The foothills of the Altai

Greetings from somewhere over Greenland!  I’m on my way home after two weeks of “work.”  The quick overview: 4 days in Moscow meeting with journalists, environmentalists, and old friends; 4 days in Barnaul in central Siberia (pronounced “barn-owe-oool,” with the emphasis on ooool) planning for a environmentalists’ strategy conference; 4 days at said conference on the banks of the beautiful Katun River in the foothills of the Altai Mountains; 2 days on horseback exploring those same foothills with colleagues from Sakhalin Island (near Japan). 

May it never be said that I like Moscow.  As a city, it’s an awful place: expensive, loud, dirty, and pretentious.  Moscow has too many McDonald’s, Ikeas, and TGI Fridays for its own good, but paint a cow blue and it’s still a cow.  You know you’re still in Russia when:  

• You go to a chain store in a very modern Western-style shopping mall one morning and try to buy something for 300 rubles ($12) with a 500 ($19) ruble bill.  The sales person says with a straight face, “You cannot buy this.  I do not have change for a 500 ruble bill.”   

• Next, you go to a go to a KFC/Rostics chain because dangit, you just want some good ol’ fried chicken.  The pictures of sandwiches and chicken strips are enticing, but when you order, you are told they don’t have any chicken strips, but they do have five sandwiches.  Five?  Yes, we have five.  Well, it’s a good thing I only want one.  Ice cream?  Don’t even try.  

• You are ready to go home, but have one small task left: change 9000 USD into rubles to pay for a conference.  You go to a big bank because the rate is good and you prefer to whip out all those crisp greenbacks in a private room.  “We don’t have $9000 in rubles to sell you.  I can only do three thousand, maybe four.”  You’re kidding, right?  Is this a newspaper stand or a bank?!  Stink.  Three bank stops later, all the money is finally changed.

Phew, that’s out of the way!  Now I can go on to ramble about the Russia that I love … the sleepy Siberian towns, the meandering mountains and rivers, the struggling fishing communities on the Pacific, and the generous and rugged people who live in Siberia and the Far East – on the edge of true wilderness.  Yosemite and Yellowstone delight, but falter just as Edward Abbey penned and ultimately pale in comparison to Russia’s remote wilds. This is why I love the wilderness!  So complicated and, well, wild, and yet so strikingly simple. 

The first thing I noticed when I landed in Barnaul (at 6am) is that the sky is loud.  Barnaul is located on the steppe, the flatlands, not far from where the Altai Mountains lift up from the land with a quick sweep of God’s creative hand.  The weather in Barnaul is dizzying, changing every five minutes and boasting clouds that taunt anyone who dares to watch.  Cumulus – stratus fratus – stratocumulous – altocumulous – cirus – cumulous again.  Amen!  Every sunrise and sunset above the city is a marvel.  

Sosnovka is an annual meeting of all the top environmental activists from Siberia and the Russian Far East, with a few lawyer and policy types from Moscow thrown in for good measure.  The conference is always a blur of intense strategy conversations and jovial social time.  (To my great relief, the vodka consumption was mild this year.)  Many of the Sosnovtsy are old friends who see each other once or twice each year, which means Day One of the conference involves a lot of who got married, who had kids, and who got divorced conversations.  What a treat to now be a part of this merry band!  Our strategy conversations were simultaneously broad and narrow, covering the hottest topics, both new and old:  forestry, protected areas, mining, fisheries, oil and gas development, alternative energy sources, etc.  Not enough time, so much information, so many ideas, so many plans …  

We took a half day off to go white water rafting on the might Katun.  Given the fall water level, the rafting time was more about photo ops than white water, but can’t complain – I laughed so much my stomach was sore until the next day.  Yes, our guides made all the women wear these HUGE waterproof moon pants things.  I grumbled and said I was fine without, but it was a losing battle.  Not surprisingly, I was glad later that I had them on.  Cold mountain water and frigid fall winds are a nasty combination!  

After Sosnovka, I was relieved of conference wrap-up duties in Barnaul and so decided to escape to the mountains with Dima and Zhenya of Sakhalin Environmental Watch.  Dima is THE premier activist in all of Russia and I was eager for a chance to pick his brain!  How did you get involved in this work?  What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the movement?  What motivates you?  How in the world does Natasha do this work along side of you with a 2-year-old at home as well?!  I heard you’re an Orthodox believer, can you tell me about that?  

Dima, Zhenya, and I rented horses, found a guide, and rode up to a beekeeper’s hut in the mountains on the edge of a reindeer farm.  The next morning, we awoke to SNOW.  No joke.  But it turned to rain as we rode down to lower elevations.  We discussed the healing properties of reindeer antlers and rode the edge of the mountainous reindeer pasture hoping for a sighting.  Needless to say, we saw no antlers, but did see a bunch of reindeer behinds as a herd heard us and ran away.  

Like every outdoor experience I’ve ever known in Russia, our horseback riding trip was, well, extreme.  Cold, wet conditions made steep, steep terrain perilous at best for the horses.  I felt sorry for them at first and tried to console my horse, but it seemed somehow that my horse was enjoying herself in spite of the conditions.  

Other lessons learned and relearned:  

• An “Antler bath” (a hot bath with reindeer antler extract) feels like a regular bath, but is pleasant insofar as the extract smells like cake batter.  I kid you not.  Yellow cake batter!   

• I’ve (to my great surprise) developed a taste for carbonated water, salo (straight fat from an animal – think bacon without the meat), and mead (honey wine).  I might detest buckwheat cooked Russian-style, but honey from the plant makes a delightful wine, as it turns out.  The Altai region is known for its delicious and varied honey.   

• The stars on the other side of the world are different from what we see in North  America now.  (I know, I know – duh!)  But what a treat to see a different chunk of the sky than I enjoyed a few weeks ago in the Sierras.  The Milky Way was particularly brilliant last week in the Altai … Oh my stars!  

I marvel at this life and can scarcely believe the things I have seen…

This year’s Sosnovka conference was in the Altai region.

I’m writing from the Tsentralnaya hotel in the tsentr (center) of Barnaul.  We got back from Manzherok, the little place in the Republic of Altai where we held Sosnovka 2006, last night around 8 pm.  I believe we can all be proud of this Sosnovka.  There were (being the most inclusive) 45 participants, and I think I counted that 23 of them were there for the first time.  The level of discussion remained high, and while we didn’t have time to complete our action plan (Resolution of the Conference) for the coming year, the veteran Sosnovka folks are on the job.

One Sosnovka veteran – Dima Lisitsyn – complained at our evaluation session that there weren’t enough fights.  So, a peaceful Sosnovka, but not everyone’s ideal kind of Sosnovka.  Dima celebrated his 39th birthday on the day that the Natural Resources Ministry announced the cancellation of the positive decision on the Sakhalin II environmental impact assessment, so we toasted the health of the head of that ministry late late into the night. Sakhalin II is for the moment a frozen project, and criminal cases are pending for the experts who approved the EIA.

There were no bards at this Sosnovka.  Without Sergei Berezniuk and Vasilii Solkin we were at loose ends for guitar-accompanied ballads. Sasha Yermoshkin took up the slack however and did quite a bit of singing and performing in our slight spare time.  I mean, we went rafting, and there he was standing up in the middle of the raft singing and telling jokes.  Don’t worry, there are photos of everything.  Nobody fell in.

I have to finish getting ready for the flight to Moscow.  David and I arrive there 9:15 am, and he continues home and I go on to visit my old home city (for my year abroad) Novgorod.  Leah and Sibyl got seduced by the beauty of the Republic of Altai and have stayed on there to do some hiking.  I don’t know when they return.  If they will return.  It was really beautiful there- though a bit chilly and rainy.

Sasha telling the story of the raven

KATUN RIVER, Republic of Altai, Russia.

A raft of Russian environmental leaders floats down the mighty Katun River. Sasha, with the environmental organization Taiga Rangers, is standing in the middle of the raft and performing a splendid theatrical version of the “The Raven and the Geese.” I am gasping for air between bouts of intense laughter.

The story goes something like this.  A flock of geese is preparing to migrate across the Pacific Ocean.  “Let me come with you!” cries the raven.  “I’m brave! I’m strong!”  The geese scoffed, “Your wings are too short.  You won’t make it!”  Nonetheless, the geese give in and embark on the transoceanic flight with the raven.  Sasha stands tall with arms outstretched, almost soaring above the water.  

After several days, the geese finally arrive and wait for the raven, and they wait, and wait.  Just as they are mourning the memory of the brave, strong raven who perished at sea, they spot a dark shape on the horizon.  The raven!  “Go! Go! Go!” shout the geese.  Sasha is wildly jumping up and down, pointing at the horizon, and almost falling out of the raft.  The exhausted raven finally limps up to the flock.  He can barely whispers, “Yes…” gasps the raven. “I’m brave, and I’m strong, and I’m a bit crazy in the head.”

Perhaps the story comes off so well because both Sasha and the other Sosnovka Coalition members present, who have dedicated their lives to Russia’s environmental movement, can personally relate to this crazy, lone raven.  It seems quite fitting that we are all sandwiched together in a small, rubber raft on a fast flowing river.  

Our coalition earned the name Sosnovka about seven years ago, after the location of our first such gathering.  The name literally means “little pine tree”.  This first meeting took place almost as an experiment, bringing a group of Russian environmental groups together and see what happened.  

Anyone attending this year’s meeting could tell that this little pine tree has grown.  The Sosnovka strategy session is no longer a matter of convenience, but rather an event of necessity for Russia’s environmental movement.  This year, the meeting was characterized by a greater sense of maturity and professionalism, the ability to share skills and resources, and the conviction that we are making a difference.

On maturity…

As with any diverse, passionate interest group, the Russian environmental community is capable of getting distracted by small points of disagreement.  However, this year’s meeting indicates our movement is able to see the forest through the trees.  We are now moving forward on common goals.  The Siberia-Pacific Pipeline campaign’s success moving an oil pipeline’s route away from Lake Baikal and sensitive marine environments in Primorye clearly demonstrated our movement’s strength.  

Sergei Shapaev, director of the Buryat Regional Union for Baikal, led our Sosnovka discussion on this pipeline campaign.  Sergei has been a key organizer for multi-stakeholder opposition to building the oil pipeline route along Lake Baikal and has the right personality for the job.  Sergei has sharp facial features and a focused gaze that reminds me of an eagle.  His orations are just as focused, clear and reasonable.  He always stands up to make his point, but rarely raises his voice.  Along with collaborators at Baikal Environmental Wave and Phoenix Fund, Sergei has succeeded in maintaining common goals for corporate responsibility for the Siberia Pacific Pipeline campaign, despite a wide range of perspectives from supporting pipeline construction to opposing it altogether.

On sharing resources… 

The growth of Russia’s environmental movement is also evident from the level of strategy and technical skills that many organizations are now able to contribute.  Groups are no longer looking solely to international experiences for new campaign ideas, but are instead working to leverage resources for region-to-region collaboration.

At this year’s meeting, Irina Fotieva and Misha Shishin of the Fund for 21st Century Altai offered a key example of collaborating with other environmental leaders in the movement.  Misha and Irina are looking to apply Sergei Shaphaev’s work developing economic evaluations of natural resource extraction projects to their campaign to protect the Ukok Plateau.  A new gas pipeline from Russia to China is planned to cross the Altai’s Ukok Plateau, recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site for its high biodiversity and status as a sacred site for Altai indigenous peoples.  Working with Sergei to apply an economic analysis to the problem would be an important opportunity to make the case for shifting the pipeline route.  

Misha and Irina are both passionate about protecting the natural wonders of the Ukok and ensuring that regional development projects benefit local people.  Misha, originally an art history professor, is always ready with a wry smile and a joke to bring forth a room full of laughs, a skill he employs with colleagues and government officials alike.  He took up the cause of preventing construction of a large dam project on the Katun River and created his own television station in order to do so.  Irina carries a soft, welcoming expression, yet manages the daily operations of the organization with intense conviction.  She is now in conversation with indigenous leaders in the southern Altai about conducting the economic evaluation.

On making a difference…  

Coming to a meeting that evaluates our movement’s performance with successes on hand offers an added incentive to push forward.  This year has brought more than one success to Russia’s environmental movement.  In addition to protecting Lake Baikal from potential oil pipeline spills, we received positive news during our meeting regarding efforts to protect Sakhalin Island from oil and gas developments.  

Dimitry Lisitsyn, director of Sakhalin Environment Watch, spent free time between conference sessions glued to his cell phone with reporters asking about the Russian government’s decision to revoke permits for oil pipeline construction based on negative environmental impacts.  Dimitry’s phone conversations were enlivened by lively hand gestures, emphasizing his points to his invisible audience.  This level of energy is consistent with Dimitry’s commitment to the campaign and his tireless work photographing the Sakhalin oil pipeline construction documenting engineering problems which compromises pipeline safety and allows for extreme erosion, impacting salmon streams.  

The list of accomplishments from the meeting goes on, with poignant moments ranging from the recognition of long-term partnerships between indigenous community activists and environmental advocates, to a new level of excitement around Russia-China relations and policy opportunities for sustainable natural resource management at the international level.

In most countries, the odds are stacked against citizens’ environmental protection efforts.  Russia is no different.  Yet our Sosnovka Coalition is a small group of people, who are able to maintain a sense of optimism (and a sense of humor), despite the challenges we face.  And for several days, the strength of our network was palpable.  The ravens of the Russian environmental movement have taken flight.