’s 15 winners. I continue writing eco-posts. And although the coverage is so far modest, I think that even if only ten people read them, that's already important. As for making one’s first steps, the easiest way to start is at home, with basic conservation of precious resources. You do this by turning off the lights when leaving a room, not leaving your tap water running while you’re brushing your teeth. The next step is moving to conscious consumption habits and giving up impulse buying habits. And, of course, you may want to start by sorting waste such as plastic bottles and caps, batteries, paper, cardboard, etc. That by itself is a huge contribution already. The most important thing is to pick what truly resonates with you and go with that. For example, just recently at my plant I initiated a campaign for collecting throwaway toothbrushes. We managed to collect 197 pieces worth about 2.5 kilograms of plastics that will be recycled and turned into pavers or benches, and not end up as trash dumped at a landfill.

You recently taught your very first eco-lessons in Seversk’s schools for junior graders. Was it difficult to work with an audience like that?
Not in the least. I had had some prior experience working at school: I had taught geography to students in grades 5 to 11. And so I can say with confidence that interacting with students from more junior grades is easier and more interesting. They represent one of the most rewarding audiences. These children aren't afraid to speak their mind, and what's particularly important is they do have opinions of their own. They already know a lot and they often surprise you by how familiar they are with almost everything you talk to them about and how they apply this knowledge in their daily lives. That's precisely the reason why I recently gave another eco-lesson for 3rd-graders at a gymnasium in Tomsk. Interacting with them is easy because when in class they want the same thing that we adults do, too, which is to have this sense that they can indeed make a difference.

You also taught chemistry classes as part of the Mendeleev Sessions project. In your opinion, what is the strength of volunteering education compared to traditional school-based classes?
I think this strength lies in the very people who teach these classes. We are passionate about this and this is a part of what we are. We aren't just instructors, rather, we are representatives of a large and modern company. Our lessons are really relevant: you can’t find this type of material in school textbooks. This year I taught ten lessons as part of the Mendeleev Sessions and heard so many words of gratitude coming from my students. We make their eyes sparkle by showing them the link between science and daily practices. I'd say what we do is we make science more humane: we do not just talk about formulas and equations, we also talk about people, technology, and the future.

On many an occasion, you've been involved in clean-up campaigns in Nagorny Ishtan, one of the oldest rural settlements, including on the grounds of what’s been designated as cultural heritage site. Why is conserving such places so important to you?
The term I use for this is memory ecology. It's not just about cleaning up the grounds; it's showing your respect for the area with such deep-rooted history. Places like this tend to be far from any urban areas, and so neither municipal nor regional services generally have access there. If we don't do it, most likely no else one will. We just went there and by our example we showed the village’s residents that that is also a good way to spend one’s pastime.

Members of your family also take part in these clean-ups. How important is it for you to get your loved ones involved in volunteering?
I am the one who usually generates ideas, and my family always supports me. My husband's involvement is particularly important to me. He also sees that this is important for me and he hasn't yet missed a single event. Getting your loved ones involved is very important because volunteering is contagious and inspiring. After a visit to an animal shelter, my husband asked me: "What are we doing next?" In addition to my husband, my niece and my mother (who also happens to be a SIBUR employee), take an active part in volunteering campaigns together with me. It's really inspiring and makes our family a very close-knit one.

You were the one behind the campaign that sought to provide assistance to the Kotodom shelter. What do you think are the most important things when it comes to nurturing responsible attitude towards animals?
I think that the most important thing is consistency and lasting change. It's not enough to just feel sorry for these poor animals and help them haphazardly; there is a need to change attitudes, laws, and consumer habits. There's a great example one can follow, the case of the Netherlands. In the early 2000s, the problem of stray dogs in their country reached national-scale proportions. The government acted resolutely. They introduced substantial fines and a tax on buying dogs, while making the process of adopting an animal from a shelter free, provided that the adopter had suitable conditions for keeping the animal. As a result, over 1.2 million dogs found new homes, and today there are practically no unhoused pets left in the country. This is the experience that is worth copying, I think.

Looking back at the year 2025, which of your volunteering campaigns was the most emotional or memorable, and why?
It was, without a doubt, the campaign we carried out in a bid to help the Kotodom shelter. I had hesitated whether to do it for a long time as I wasn’t sure whether we would be able to collect sufficient volumes of needed stuff or whether the shelter would really need all that. But after I saw yet another call for help in Kotodom’s group on social media, it finally dawned on me that I had to act. I paid a visit to the shelter, looked at everything with my own eyes, met the owner and her helpers. It's a privately owned shelter that only exists thanks to the enthusiasm of a group of caring people. Then I enlisted the support of our Service of Ecology and Corporate Communications and launched the collection campaign. Frankly speaking, I had been unsure whether my colleagues would respond to the call. But they embraced the idea wholeheartedly. Every bag of pet food we got sent shivers down my spine. My husband and I spent our evenings sorting and counting the aid in our garage. At some point, it became clear that all of it wouldn’t fit in one vehicle. When we pulled in at the shelter and started offloading our aid, the shelter’s owner was speechless. She kept saying later that no one had ever brought them so much in the way of assistance. We spent about two hours with the cats, and after our visit, all the shelter's cabinets and tables ended up being filled with the stuff that we had brought. And the emotions have kept on flowing even to this day: my colleagues are thanking me, asking if there would be another campaign like that next year. These words of thanks that you hear in the cafeteria, in the hallways of the office, or after work, are priceless. I had not expected to see such a great and warm response.

Do you have a dream or an idea for a volunteering project that you would like to implement in the future?
I don't have a particular idea right now. All my projects are born on the spur of the moment and they come from my heart. Sometimes I just wake up with knowing that I need to teach an eco-lesson, or I may see toothbrushes in a store and that prompts me to initiate a campaign to collect used toothbrushes. I recently arrived at the realization that my value isn't only in doing something on my own, but also in inspiring others. Last month alone, three of my colleagues at Tomskneftekhim thanked me for inspiring them to set up organize their own eco-themed events. That's incredibly touching. It's also important to talk and write about what we do. Otherwise, how else would the world learn that kindness is really near by?

Learn more about upcoming charitable activities by visiting SIBUR volunteers’ group on VKontakte and Telegram.