Social projects

FESCO’s social responsibility efforts are focused on initiatives offering systemic solution to the most acute social problems, improving the quality of life, developing human capital and creating new opportunities for self‑fulfilment of local people.

For a number of years, FESCO has been implementing important social projects seeking to:

• support educational, cultural, and awareness initiatives;
• support family and childhood;
• support sports initiatives and promote healthy lifestyles;
• develop social infrastructure;
• support local communities, socially vulnerable and unprotected people;
• support environmental projects.

The total social investments exceeded RUB 1 billion. More than 100 thousand people benefitted from a variety of the Company’s social and cultural initiatives.

FESCO for the Kids programme

The programme, which includes several initiatives, is aimed at comprehensive support and systemic improvement of the quality of life of children and teenagers in the regions of FESCO Group’s operation.

Launch of a teenager centre in Vladivostok

In 2024, on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum, the Company signed a cooperation agreement with the Vladivostok administration to open a teenager centre.

Among the centre’s goals are providing psychological and social support to teenagers, offering them leisure options, engaging them in meaningful activities, and helping with career guidance. For that, a variety of classes will be organised at the centre:

• robotics;
• interactive classes of physics;
• training sessions;
• workshops;
• social project planning with a further opportunity to be awarded a grant for implementing ideas.

Project to support children’s and family reading

The project includes reprinting children’s books by popular Soviet authors, and also publishing new books about the sea and sea‑related jobs aimed at early career guidance and promotion of maritime and transport and logistics industries.

The books are donated to pre‑school facilities and educational institutions, libraries, healthcare and social organisations, supplementary education and cultural establishments of Vladivostok and the Primorye Territory, with support from the Vladivostok administration’s Department of Work with Municipal Education Institutions.

In 2024, FESCO helped implement a local book project, S. Ignatov’s The Happiest Day, or Fair Seas and a Following Wind, and reprint G. F. Mirimanov’s book A Girl at the Lighthouse (first published in 1927).

The books were granted to more than 250 library collections of the Primorye Territory (72 schools, 123 kindergartens, and 57 children’s city libraries). In addition to free circulation of books, the Company holds annual educational events for a wide audience of children.

• In 2024, as part of the Reading the City autumn programme, several educational sessions were held in 30 pre‑school facilities and general education institutions, and three guided literary tours around Vladivostok led by a guide from Vladimir Arseniev Museum were organised.
• FESCO also organised the New Year Travel through FESCO for the Kids books, a New Year stage production based on books published as part of the project. The production was attended by children from social rehabilitation centres, adoption support centres, and distressed families.
• The Reading with FESCO for the Kids contest of video reels was held, with about 60 family performance groups and over 240 participants – children and teenagers from large families and families of FESCO employees.

FESCO Sea of Professions project

The Company runs the FESCO Sea of Professions, a range of awareness programmes dedicated to career guidance and development of pre‑school and junior school children in the regions of operation.

Teacher for Everyone programme

The programme is implemented jointly with the New Teacher Charity Foundation. The initiative is developed specifically for regional schools to promote educational best practices, foster an educational environment, and create new opportunities for disadvantaged children of the Primorye Territory. The programme also includes selection and support of teachers for the above purpose. As a result 14 experts were assigned to eight partnering schools in Vladivostok in 2022–2024. More than 550 children from Vladivostok’s schools were offered new educational opportunities in the academic year 2023/2024.

More than ten public city events were held for teachers and residents of Vladivostok (conferences, forums, workshops, public lectures, etc.) with a total outreach of more than 500 people.

In 2024, the following large regional projects were implemented in Primorye as part of the programme:

• On the Teacher’s Side (covering 50+ teachers from municipal schools);
• Culture Contour (covering 300+ teenagers of 13 to 17 years old);
• Equally Different (covering 10 schools in Vladivostok, 50+ teachers, and 350+ children – non‑native speakers).

Projects for development and career guidance of schoolchildren in the regions of the Company’s operation

• Ticket to the Future all‑Russian career guidance project. Guided tours to VMTP and professional tests for consolidation are run for schoolchildren of Vladivostok and the Primorye Territory who would like to get a profession in the maritime, port, or logistics industry.
• IT class in the Kvantorium children’s technology park. The programme is designed for pupils in grades 7–11, including those left without parental care, from large or distressed families. The training curriculum covers programming, 3D modelling, VR app development, and industrial design.
• Schoolchildren traineeship and summer internship programmes in the Group’s companies.
• Organisation of FESCO Career Days, career guidance events in general and supplementary education institutions of the Primorye Territory.
• All‑Russian schoolchildren case contest in economics and entrepreneurship in Vladivostok.
• Pacific Project School by the Far Eastern Federal University’s Department of Pre‑University Education – a range of educational and project intensive courses based on competitive admission of senior schoolchildren.
• Schoolchildren’s Forum in Moscow – run as part of a series of educatory and patriotic events of the project Days of the Far Eastern Regions in Moscow 2024. The Company employees told senior schoolchildren about the advantages of living and working in the Primorye Territory and about FESCO and the transport and logistics industry on the whole.
• Organisation of career guidance events at schools of the Primorye Territory.
• Creation of a career guidance module in Ocean, an all‑Russian children’s centre.

Culture Contour creative summer camp

During summer vacations, Vladivostok, with the support of FESCO, offers a project and leisure site for children, and a festival of modern art, urban science and city studies. As part of the project, teenagers (aged from 13 to 18) look at the habitual urban space through a focus on art (performance theatre, sound design, movement, video design, painting, and street art) and applied social sciences (urban science, anthropology and sociology). A workshop in each area develops a research and art project dedicated to the city or a neighbourhood and its residents. The projects are presented at a public festival for the local community. Some projects received support in the form of schoolchildren grants of the Sea of Opportunities contest.

Sea of Opportunities contest of social projects

The Sea of Opportunities, an annual grant contest, creates additional opportunities for those engaged in resolving acute social problems in the Primorye Territory. Every year, the contest offers grants to non‑profit organisations, government institutions, volunteers, and since 2024 school groups, too, to implement initiatives supporting the vulnerable, helping preserve the cultural and historical heritage, protect environment, promote sports and healthy lifestyle, and improve inhabited areas.

In 2024, the contest saw over 100 applications from residents of the Primorye Territory. 51 projects were short‑listed and financed (36 projects by organisations, 9 projects by school groups, and 6 projects by the Group’s volunteers).

Project outcomes over five years:

• FESCO’s total social investments – RUB 53 million;
• funds raised by winning projects – RUB 40 million;
• projects implemented since the onset of the contest – 169;
• total volunteers – 3,680.

Promotion of bone marrow donation

The initiative seeks to draw attention to bone marrow donation in the country, compiling a domestic base of potential bone marrow donors, development of responsible donation in Russia, helping people suffering from haematologic malignancies, haematopoietic and immune system disorders for whom bone marrow transplantation is the only chance for survival.

Systemic efforts to promote bone marrow donation in Russia include:

• organisation of awareness events;
• support of ongoing public encouragement;
• projects to support donor registration in the regional base of the Russian Federation;
• building stable partnerships with local communities.

Support for sports

In the regions of its operation, the Company actively supports sports development and initiatives promoting healthy lifestyle. FESCO’s support helps organise competitions, build and refurbish sports grounds.

FESCO is a general sponsor of the Admiral hockey club, and it also supports Lev Yashin Academy of Dynamo.

In 2023, on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum, FESCO and Academy of Dynamo signed a cooperation agreement. The document provides for joint efforts to develop children’s football in the Russian Far East, hold competitions, and make steps towards establishment of a Russian‑Chinese youth league. As part of this initiative, FESCO and Lev Yashin Academy of Dynamo run youth tournaments with athletes from Russia, China, and the CIS.

In 2024, there were two large‑scale football tournaments. The international FESCO League saw teams from the Primorye and Khabarovsk Territories, Sakhalin, and China. In turn, the Moscow‑based FESCO Cup invited representatives of leading football academies from the European Russia and CIS countries.

The basketball FESCO Cup is held in the Primorye Territory. The competitions attract young athletes from the most remote areas of the territory.

Life Work video project

The project, part of FESCO Group’s cultural and awareness projects, helps to foster corporate culture and the Company’s identity. The project is aimed at conserving the tradition of hard work and transferring the experience of FESCO veterans who made a considerable contribution to the Group’s development. Digitising personal histories helps to keep in remembrance the labour feats, mastery and dedication of the Company’s employees, and also to inspire the new generation for new professional accomplishments.

During the project, six interviews have been done, with nine memoirs of the Company veterans digitised.

Cooperation with zoos

The programme is aimed at raising awareness of protection of rare animal species. As part of the initiative, FESCO has taken into its care Moscow Zoo’s Amur leopard, Senegal galago, greater mouse‑deer, cattle egret, eastern black‑and‑white colobus, and horn owl. In the Primorye wild animal park, the Company supports the African lion, Himalayan black bear, common otter, common racoon, horn owl, and white‑naped crane.

Corporate volunteering

FESCO promotes volunteering, which is a pillar of the corporate culture and an effective instrument for developing talent. The free initiative contributes to achieving the national development goals through engaging the most active people in community service. The Company’s volunteer movement covers more than 500 people.

In 2024, the development of corporate volunteering at FESCO Group focused on the following:

• support of projects by partnering charity foundations, and initiatives on social adjustment of orphans from the affiliated child care homes in Vladivostok, Moscow, and Ryazan;
• measures to keep in remembrance the Great Patriotic War, patriotic upbringing through reinforcing the generational bridge, a series of volunteer events engaging FESCO’s Council of Veterans;
• support to animal shelters;
• charity events Dobrosport and Dobry Tracker to raise funds for partnering charity foundations;
• series of events to promote a responsible attitude to the environment, including the Primorye environmental marathon, a sea festival on the Popov Island, and the Roots – The Near Far East festival.

In the reporting period, the Company held 67 volunteer events in seven cities of operation: Moscow, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Novorossiysk, and Petropavlovsk‑Kamchatsky. Over 500 FESCO volunteers took part in the events.

Since 2023, FESCO has been heading the National Corporate Volunteering Council in the Primorye Territory.

In 2024, the Company initiated a number of key events to develop corporate volunteering in the Primorye Territory:

• Corporate Volunteer School – the first platform in Primorye to train corporate volunteers;
• 1st territorial forum titled Corporate Volunteering: Government, Business, and Community, gathering representatives of non‑profits, businesses, and authorities to discuss relevant volunteering workstreams in the Primorye Territory;
• series of joint events with other members of the National Corporate Volunteering Council.