Russian environmental groups send SOS to DiCaprio

British broadcaster BBC reported on Monday that the Instagram account (@leonardodicaprio) of American actor Leonardo DiCaprio has been receiving a lot of comments in the Cyrillic alphabet asking the actor to save Lake Baikal in Russia.

Thousands of comments asking for help from Levushka, a Russian variant of Leonardo, are known to have been prompted with a post by a popular Russian news service’s Instagram account (@ves＿ulan＿ude), which read, "Let's all write to Leonardo DiCaprio about Baikal's problems.”

The account, which shares news about Russian city Ulan-Ude, located near Lake Baikal, said, “DiCaprio is a famous eco-warrior and media personality,” and proposed commenting on “DiCaprio's posts in Russian and English and don't forget to include the hashtags Save Baikal (#спастибайкал) and Baikal is ours (#байкалнаш)."

It is estimated that up to 20,000 comments in the Cyrillic text were made on DiCaprio’s Instagram posts last week. “I beg you to pay attention to the environmental crisis in Russia as a ‘fellow brother,’” one Instagram user wrote. The American actor revealed that his grandmother was Russian during an interview with a Russian media company during his visit to the country in 2010. Russian President Vladimir Putin told DiCaprio that he would be proud as a descendent of Russia during their meeting in St. Petersburg.

The actor has been known as an enthusiastic environmentalist, even calling for global leaders to fight against environmental pollution during his award-winning speech for Best Actor at the 2016 Academy Awards. He donated 100 million dollars to environment protection projects through a charity foundation in 1998. Lake Baikal, the largest freshwater lake in the world, is struggling with a serious level of pollution and illegal fishing.


Taek Kyoon Sohn sohn@donga.com