posted by Galina Angarova

My colleague Evan Sparling and I recently traveled to Altai to touch base with our partners in the field, meet with regional stakeholders, and participate in a conference on sacred sites organized by one of our partners – the Foundation for Sustainable Development of Altai. As I have now fully transitioned into my new position as Program Associate for Community-Based Initiatives for Pacific Environment, the trip provided me with an opportunity to fully immerse myself into program work and issues faced by indigenous communities in Russia, especially in the current economic and political climate. This was my second trip to Altai since I started working for Pacific Environment, and I was very excited to visit the sacred land and meet with our partners once again.

Sacred mountain in Chui Oozy Nature Park, Altai Republic, Russia

For centuries sacred sites served people as places where they could come to pray, cleanse themselves, and recover from the hardships of life. For some nations, sacred places are Catholic monasteries, Orthodox cathedrals, Muslim mosques, and Buddhist temples. For indigenous cultures, and specifically shamanists, these are places or objects created by nature: mountains, healing springs, mountain passes, plants and animals.

Altai has also always been the heart of Shamanism in Siberia. During  Soviet times the communists extinguished shamanism and many of the shamans who lived during those days were either killed or sent to gulags. For many years shaman clans had to hide their identity and it was only after perestroika and democracy that shamanism experienced its revival. Nowadays it is not as rare to find a shaman in the remote villages of Altai. Luckily, the traditional knowledge was kept and passed onto new generations.

One of the trip’s most memorable moments was meeting a local shaman by the name of Slava Cheltuev in Kosh-Agach, a region bordering Mongolia, China, and Kazakhstan.

Kurai Village, 60 km from the Russian-Mongolia border

Upon our arrival, Slava greeted us at his home with traditional tea with milk, salt, butter, and cracked wheat. It has been only three  years since Slava was chosen by his community to be a shaman and a keeper of traditional knowledge.  As a relatively young shaman at the age of 41, he feels responsible to learn from elders about his land, sacred places, and traditions so that he can pass this knowledge on to younger generations. As Russian is not his first language, most of his words were translated from indigenous Altayan into Russian by our partner Chagat.  (Today, there are only 70,000 speakers of Altayan in the world).

Cows in Kosh-Agach region, Altai Republic, Russia

Although some of what Slava said was revealed in a very simple language, his words carried a very deep knowledge and understanding of his roots and his role within his community. He talked about being close to the land and local sacred places, talking to spirits – guardians of their lands – and the meaning of dreams.

(more…)

Posted by Evan Sparling

My recent trip to Altai is proof that life imitates art. Just a few days before leaving the US I watched the film “Everything is Illuminated.” Even if you’ve never seen it, you know the plot: a mismatched cast of characters (an octogenarian Ukrainian anti-Semite, his hip-hop obsessed playboy grandson, a shy young American Jew, a deranged dog) embark on a road trip to an unlikely place (the Ukrainian countryside) and adventure (and illumination) ensues. In my case, the characters include an American GIS expert visiting Russia for the first time, two native-rights activists from Kamchatka, and a flamboyant military veteran turned professional driver. We have spent our days crammed into a van with all of our luggage and supplies, traveling across windswept tundra and over frozen mountain passes, spending our evenings in a three-room cabin with no running water and no heat beyond a wood stove. In between work-related discussions and meetings with local conservationists, we have had adventures ranging from a visit to an Altai shaman who interpreted our dreams to a swimming excursion in weather more fit for skiing.

(more…)

Posted by Evan Sparling

Last Sunday, the penultimate of our ten days in Kamchatka, was ostensibly a rest day. Everyone was eager to relax and enjoy the glorious surroundings that we had spent the last week helping to preserve in countless meetings, seminars, and strategy sessions. We initially planned to spend the entire day traversing a local park on Nordic skis, but two of our local colleagues suggested over dinner on Saturday that we instead try our hands at dog sledding at the home of two members of a local native community organization. (more…)

Posted by Leah Zimmerman

Last year I wrote of Sosnovka as “being in the epicenter of something great, of witnessing a movement coming into its own.” I wrote those words just one day before Misha Jones’ passing. Losing Misha, who held us together and pushed us forward in so many quiet ways, could so easily have brought discouragement, could have easily caused Sosnovka to stumble or fade with time. Instead, a stronger, more mature and more enduring Sosnovka has emerged.

The maturity we glimpsed this year at Sosnovka comes with the passing of seasons, both bright and dark. How easy it is to grow weary in this work, to lose oneself. But Sosnovka defies, linking us together and driving us forward with a million threads of friendship and partnership.

The defining moment of this year’s Sosnovka was the awarding of the first annual Misha Jones Award to Sergei Shapkhaev from the Buryat Regional Organization for Baikal for his community-based work to empower people in remote communities. Like Misha, Sergei never passes up a chance to help out a leader from a distant village, offering an encouraging word or piece of technical advice. The applause that erupted when Sergei’s name was announced for the award was intense and sustained, offering sweet release for hidden thoughts and emotions.

Sustained by memories of Misha’s wit, intellect, and life fully sacrificed for Russia’s people and wilderness, Sosnovka carries on. This year we welcomed participants from previously forgotten regions—Chukotka, Tuva, and the Jewish Autonomous Region. We rallied behind Aleksei and Sasha from Krasnoyarsk, brave defenders of the Angara River who were falsely accused of extremist activities this spring, but were ultimately vindicated in court. We feverishly planned campaigns for the coming year and forged brave new partnerships between indigenous and environmental organizations. And yes, oh how we soaked up the beauty of fall in Primorye and cherished every moment in such rich company!

By Galina Angarova

On Monday July 20, the Governor of the Altai Republic, Alexander Berdnikov, approved the development plan of the Chemal region in the Altai Republic. This seemingly unimportant event is of considerable significance for the environmental health and safety of Chemal. The exclusion of the Katun Dam project from the Chemal development plan is going to save 770 hectares of vital land.  This land contains critical habitats for rare and endangered plant and animal species, local fisheries, as well as hundreds of residential areas along Katun River that provide employment to local communities.

On March 18^th, Berdnikov made an official statement that the region needed alternatives to the proposed Katun Dam to combat the lack of energy generating capacity in the Altai Republic .  The Altai gasification project was completed in 2008, bringing a major pipeline from Barnaul to Gorno-Altaisk and now project developers are working on designs for a 96 megawatt gas-fired power plant in Maima. Berdnikov said that a plant in Maima could be a potential alternative to the dam. “It is a possibility that the hydro-electric dam construction does not make economic sense. We do not have a goal to build the dam at all costs; our main goal is to resolve the problem of the energy deficiency in the region. If it turns out that the power plant in Maima and a cascade of small hydro dams on Chuya River are sufficient to supply energy needs in the republic, it is most likely that we [will] reject the plans for the dam construction in Chemal region,” noted Berdnikov.

The idea to build a hydro electric station on the Katun River first emerged in the 1980s, but the project declined thanks to strong local opposition. In the late 1990s the project was again under consideration, but the plans did not bloom until early 2005 when the local administration, backed by Moscow-based financial interests, tried to re-launch the project. Like 20 years ago, the dam construction plans met a great deal of opposition – a coalition of local and international environmental activists initiated a large campaign against the dam by sending petitions to the local and federal governments and providing information to prospective investors about the project’s environmental and economic risks. Although the news about the adoption of the new Chemal development plan and Berdnikov’s recent statements were a great relief for a lot of people, there is always a chance that these plans make way their way back on the decision-makers’ table.

Pacific Environment’s Russia staff is about to undertake its yearly exodus to Russia for the much-anticipated annual Sosnovka Coalition meeting. 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. 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. The strategy conversations are simultaneously overarching and specific, covering new and old topics: forestry, protected areas, mining, fisheries, oil and gas development, alternative energy sources, etc.

The Sosnovka Coalition is based on trust, mutual support, and effective communication. Modern-day Russian activists spend a lot of time on the road, in meetings, in court, conducting fieldwork and public outreach, and working multiple jobs. They are skilled in maximizing their time at the annual meeting, and the entire group communicates regularly and strategically via e-mail created to serve the Coalition and its working groups. Based on trust built over time, the Sosnovka Coalition is the backbone of the environmental movement in Siberia and the Russian Far East. All of the great modern campaigns (opposing financing for Sakhalin-II, rerouting the Siberia-Pacific Pipeline, etc.) can all be traced back to Sosnovka conversations. Stay tuned in October for the hottest news and the inside story on what Russia’s top environmentalists will focus on in the coming year!