Russia
Russian Barents population decrease
(BarentsObserver, 5 February 2010) -- The North of Russia is under the threat of depopulation. Since the year 2000 the population in the Russian part of the Barents region decreased by 462,000, or by almost 11 percent. According to the yearly demographic report of the State Statistical Committee the Russian territories of the Barents region in the beginning of 2009 had 31 thousand inhabitants less than one year ago. That is 0.8 percent less than in 2008. In the three-year period from 2006 to 2008 the total population of the Russian Federation decreased by 317,000 people. This is approximately as much as the population of the biggest city in the Barents region; Arkhangelsk. During the ten-year period from 2000 to 2010, the population of the Russian Federation was reduced by almost 5 million citizens, or -3.4 %. At the same time the population in the Russian part of the Barents region declined by 54,000 people from 2006 to 2008, or by 1.4 per cent, according to the 2009 edition of the Demographic Yearbook of Russia. The biggest population decline in the ten-year period since 2000 was observed in Murmansk Oblast (by 10.4 percent), in Komi Republic (by 9.3 percent), and in Arkhangelsk Oblast (by 9.2 percent). The population of Karelia decreased 6.5 percent. One year ago, in the beginning of 2009, the total population of Barents Russia was 3,793,000 people. Today, according to the preliminary data of the State Statistical Committee the population in these five territories decreased again by 24,000. The greatest declines occured in Murmansk oblast and the Republic of Komi.
Posted 6 February 2010; 11:10:04 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, February10, Northwest Russia, Research, Russia, Social Issues
Stomach bug puts 200 children in hospital in Russia's Far East
(RIA Novosti, 31 January 2010) -- Over 200 children, most of them younger than three years, have been hospitalized with acute intestinal infection in the Magadan Region in the Russian Far East, Rossiya TV channel reported on Sunday. Doctors believe the children were poisoned after eating imported fruits - bananas, apples and citruses - largely supplied from China, the TV channel reported. Local health authorities are taking measures to contain the spread of the virus, the TV channel said. Doctors say the virus has affected whole families in the area, with children hit hardest, the TV channel said. The infection is likely to subside in spring when navigation will allow domestic food supplies into the subarctic region, the TV channel reported.
Posted 31 January 2010; 12:26:25 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Far East Russia, Health and wellness, January10, Russia
Population in Severodvinsk shrinks and ages
(BarentsObserver, 22 January 2010) -- Nearly one quarter of the population has moved from Severodvinsk, Arkhangelsk Oblast in course of the last 16 years. Every sixth inhabitant is now over 60 years. The latest demographic statistics for Severodvinsk are worth some reflection, local newspaper Northwestern Worker writes. The town’s population is constantly shrinking, and the average age of the remaining people is increasing. The population has shrunk from 258.600 people in 1991 to 188.000 in 2009. Severodvinsk has always been regarded as a young town. In the Soviet period this was an industrial center where the best specialists from all over the country came to work. Severodvinsk is the second largest city in Arkhangelsk Oblast. Its main industry remains defense related - Russia’s largest shipbuilding company Sevmash is located here, as well as the major ship repair yard Zvezdochka. Nearly 70 percent of the working population is employed in the ship building or ship repair industry. The main factor in the population decline is migration. The number of people moving from Severodvinsk exceeds the number of people moving to the town by 2-3 times. Only in 2008, 2583 people moved from Severodvinsk, while 431 decided to settle there. Many of the people leaving Severodvinsk are young people who decide not to come back after having finished university or college. The situation got somewhat better in 2009, Northwestern Worker writes. The economic crisis did not have such a big impact on Severodvinsk as on many other Russian towns, and many young people found it more profitable to stay home. At the same time, the remaining population is getting older. For every 1000 persons in active working age, there are 450 children, juveniles and pensioners. The number of pensioners is growing every year, and now every sixth person in Severodvinsk is 60 years or older. Most of the elderly people in Severodvinsk are women, as the average life expectancy for men is only 59 years, while it is 73 years for women.
Posted 23 January 2010; 10:44:55 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, January10, Northwest Russia, Russia, Social Issues
Ship with 30 aboard stuck in ice off Russia's Pacific coast
(RIA Novosti, 22 January 2010) -- YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK - A ship with 30 crew on board sent a distress signal on Friday, warning that it could sink after becoming stuck in ice in the Sea of Okhotsk, off Russia's Pacific coast, local emergencies officials said. "The information that the refrigerator ship had become iced-in was received by the emergencies department of the Sakhalin Region at 07:40 Moscow time," the official said. All crew members on board the vessel are Russians, he said, adding that bad weather conditions could hamper any rescue operation. He said that emergency and maritime rescue officials were "exploring the possibility of involving ships located in the area ... to conduct a rescue operation." A local rescue center official said the trapped vessel had lost power and was unable to move.
Posted 22 January 2010; 10:27:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Disasters, etc., Far East Russia, January10, Russia
Heavy snow and high winds expected in southern Kamchatka
(Regnum.ru with aid from Google Translate, 20 January 2010) -- Southern Kamchatka is under a weather advisory for the period 21-23 January. Meteorologists are expecting snow and blizzards with visibility reduced to 500m and winds gusting to 60 km/h. The press service of the Far Eastern Regional Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of Russia warns of increased risk of avalanches in the mountains during the same period. Local officials are preparing to respond to disruptions of some essential services, and the possibility of damage to heating and electrical infrastructure. In addition, billboards, awnings, electricity and power wires could be damaged by strong gusts of wind. Ships in coastal areas, too, are being cautioned.
Posted 20 January 2010; 11:42:29 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Far East Russia, January10, Russia
Amazing underwater photos show beluga whales meeting divers at Arctic rehabilitation farm
(Lizzie Smith/Daily Mail, 18 January 2010) -- They don’t get visitors in these parts that often. That’s because these beluga whales live under three feet of ice in the freezing waters of northern Russia’s White Sea. But when some underwater photographers arrived, they certainly weren’t shy - as these stunning images show. The whales are not endangered but under threat from pollution and loss of habitat. They are thriving, however, at this whale sanctuary, where a natural bay under the ice provides a haven from the strong currents of the wider ocean. The 'natural farm' acts as a nursery for breeding whales, as well as acting as a rehabilitation centre for former performing animals before they are set into the wild. Photographer Franco Banfi, who took these shots [see them at the original item page; follow the title link] after his team carved through the ice with a handsaw, said: ‘When a whale comes up to us and swims by, it looks you right in the eyes. Sometimes, I’m sure they’re trying to figure out what we are and where we came from.
Posted 18 January 2010; 12:02:03 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, January10, Photography, Russia
Oil wastes threaten Dvina River
(BarentsObserver, 12 January 2010) -- A six-hectare area used as dump site for oil wastes from the shipping industry now threatens to seriously pollute the Northern Dvina River. The area located near the river bank has been used as a storage site for waste waters from the Arkhangelsk Port since the 1960s. According to Regnum, a significant part of the dangerous substances has already been washed into the river. The sandy ground in the area contains up to 95 times more oil substances than what is allowed. Up to 180 tons of oil is believed to be stored at the site. According to the regional Environmental Committee, pollution from the site threatens both local and regional environment. The Rambøll Barents company has been commissioned with finding alternative solutions for the problem.
Posted 12 January 2010; 11:12:23 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, January10, Northwest Russia, Russia
Methane release 'looks stronger'
(Michael Fitzpatrick/BBC Science, 6 January 2010) -- Scientists have uncovered what appears to be a further dramatic increase in the leakage of methane gas that is seeping from the Arctic seabed. Methane is about 20 times more potent than CO2 in trapping solar heat. The findings come from measurements of carbon fluxes around the north of Russia, led by Igor Semiletov from the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. "Methane release from the East Siberian Shelf is underway and it looks stronger than it was supposed [to be]," he said. Professor Semiletov has been studying methane seepage in the region for the last few decades, and leads the International Siberian Shelf Study (ISSS), which has launched multiple expeditions to the Arctic Ocean. The preliminary findings of ISSS 2009 are now being prepared for publication, he told BBC News. Methane seepage recorded last summer was already the highest ever measured in the Arctic Ocean. Acting as a giant frozen depository of carbon such as CO2 and methane (often stored as compacted solid gas hydrates), Siberia's shallow shelf areas are increasingly subjected to warming and are now giving up greater amounts of methane to the sea and to the atmosphere than recorded in the past. This undersea permafrost was until recently considered to be stable. But now scientists think the release of such a powerful greenhouse gas may accelerate global warming. Higher concentrations of atmospheric methane are contributing to global temperature rise; this in turn is projected to cause further permafrost melting and the release of yet more methane in a feedback loop.
Posted 8 January 2010; 7:58:56 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate change response, Environment and Landscape, January10, Research, Russia
(Charles Digges/Bellona, 5 January 2010) -- NEW YORK – A new joint venture between Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom and En+, another Russian energy giant and the majority shareholder of RUSAL, the world's largest aluminium and alumina producer, is aiming to commercialise small lead-cooled reactors, an industry publication reported. The 50/50 deal that was inked on December 25th will be named AKME Engineering. En+ is a part of the Basic Element Group. The SVBR-100 favoured by the joint venture – and like so many other types of Russian fast reactors that have yet to pass from the drawing board to experimental stages – has been on slow percolation for many years, meaning, according to some analysts, that the design is already fatally out of step with contemporary reactor requirements. The project also bears the kind of desperation that has characterised so many Russian nuclear efforts in the recent past – like floating nuclear power stations and the extremely unpopular Baltic Nuclear Power Plant – as the industry struggles against environmental norms to draw funding and maintain relevance as its stable of reactors grows older and its ability to store spent nuclear fuel decreases to nil. The joint release, however, said the SVBR-100 is based on a reactor already in use on seven nuclear submarines, but did not specify which. Further calls for this information to Rosatom by Bellona Web were passed from spokesman to spokesman, none of whom could answer the question. One spokesman did, however, confirm reports that a prototype of the reactor will be required to prove design improvements over its seafaring cousins, and that this reactor should be ready by 2019. According to the joint release by the companies, they will, “design and produce a prototype 100 MWe lead-bismuth fast reactor with a view to commercialize the technology," World Nuclear News reported.
Posted 5 January 2010; 5:26:59 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Nuclear issues, Russia
The electronification of Russian regions
(BarentsObserver, 4 January 2010) -- All state services in the Russian regions are to be made available electronically by 2015, President Dmitry Medvedev underlined in a recent State Council session. The meeting, which was devoted to the development of information technologies, was attended by the governors and a number of cabinet ministers and high-ranking officials. It took place on 23 December. The governors who do not cope with the mission will be dismissed, the president threatened in his speech, newspaper Kommersant reports. According to Minister of Communication Igor Shchegolev, Russian small businesses today spend ten percent of their turnover on overcoming red tape and the Russian population altogether spend up to 25 million days per year on getting public services. There are a total of about 1,500 public services which will be made electronic by 2015, newspaper Kommersant writes.
Posted 3 January 2010; 10:13:00 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communications and media, Internet Resources, January10, Russia, Social Issues
Russia to start eastward oil, gas shipments via Arctic in 2010
(Ria Novosti, 26 December 2009) -- NOVO-OGARYOVO - Sovcomflot, Russia's largest shipping company, will start delivering Russian oil and gas in the eastern direction of its Arctic shipping lane in the summer, the company head said on Saturday. At a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, Sergei Frank said Sovcomflot was planning to launch pilot shipments of Russian hydrocarbon reserves in the eastern direction of the Northern Sea Route, from the Atlantic to the Pacific via Russia's Arctic, later this year. "We will make such pilot deliveries in the summer," he said. Frank said the goal was to expand oil and gas markets for domestic energy producers and enter new ones. The businessman said though shipments via the Arctic had been made before, the scale and cargoes were different. "We are cooperating closely with the transportation and nuclear power ministries, and with the federal office of Rosatomflot [state-run civil nuclear fleet corporation] now to arrange everything properly for [oil and gas] shipments," Frank said. He said the eastward shipment experience would later be used in the development of West Siberia's Yamal fields and also for liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies.
Posted 27 December 2009; 11:16:30 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
(Indigenous Peoples of the Barents Region, 15 December 2009) -- On November 23rd 2009, Sami Nurash, the Murmansk Regional Saami Youth Organization, was established and registered. "November 23rd is a great day of joy for us, as it is the day all our efforts are rewarded," says Anna Afanasyeva, who is elected chairperson of the Saami youth organization. The Saami youth living on the Kola Peninsula have struggled for ten years to have a Saami youth organization registered, and they succeeded on the third attempt. Throughout the later years, Saami youth in Russia have been cooperating with Saami youth in the Nordic countries, through joint seminars and conferences and the Working Group for establishing an All-Saami youth organization. Saami youth are organized through Noereh (Norway), Sáminuorra (Sweden), Suoma Sámi Nuorat (Finland) and Sami Nurash (Russia).
Posted 21 December 2009; 2:17:54 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Indigenous Issues, Northwest Russia, Russia, Social Issues, Youth
Underground diamond mine at Aikhal commissioned
(Jewellery News, 21 December 2009) -- The Aikhal underground diamond mine, located in the Russian republic of Sakha (Yakutia) has been commissioned in the presence of Vyacheslav Shtyrov, president of Yakutia, Fyodor Andreyev, President of Russian diamond miner Alrosa, as well as employees of the diamond giant. The new mine forms part of the Aikhal Integrated Mining and Processing Complex (Aikhal GOK), which was established in 1986 originally with the purpose to operate the Sytykan open-pit mine and with a plan to increase the ore production in the future by commissioning the Jubilee open-pit mine. Until now, the Aikhal GOK has operated three open-pit mines: Sytykan, Aikhal and Jubilee, No. 8 Ore Treatment Plant, transportation department and auxiliary facilities to support the mining operations, as well as a number of social facilities. The new Aikhal underground mine has a life expectancy of 25 years, an is expected to produce 500,000 tons of diamond ore annually. The total investment since the beginning of development of the deposit by underground mining has been nearly 9 billion Russian rubles. The number of employees at the mine now stands at 380 people, which will increase to 600. The Aikhal diamond deposit was discovered on January 22, 1960. The Aikhal pipe is located in the northwestern part of Yakutia, about 450km to the north of the city of Mirny, within a permafrost zone. The deposit is located within the left-hand valley slope of the Sokhsolookh-Markhinsky Creek and is an explosion-type pipe extending in the northeastern direction.The Aikhal open-pit mine is located at a steep left-hand slope of the Sakhsolookh River and constitutes a typical mountain-slope pit. For more information on Alrosa visit: http://www.diamondne.ws/directory/alrosa-co-ltd/
Posted 21 December 2009; 2:04:17 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Celebrations, Circumpolar News, December09, Far East Russia, Resource Issues, Russia
Arctic haze decline may be tied to less Russian smelting
(Ned Rozell/Alaska Science, Anchorage Daily News, 19 December 2009) -- Arctic haze, a blob of dirty air that fuzzes up Alaska views in springtime, seems to be losing its punch. By comparing air measurements in Barrow from the 1970s to 2008, scientists have found that pollution particles from factories in Russia and Eurasia have become fewer and fewer in the last 30 years. "The Arctic haze is disappearing," said Glenn Shaw, who did pioneering research on the phenomenon and is the co-author on a recent paper about its decrease. "We don't know why." Shaw, a professor emeritus at the University of Alaska Fairbanks' Geophysical Institute, has in years past stopped passersby to point out how Arctic haze—pollution particles in the air that scatter light—has "obliterated" views of the Alaska Range in springtime. In recent years, he has noticed that the vistas have been much clearer from Fairbanks, and instrumentation in Barrow seems to back that up. "There's less of the industrial signal, of what's typically been known as Arctic haze," said Patricia Quinn, a research chemist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and the lead author of the study, which appeared in the Nov. 23 issue of the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. First named by an Air Force pilot in the 1950s, Arctic haze appears in the north from about January until early May, when a more active atmosphere flushes and dilutes what Shaw once called an Africa-size amoeba of dirty air that sloshes over the top of the globe. The decrease in that sort of pollution may be due to less smelting of heavy metals in Russia and improved emission technology. "I personally think they're pumping less junk into the atmosphere," Shaw said. "Things have changed."
Posted 20 December 2009; 6:59:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, December09, Russia
Russia launches icebreaker to boost Arctic oilfield
(Gleb Bryanski/Reuters, 18 December 2009) -- MOSCOW - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin launched an oil tanker on Friday capable of slicing through over a metre of ice, bringing Russia a step toward its decade-long ambition to launch its first offshore oilfield in the Arctic. State-run Gazprom has delayed the launch of its Prirazlomnoye oilfield for nearly ten years as it persists with domestic firms to equip the project, helping Russia develop the technical know-how to conquer other Arctic mineral riches. The 260-metre-long Kirill Lavrov was launched at the Admiralty Shipyards in St Petersburg, Putin's home city. "A year ago I saw anxious eyes of shipbuilders as they started work. It was a professional challenge," Putin was quoted as saying on the government's website, www.government.ru. Foreign reporters are not allowed to visit the shipyards. "It is amazing that such a giant was built in such a short period of time," Putin told shipbuilders. Russia, along with other countries bordering the Arctic, wants to assert its claims to the region's potentially huge mineral riches and is seeking to develop the relevant technology and fleet to develop lucrative deposits. The Kirill Lavrov, named after a popular Soviet actor renowned for playing the role of Vladimir Lenin, can break ice 1.2 metres thick when moving astern at a speed of three knots. It can reach a speed of 16 knots moving forward in open waters.
Posted 19 December 2009; 11:11:39 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, December09, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Russian shipyard says recent radioactive leak poses no threat
(RIA Novosti, 12 December 2009) -- SEVERODVINSK - The Zvezdochka shipyard in northern Russia said on Friday that a recent minor radioactive leak at its storage facility posed no threat to people or environment. According to a Zvezdochka statement, the "radiation incident" took place on Thursday when about two cubic meters liquid radioactive waste leaked through a seam in a pipe connecting a storage tank and a waste treatment facility. "The pipe itself is located in a leak-proof tunnel and the waste did not spill outside," the statement said, adding that the tunnel has been drained of the waste in two hours following the leak. "The radiation levels around the tunnel are normal. The causes of the leak are being investigated," the shipyard said. Severodvinsk-based Zvezdochka is Russia's biggest shipyard for repairing and dismantling nuclear-powered submarines. It has the capacity to scrap up to four nuclear submarines per year.
Posted 11 December 2009; 9:52:59 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, December09, Northwest Russia, Nuclear issues, Russia
Oil pipe exploded in Yamal tundra
(BarentsObserver.com, 9 December 2009) -- Oil spill covered 100 square meters of land after an explosion in an oil-gathering line in the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug last week. According to the local Emergency Management Service, the accident was probably caused by metal fatigue, Uralinform.ru writes. A fire broke out, but was reported to have been put out quickly. No people were harmed in the accident and there was no danger of fire spreading. The pipe belongs to the company Rosneft-Purneftegaz.
Posted 11 December 2009; 4:17:49 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, December09, Disasters, etc., Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Russia, Siberia
(Barents Indigenous People, 8 December 2009) -- Yasavey is the Public Association of Nenets people in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, and the indigenous NGO celebrates its 20th anniversary on December 12th 2009. Events are planned in Naryan-Mar for the entire weekend.
Posted 9 December 2009; 4:50:20 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Celebrations, Circumpolar News, December09, Education and Civil Society, Indigenous Issues, Northwest Russia, Russia
Bellona hosts wide-ranging discussion on nuclear dangers in Russia’s Northwest
(Charless Digges/Bellona, 3 December 2009) -- As Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear corporation beings to apply a stranglehold on information about the country’s nuclear energy programmes, the public is less and less likely to find out about how the Kola Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is operating at 104 percent capacity on reactors that have outlived their prospective life-spans. They are also less likely to know that it was advised by nuclear inspectors that these reactors never surpass 70 percent capacity, and that the current capacity they are running at could lead to Chernobyl—take two. Further kept in the dark is the fact that the Kola Peninsula, home to Murmansk, has an energy surplus making it entirely unnecessary to run the Kola NPP’s second generation reactors—which have received 10 year engineering life span expansions—at such a volume, making the risks of a radiological catastrophe entirely avoidable. The public of Northwest Russia is also lacking in the knowledge that there have been 53 radiologically hazardous incidents aboard nuclear powered surface ships since 2002—though probably more as the government stopped access this kind of information. And more generally, the public of Russia as a whole is most likely in the dark about the 15,000 plus tons of spent nuclear fuel that has filled Russia storage capacity to a seam-bursting 90-97 percent. Such were just a fraction of some of the facts that were revealed at a seminar Bellona held yesterday in Oslo on radioactive and nuclear problems in Russia’s northwest. This discouraging information was brought to light by a Bellona panel of Alexander Nikitin, chairman of Russia’s St. Petersburg offices, energy author and Bellona contributor Vladislav Larin, and Professor Vladimir Kuznetsov, a senior researcher at the Vavilov Institute of the History of Natural Sciences and Technology. He is also a former Russian nuclear regulatory inspector and member of Rosatom’s Public Council. They were joined by Johnny Almsted of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry and Ingar Amundsen of the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority who participated in the debate portion of the seminar.
Posted 5 December 2009; 5:47:31 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, Contaminants and Pollution, December09, Northwest Russia, Nuclear issues, Russia
50 years of nuclear-powered icebreakers
(BarentsObserver, 3 December 2009)** -- On December 3rd 1959, the world’s first nuclear-powered civilian vessel was officially taken into operation. Lenin was the first of nine nuclear icebreakers designed for navigation in the Arctic out of Murmansk. Today Lenin is a museum of Russia’s nuclear fleet. Equipped with originally three nuclear reactors, the icebreaker Lenin was launched from the shipyard in Leningrad in 1957. After two years of testing, Lenin was put into ordinary icebreaker operations by the end of 1959. She was then looked upon as a truly piece of master engineering. Lenin was transferred to Murmansk and got its own pier and onshore wooden house in the northern part of the city, then known as Base 92. Still, all maintenance and repair work was done at the Zvezdochka shipyard in Severodvinsk near Arkhangelsk. Later, the base in Murmansk was extended and renamed RTP Atomflot and all repair work and maintenance of Lenin and the follow-up fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers were carried out there.
Posted 5 December 2009; 11:39:29 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, December09, Nuclear issues, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Nearly 300 people still living in devastated Kamchatka village
(Regnum.ru, 24 November 2009) -- In 2006, Korf, a village [established in the mid-1920s to house salmon fishers] in the Olyutorsky district on the coast of [60°22'17.83"N, 166° 0'54.38"E] suffered a severe earthquake. In December 2008, it was floods. In 2006, in response to the damage caused by the earthquake, the Governor of Kamchatka Territory, Alexei Kuzmitsky, authorized the relocation of Korf inhabitants to safer places. Rising sea levels threatened the spit of land on which the town was built and its location in a seismic zone meant that human habitation was deemed unsuitable by specialists of the Geophysical Institute. Each resident was told how the evacuation would proceed, when containers would be loaded with their personal effects. However, of the 22 families first chosen to leave Korf, only seven left. The remainder continue to live in condemned buildings without access to social services, which have been suspended because the community was to be abandoned. Since some 170 families have not yet been issued certificates for housing elsewhere, the government has shipped enough coal to keep the district heating plant working through the winter and have repaired the power line serving the community. (Loosely paraphrased from the GoogleTranslated version of the original Russian.)
Posted 30 November 2009; 5:03:51 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Far East / Russia, Natural disasters and other problems, November09, Russia, Social Issues, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
In Russian Arctic, global warming threatens traditional way of life
(Geert Groot Koerkamp /Deutsche Welle, 28 November 2009)** -- Russian scientists have doubts over whether global warming is here to stay and whether it's man made. But for the Saami in Russia's north, the mild winters already pose a threat to their traditional way of life. All around the Arctic, the effects of a temperature rise are visible, and native inhabitants of the tundras in Europa, Asia and North America are struggling with the new reality. That's also true for the Saami reindeer herders on Russia's Kola Peninsula, an area bordering on Norway and Finnish Lapland. But, in Russia, climate change is not a hot-button issue, nor is much attention being paid to the upcoming climate summit in Copenhagen. Russian scientists say they have no evidence that global warming is a long-term trend, and doubt whether it is a man-made phenomenon. In the country's northern port in the town of Murmansk, the Marine Biological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences monitors life in and around the Barents Sea. The institute has amassed an impressive database concerning temperature and salinity of the sea over the course of the 20th century. Referring to the statistics, biologist Pavel Makarevich says there are clear cycles during which both temperature and salinity rise and fall. These cycles, he says, are related to solar activity. ... But for the Saami reindeer herders on Russia's Kola Peninsula between the Barents and the White Sea, a drop in temperature is urgently needed. Over the last few years, the winters have become milder and milder, threatening the traditional lifestyle of the Saami. This year again, the onset of winter was late in northern Russia. Normally, the tundra would already be covered by a deep layer of snow, and the numerous lakes would have a thick layer of ice. But snow cover is minimal and some of the lakes are not even frozen yet. For native reindeer herders, that's a problem, because the traditional slaughter season has to be postponed.
Posted 29 November 2009; 3:17:14 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Communities, Health and wellness, Indigenous Issues, November09, Russia
Federation Council discusses Arctic
(Barents Observer, 25 November 2009) -- Cooperation between countries in the Arctic region and protection of Russia’s interests in the region are amongst the topics up for discussion in the Russian Federation Council today. The Russian Federation Council’s committee for issues concerning the Arctic and indigenous peoples of the North today holds Parliament hearings on Russia’s efforts to upkeep life sustenance in the Arctic, web site B-port.com reports. The participants in the hearings—members of the Federation Council, deputies in the State Duma and representatives from federal and regional authorities—will discuss Russia’s participation in international organizations and trends in international cooperation. Among the speakers in the hearings are the Head of the committee Gennady Oleynik, Ambassador-at-large for Russia’s involvement in the Barents regional cooperation Anton Vasilyev and Vice President in the Association for the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East [RAIPON] Dmitry Berezhkov.
Posted 25 November 2009; 10:41:01 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, November09, Russia
Sole Saami radio station in Russia in disarray
(Siku Circumpolar News, 18 November 2009) -- The director of the Kola Saami radio has disappeared and the employees
have not been paid for the past four months, reports the Barents
Observer. The employees are now fear a closure of the Kola Saami Radio will make it impossible to start up again later. But tax officials and the state attorney are seriously concerned about how the radio station will cover their debt of 270,000 RUR ($10,000), reports NRK Sami Radio in Norway. NRK has tried to get in contact with the director of Kola Saami Radio, Aleksandr Paul, without success. Another journalist with the Kola Sami Radio, Jevgenij Kirillov, says director Paul is in a dangerous situation right now. "The authorities are suspecting him of not paying the debt and salaries, and therefore are threatening to put him in jail," Kirillov told NRK. Kola Saami Radio has been in economic trouble for a long time. In February the Norwegian Barents Secretariat gave the radio 45,000 NOK (€5,000) and said they also hoped other organizations would assist the only radio station in Russia broadcasting in the Saami language. The radio also has received money from the Norwegian Saami Parliament, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Nordic Council of Ministers and the European Union's Interreg program. In total, Kola Sami Radio has got millions of roubles during the last decade. The grants provided were supposed to be used for the start-up costs for the radio programs in Kildin Saami language—not for day-to-day operations.
Posted 18 November 2009; 2:52:37 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communications and media, Indigenous Issues, Northwest Russia, November09, Russia
(Barents Observer, 16 November 2009) -- Industrial production in the far northern Nenets Autonomous Okrug increased 38.5 percent year-on-year in the first six months of 2009, the latest Barents Monitoring report confirms. That, however, is all thanks to Lukoil’s new Yuzhno-Khilchuyu oil field. The report, which is written by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat’s regional office in the Nenets AO, shows a positive dynamics in regional industrial production. However, other parts of the economy struggle with serious problems. The report shows that the oil-rich region with a population of only 42,300 in the first half of the year had an industrial production growth of 38.5 percent. A major increase in oil production was what made the positive trend. Oil production, including natural gas condensate, increased by more than 35 percent to a total of 9.08 million tons. Also electric power generation increased significantly in the region, with 28.5 percent year-on-year growth to a total of 475.2 million KWH. At the same time, the construction industry in the region showed a serious drop. The volume of work in the regional construction declined by as much as 52.9 percent compared to the same period in 2008. Housing construction dropped by 68.4 percent compared 2008. A total of 127 flats, or 6,300 square meters, was built in January-June 2009. Also investments dropped significantly in the region. According to the report, a total of 19.69 billion rubles were invested in the period, which is a 57.3 percent drop compared with the same period of 2008. The Nenets Autonomous Okrug still remains one regions with the highest salaries in Russia. The average accrued salary in the region was 42,566 rubles, which is up by 8.9% compared to the same period of 2008.
Posted 16 November 2009; 3:53:22 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, November09, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Russia, Siberia / Russia
Icebreaker trapped in Arctic ice, 105 passengers safe
(RIA Novosti, 16 November 2009) -- VLADIVOSTOK - A Russian icebreaker with 105 passengers on board has been trapped in ice during a cruise in the Arctic, a Russian Far East marine cruise official said on Monday. The Captain Khlebnikov will need to wait one or two days to resolve the situation, and the official said the passengers are in no danger. "The icebreaker's crew is waiting for the weather to change and then the ship will resume its course. This will require one or two days. The passengers are in no need of assistance," the spokesman told RIA Novosti. Most of the passengers on board the icebreaker are Brits. A film crew from the BBC is also on board filming material for a documentary called Frozen Earth.
Posted 16 November 2009; 12:26:26 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Natural disasters and other problems, November09, Russia, Tourism / Perspectives, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Eurasia highest volcano spills lava down slope
(RIA Novosti, 15 November 2009) -- PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY - A lava flow has started to come down the slope of Eurasia's highest volcano, the Klyuchevskoy, on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia's Far East, a local volcanologist said on Sunday. The Klyuchevskoy, which lies 220 miles north of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, is one of the largest active volcanoes in the world and reaches an altitude of 15,584 feet. It erupts about every 2 years. "A small flow of lava has started trickling down the south-eastern slope of the Klyuchevskoy after magma has filled its crater to the brink," said a researcher at the Far Eastern Institute of Volcanology and Seismology. He also said the volcano continued to throw red-hot rocks to a height of 200 meters (over 650 feet). The current eruption started in August after several months of relevant inactivity. Unlike many others, it started slow, but its intensity is rapidly growing. Seismological stations near the Klyuchevskoy register hundreds of small tremors in the area every day. The volcano is dangerous only to tourists at this point, although lava flows and high-altitude ash emissions could soon threaten air traffic in the region. The Klyuchevskoy started a new active cycle with an eruption on February 15, 2007. Volcanic ash from that eruption stretched over 500 km above the Bering Sea at the height of 8.2-8.7 km. There are more than 150 volcanoes on Kamchatka, 29 of them active.
Posted 15 November 2009; 2:23:41 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Environment and Landscape, Far East Russia, North Pacific, November09, Russia
Young people to elect youth minister in Arkhangelsk
(Barents Observer, 11 November 2009) -- Arkhangelsk Oblast is hardly known for its free and fair political elections. Still, the regional administration now intends to let young people in the region themselves elect the next minister of youth affairs. Deputy Governor Yelena Kudryasheva in a press conference this week confirmed that the next minister of youth issues, sport and tourism will be elected by people in the region. The elections will be “as democratic as possible”, Kudryasheva stressed to the reporters. However, the elections will still not be direct and the governor will be able to veto the winner of the vote. As a matter of fact, a number of youth fora all over the region will convene late fall to appoint representatives to a bigger youth congress, which will be where the new minister is elected. People interested in the job are free to register their candidacy by November 16, Pravda Severa reports.
Posted 11 November 2009; 11:45:25 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, November09, Russia
Russian North on shaky ground as permafrost keeps melting
(Bellona, 4 November 2009) -- ST. PETERSBURG - When, in June 2001, a block of flats crumbled in the village of Chersky, in the upper Kolyma River area in Russia’s Far Northeast, it was no terrorist act, nor an explosion of a gas tank that had prompted the accident. In a much more prosaic turn of events, the leaking rusty plumbing and central heating pipes had eaten away at the foundation, which finally gave way. Yet, as a closer inspection later revealed, the main cause was the thawing of the permafrost: The building collapsed because of the global warming.
Posted 6 November 2009; 4:04:01 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Far East / Russia, November09, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Arkhangelsk to become center for higher education in the Arctic
(BarentsObserver, 2 November 2009) -- When the new Northern (Arctic) Federal University opens in Arkhangelsk, it will be Russia’s center for education and research on the Arctic. The main motives for the establishment are protection of Russia’s geopolitical and economic interests in Northern Europe and the Arctic. The Northern (Arctic) Federal University will conduct research and educate specialists within development of natural resources, including oil and gas, timber industry, onshore infrastructures, information and communication technologies and ecology. As BarentsObserver reported, Russia’s president Dmitry Medvedev on October 21 signed a presidential decree stating that the State Technical University in Arkhangelsk will be transformed into Northern (Arctic) Federal University. The new university will have a student population of 30 000 students, Pro-rector at the Arkhangelsk State Technical University Yury Kudryashov told BarentsObserver in an interview in Arkhangelsk last week. -The university will have a special role both in securing Russia’s geopolitical interests in the Arctic and in education of specialists for development of oil and gas deposits on the Arctic shelf. According to Kudryashov, a brand new university campus will be built to house the Northern (Arctic) Federal University. The Pomor State University, the Northern State Medical University and the shipyard Sevmash’ own technical college Sevmashvtuz will also be included in the new federal university. Arkhangelsk Oblast is the largest subject in the North-Western Federal District in order of size. Arkhangelsk is called “The gateway to the Arctic”.
Posted 2 November 2009; 7:36:25 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Education and Civil Society, Northwest / Russia, November09, Russia, Social Issues
Russia will charge ships crossing Northern Sea Route
(Mia Bennett/Arctic Foreign Policy Blog, 1 November 2009) -- In the wake of an announcement by British polar explorer Pen Hadow, leader of the Catlin Arctic Survey, that the Arctic will be ice-free within ten years, Russia announced that it will charge ships a “fair” fee to cross the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Northern Sea Route, the majority of which is Russian waters. Alexasandr Davydenko, head of the Federal Sea and River Transport Agency, actually said, “We are hoping the ice will melt soon.” However, the country still lacks the infrastructure necessary to handle the predicted increase in shipping that will arrive in the coming years, particularly in the port of Murmansk, which would likely serve as a hub. Furthermore, the shipping company Sovcomflot will begin shipping oil through the Northern Sea Route next year. It is rumored that Gazprom will also follow suit. The following is an image taken from the Russian government’s official website on the Northern Sea Route, known as “Sevmorput” in Russian. The labels are for the various seas and straits that the NSR crosses.
Posted 2 November 2009; 12:41:53 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, International, November09, Russia
Number of swine flu cases in Russia's Kamchatka rises to 54
(RIA Novosti, 2 November 2009) --PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY - The number of people confirmed as having the H1N1 virus, commonly known as swine flu, in Russia's Far East Kamchatka Territory has grown to 54, local health ministry spokesman said."Thirty seven children and 17 adults have been confirmed as having swine flu in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Elizovsky district," the spokesman said, adding 32 people had light infections and 22 were in a moderately grave condition. Thirty-five people were hospitalized, he said."We have enough medicine and places in hospitals," the spokesman added. The first case of swine flu infection was registered in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky on October 21, three days after an infected 11-year-old boy was hospitalized. Five deaths from the H1N1 virus have been so far registered in Russia. Three fatalities were reported in the east Siberian city of Chita, one in Moscow, and another one in the Siberian Krasnoyarsk region. The total number of officially confirmed swine flu cases in the country has reached almost 1,900. Russia's chief sanitary official, Gennady Onishchenko, earlier said the swine flu cases began growing considerably in October, traditionally the time for a seasonal flu outbreak. The country plans to start a swine flu vaccination program in December. According to the World Health Organization, more than 5,700 people have died from swine flu worldwide, and the total number of officially confirmed cases has exceeded 440,000, as of October 25.
Posted 1 November 2009; 9:24:25 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Far East / Russia, Health and wellness, November09, Russia
65 years since the liberation of the Arctic
(BarentsObserver, 23 October 2009) -- These days towns on both sides of the Norwegian-Russian border mark the 65th anniversary of Soviet troops’ defeat over the Wehrmacht's forces in the Arctic. The Petsamo-Kirkenes offensive started October 7th 1944, when Soviet forces started a counter-offensive against the German strongpoint line just 70 kilometers northwest of Murmansk. The German forces were driven back into Norway, and the first Soviet troops crossed the border to Norway on October 18th. On October 25th Soviet troops liberated the Norwegian town of Kirkenes from the German forces. Yesterday the anniversary was marked in the Russian border town of Nikel, with Mayor of Kirkenes Linda Beate Randal as guest. See video from the event on TV21. Murmansk is celebrating the occasion on Saturday with a military procession to the Alesha memorial. The same day Kirkenes is honoring the anniversary with several different events for the local population and the many invited guests from Russia and Norway. Read more about the offensive on Wikipedia or in Major James F. Gebhardt’s detailed book “The Petsamo-Kirkenes Operation : Soviet breakthrough and pursuit in the Arctic, October 1944”. (For a short summary of of Gebhardt's book, scroll to the bottom of the page, to the “Synopsis of Leavenworth Paper 17.”)
Posted 23 October 2009; 7:50:58 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Northwest / Russia, October09, Prizes, awards and recognitions, Russia
(Siku Circumpolar News, 19 October 2009) -- Norway plans to spend 45.6 million EUR on new border stations on the border to Russia and modernize of the border guard service’s headquarters outside Kirkenes, reports the Barents Observer. Sør-Varanger Garrison (GSV), headquarters and training school for the border guard service, will go through major changes over the next three years, the Sør-Varanger Avis reports. Parts of the garrison were built in the 1950’s. Next year will see the start of a new 7.8 million EUR barracks for 200 persons, a new kitchen and a new mess hall. The Sør-Varanger Garrison including the borders stations has about 600 soldiers and officers. Today there are six stations along the 196 kilometers long border, but as of 2013 there will only be two large stations. "The six existing stations were built in the 1950’s and 1960’s. They are out of date, too small and not adapted to our needs now," Major Harald Enebakk at GSV told Sør-Varanger Avis. "The way we operate along the border today, we only need to larger stations in addition to the existing surveillance towers and patrol cabins." Norway is the only country in the Schengen area that uses military soldiers in the border guard service, the Barents Observer notes.
Posted 19 October 2009; 2:42:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, International, Norway, October09, Russia
Murmansk declared Arctic gas capital
(BarentsObserver, 15 October 2009) -- Gazprom will make Murmansk the base for its expansion into the Arctic, company CEO Aleksei Miller highlighted at the Murmansk Economic Forum today. The forum, which opened in downtown Murmansk today, has “the conquering of the Arctic” as its slogan and puts prime focus on the development of the huge Shtokman gas field, located about 600 km off the Barents Sea coast. "Shtokman is strategically important for all of Russia," Mr. Miller said in his presentation at the forum. The Shtokman field was also the key component in the new cooperation agreement between Gazprom and Murmansk Oblast signed today. That agreement includes cooperation guidelines for the Shtokman development process, including for the laying of pipelines, construction of the LNG terminal and other facilities. Aleksey Miller after the signing ceremony stressed that Gazprom will build roads and develop infrastructure, establish staff training programmes and seek to take maximum advantage of the regional industrial supply potential. He also stressed that the company will spend significant sums on social projects in the region. The Shtokman field will also result in the gasification of the region, and thus open up for new industrial establishments, Miller said. In the forum session, Miller stressed that Shtokman is a Russian project and that the partnership with foreign companies Total and StatoilHydro will expire after the first field development phase. At the same time, he praised the cooperation model of the project, saying that it should be used also in other offshore projects in Russia.
Posted 16 October 2009; 3:48:24 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Northwest / Russia, October09, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Russia
Yamal plans may overrun Arctic tribe
(UpstreamOnline, 6 October 2009)** -- The Nenets tribespeople of Russia's frozen Yamal peninsula have survived the age of the Tsars, the Bolshevik revolution and the chaotic 1990s, but now confront their biggest challenge—under their fur-bundled feet is enough gas to heat the world for five years. "For them it is fortune, for us terror," said 20-year-old herder Andrei Yezgini, dressed from head to toe in reindeer skin, referring to ambitious plans by state gas monopoly Gazprom to drill the region. Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has described Yamal as "the world's storehouse" of gas and oil. Putin jetted into the sparsely populated region within the Arctic circle, 2000 kilometres (1250 miles) north-east of Moscow, in late September to woo foreign partners to develop a quarter of the world's known gas reserves. Experts and the Nenets say industry will damage and pollute the tundra, whose flat marshy terrain switches from marigold russets in summer to thick winter snow and is peppered with disc-like thermokarst lakes and crystal blue waterways. Nenets migrate north to south over 150 kilometres every year, spending only a few days in one place, living off reindeer and fish and lugging their "chums," or tents, kerosene lamps and wood-fired stoves on reindeer-pulled sleighs. "The fact they've found deposits here is catastrophic," said Slava Vanuito, 34.
Posted 8 October 2009; 3:24:41 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Indigenous Issues, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues, Russia, Siberia / Russia
(Barents Observer, 5 October 2009) -- A new Saami textbook for children is published in Murmansk. The publication is sponsored by Shtokman Development. The publication of the new textbook, called Voafskhess (Northern Light), is part of the celebration of the 20 year anniversary of the Kola Saami Association, the oldest Saami organization on the Kola Peninsula, web site B-port.com writes. With regional authorities being unwilling to pay for production of the book, Shtokman Development AG and the International Saami Language Committee sponsored the project. There are about 2000 persons registered as Saami in Murmansk Oblast. Four Saami languages have been spoken among the Saami in the Russian side; Akkala, Ter, Skolt and Kildin Saami. Akkala Saami seems to be extinct as a language, where as below 20 understand or speak Ter Saami. Skolt Saami is spoken by less than 20 individuals in the Russian side, and Kildin Saami is spoken by 300-700 individuals, BarentsIndigenous.org writes.
Posted 8 October 2009; 1:34:50 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Cultural Matters, Education and Civil Society, Indigenous Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
(Christina Henriksen/Barents Indigenous People, 30 September 2009) -- Saami rights in the Kola Peninsula is the hot topic of the seminar, which takes place in Murmansk on October 1-2 2009. The work towards establishment of a democratically elected political body representing the Saami population in Murmansk oblast is in progress, and this will be presented by the representatives of the Council of Authorized Representatives of the Saami in Murmansk Oblast, elected at the first Saami congress in Olenegorsk last December. The seminar will take place in Polyarny Zory Hotel and the program includes discussion on self-determination for Saami in Murmansk Oblast and self-determination in the Nordic and international perspective. The Saami Council plenary session is scheduled to October 3rd and 4th.
Posted 30 September 2009; 3:04:38 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Warming up Siberia's cold spot
(Bridget Kendall/From Our Own Correspondent, BBC, 16 September 2009) -- Climate change is having an impact in the vast and remote region of Yakutia in Siberia which, in winter at least, is still the coldest place on earth. Bridget Kendall reports. There cannot be many foreigners who make it as far as Yakutia's top tourist attraction, the Ice Kingdom. The way in is through an unassuming wooden door cut into the hillside, just like the entrance to Bilbo Baggin's hobbit home in The Lord of the Rings. You pass into a dark hallway strewn with straw and blocks of ice, and enter another world. White crystals sparkle. A tunnel shimmers blue as far as the eye can see. In padded silver capes, guides usher us through caverns carved with ice sculptures. One houses the ivory tusks of a mammoth. In another, a young man draped in furs sits on an icy throne. "The Lord of the Cold," our guide tells us. "How long have you been here?" I ask. "Eternity," he answers with stoic humour. In fact, no one could last long in these icy caverns without a break. Just one and a half metres from the surface, the ground is permanently frozen at -10C. Yakutia is home to the permafrost. In midwinter, outside temperatures make it the coldest place on earth - an unbelievable -70C. Luckily September is still fleetingly autumn. The trees seem to fade from green to yellow overnight. In just four days the temperature drops noticeably. The local paper worries that not all heating plants are yet fully repaired and supplied with fuel. The first frosts, it says, will come in days. Evidence of extreme temperatures is visible everywhere. Newer buildings perch on concrete permafrost stilts. The asphalt on the buckled roads erupts into cracks and bumps, while lagged heating pipes snake over head. Untidy spaghetti wires loop from one high-rise to another. You can not bury power lines and pipes in the permafrost. There are also telling signs of what looks like global warming. This July in the underground Ice Kingdom the temperature rose to a dangerously warm -7C. On the surface winter frosts rarely get harsher than -50C.
Posted 30 September 2009; 2:16:22 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Environment and Landscape, Far East / Russia, Russia, Tourism / Perspectives
Canada, Norway, Russia to provide Arctic sea weather warnings
(Agence France-Presse via SpaceDaily, 23 September 2009) -- Canada, Norway and Russia will soon provide navigation and meteorological warnings for ships crossing the Arctic sea, a new maritime route which has opened up due to global warming, a WMO expert said Wednesday. A revised Manual on Maritime Safety Information which is to come into force in 2011 now includes the Arctic as a new zone, divided into five areas where weather warnings would have to be provided. "One of the consequences of the melting of ice, is that we have now several passages, that just 10 years ago were open only for navigation in summertime. Now they are open almost all the year for navigation," said Edgard Cabrera, who heads the WMO's Marine Meteorology and Ocean Affairs division. "That's why it was necessary to establish five new areas," he added. Previously, no country had been assigned to provide weather and navigation information in the Arctic seas. The manual will be launched on Thursday by the World Meteorological Organization, the International Maritime Organization and the International Hydrographic Organization.
Posted 27 September 2009; 1:08:07 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, International, Norway, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Nenets 80th anniversary celebrated!
(Christina Henriksen/Barents Indigenous People, 18 September 2009) -- The 80th anniversary of Nenets Autonomous Okrug was celebrated by locals and guests throughout a whole week filled with various events. Exhibitions and concerts exposed the local Nenets and Komi culture, and culture groups from other regions also took part in the events. The Nenets culture group, Mayimbava, from the village Nelmin-Nos, played a vigorous part in these events, mixing local Nenets culture with Russian pop culture. Governor Igor Gennadyevitch Fyodorov hosted the cultural events, emphasizing the importance of the local indigenous peoples' culture, but also pointed to the prosperity which the oil and gas industry has brought to the region. Among the guests were the President of South Ossetia, Mr Eduard Kokoity, Polar researcher and Member of the State Duma Arthur Nikolayevitch Chilingarov and President of RAIPON and Speaker of the Duma in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Sergey Nikolayevitch Kharyuchi. A delegation from the Norwegian County of Rogaland, led by the County Mayor Tom Tvedt,visited Naryan-Mar during the week of celebration, as the two counties renewed their agreement of cooperation. In addition to their excursion to the Varandey oil terminal, they also got to experience local food and culture. Nenets Autonomous Okrug was established in 1929, and was originally inhabited by the reindeer-herding Nenets people, which is the indigenous people of the region. Naryan-Mar is the only city, with approximately 20,000 inhabitants, but there are several villages and settlements in the tundra, in which the Nenets is a majority. The Nenets living in the tundra herd reindeer together with the Izhma-Komi, migrating from the inland to the coastline and back again. Russia Today visited the Nenets Autonomous Okrug during the same week. Have a look at their experiences.
Posted 25 September 2009; 12:20:49 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Communities, Indigenous Issues, Northwest Russia, Prizes, awards and recognitions, Russia
Security of peoples of the North
(Arctic Peoples, 11 September 2009) -- At the recent EPPR meeting held in Anadyr, Chukotka, August 17-21, Larisa Abryutina, member of the Executive Committee of RAIPON , presented a list of issues that in her view need to be addressed with regard to the safety of the population and human health and wellbeing in the Russian North. According to Ms. Abryutina, these issues include: Communication of threats and dangerous situations to indigenous populations; Raising public awareness of prevention, preparedness and response to potential emergency situations; Reconstruction of mobile medical units operating in regions of the North; Re-establish network of local weather stations to monitor changes in the environment, for example risks of floods, strong winds and wild forest fires, and communicate it to indigenous communities. Transparency of economic development projects that take place in the North, for example results of impact assessment etc. should be communicated to impacted communities and peoples; Cooperation between authorities and indigenous peoples organisations. Indigenous peoples are not prepared for threats they do not know about (for example nuclear devices placed on their traditional hunting and fishing grounds and reindeer pasture areas) which renders communication and cooperation all the more crucial.
Posted 12 September 2009; 2:14:52 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Far East / Russia, Indigenous Issues, International, Russia
German ships successfully make "Arctic Passage"
(Reuters via Yahoo! News, 11 September 2009) -- Two German cargo ships have successfully navigated across Russia's Arctic-facing northern shore from South Korea to Siberia without the help of icebreakers, the shipping company said. The two merchant ships belonging to Beluga Shipping Gmbh were able to make the cost-saving voyage by the fabled Northeast Passage because of the reduction in the polar ice cap due to global warming, the company said. "We are all very proud and delighted to be the first Western shipping company which has successfully transited the legendary Northeast Passage and delivered the sensitive cargo safely through this extraordinarily demanding sea area," Niels Stolberg, president and CEO of Beluga, said in a statement on the company's website. The ships are carrying a cargo of "heavy plant modules," said the company statement, dated Sept 9. The Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight left the Russian port of Vladivostok with cargo picked up in July in South Korea, bound for Holland. They dropped anchor at the Siberian port of Yamburg on Monday, Beluga said. The Northern Sea Route trims 4,000 nautical miles off the usual 11,000-mile journey via the Suez Canal, which Beluga has said would yield substantial savings in fuel costs and reductions in CO2 emissions. The company got Russian authorities' clearance to send the first non-Russian commercial vessels through the route in August. "Russian submarines and icebreakers have used the Northern Route in the past but it wasn't open for regular commercial shipping before now because there are many areas with thick ice," Stolberg told Reuters in an email interview at that time. [See also "German ships blaze Arctic trail" (BBC News, 11 September 2009).]
Posted 12 September 2009; 2:11:54 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Arctic passage open without ice breakers first time in history
(Kirk Melhuish/Atlanta Weather Examiner, 6 September 2009) -- This year's opening marks the fourth time in five years that the Northeast Passage has opened, and commercial shipping companies are taking note. Two German ships recently are the first commercial voyage ever made through the Northeast Passage without the help of icebreakers. The Northeast Passage trims 4,500 miles off the 12,500-mile trip through the Suez Canal, yielding considerable savings in fuel. The voyage was not possible last year, because Russia had not yet worked out a permitting process. With Arctic sea ice expected to continue to decline in the coming decades, shipping traffic through the Northeast Passage will likely become commonplace most summers. The Northeast Passage has remained closed to navigation, except via assist by icebreakers, from 1553 to 2005. The results published in the American Association for the Advancement of Science suggest that prior to 2005, the last previous opening was the period 5,000 - 7,000 years ago, when the Earth's orbital variations brought more sunlight to the Arctic in summer than at present. It is possible we'll know better soon. A new technique that examines organic compounds left behind in Arctic sediments by diatoms that live in sea ice give hope that a detailed record of sea ice extent extending back to the end of the Ice Age 12,000 years ago may be possible (Belt et al., 2007). The researchers are studying sediments along the Northwest Passage in hopes of being able to determine when the Passage was last open.
Posted 8 September 2009; 9:02:06 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Russia
Over 2 tons of poached red caviar seized in Far East
(RIA Novosti, 9 September 2009) -- PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY - Police in Kamchatka in Russia's Far East have seized over two metric tons of poached red caviar early on Wednesday, a police spokesman said. "A vessel carrying 2.2 metric tons of salmon caviar was detained on Wednesday in the Kamchatka River," the source said. The vessel's 25-year-old owner failed to provide documents verifying the legality of the delicacy. A probe into the incident has been launched. During last year's anti-poaching operations, police seized over 61 metric tons of red caviar and 525 metric tons of salmon were seized. A total of 107 vessels were confiscated. Salmon caviar, or red caviar, is not as highly prized as the black caviar from sturgeon.
Posted 8 September 2009; 8:53:41 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Far East Russia, Fisheries, Flora and Fauna, Laws and legal, North Pacific, Russia
Russian, Alaska Natives find common ground to dance on
(Victoria Barber/The Arctic Sounder via Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, 5 September 2009) -- ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Four years of training and research culminated in a trip to the Chukotka, Russia, last month when the Sivulliq Youth Media students filmed Russian dancers for "The Lost Dances," a DVD that will trace the shared traditions of Russian and Alaska indigenous song and dance. "It was exciting, and it didn't hit me until the middle of the week that - wow, we're in Russia," said Denali Whiting, 17. "We've been working and training to do it, so we were ready for it. I felt pretty confident." Whiting, now a senior in high school, first got involved in the project when she was in eighth grade. She was interested in photography and her father heard that a summer workshop in filmmaking was being offered. But what started as "just a summer thing" grew into an international, multiyear project to film "lost" indigenous dance on both sides of the Bering Strait. ... The film touches on the ways that, for the past hundred years or so, indigenous Russians and their Alaska counterparts have helped keep each other's heritage of song and dance alive, despite cultural oppression, forced relocations and political upheaval. Russian groups are closely related to the Alaskans of St. Lawrence Island and used to make regular trips to Kotzebue for trade fairs, where they would share dances. Most of the characteristic dance movements such as walking, hunting and paddling are the same.
Posted 7 September 2009; 11:29:01 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Arts and Artists, Circumpolar News, Cultural Matters, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Far East / Russia, Indigenous Issues, International, Movies, video and TV, Russia, United States
Better radio communication in Kola Bay
(MBnews.ru via BarentsObserver, 4 September 2009) -- The Murmansk Sea Port is modernizing its radio communication equipment. That will make entries to the busy port safer. It is the company Alvis Plus which has got the contract on the equipment delieveries, MBnews.ru reports. The port of Murmansk is the second biggest in Northwest Russia. It handles major volumes of metal and mineral ore, fish and other goods. It is also used extensively by the Northern Fleet and will be the key port in the development of Russian Arctic hydrocarbon fields.
Posted 4 September 2009; 10:11:59 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Education and Civil Society, Northwest / Russia, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Barents girl to become paratrooper
(BarentsObserver, 3 September 2009) -- More and more Russian girls are studying at military academies. A girl from Apatity in Murmansk Oblast is the only girl from Northwest Russia to be admitted to the Ryazan Higher School for Paratroopers. 17-year-old Svetlana Sokolova from Apatity is one of twenty girls to have been accepted at the prestigious school, which accepted female student for the first time in 2008, TV Murman reports. According to RIA Novosti, 750 girls and women are studying at the 18 higher military schools that accept female students. This is 336 more than in 2008. More than 77.500 women are doing service in the armed forces, of which 6000 are officers.
Posted 3 September 2009; 10:12:48 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Education and Civil Society, Russia, Social Issues, Women, Children and Families
The world’s northernmost cash machine
(BarentsObserver, 31 August 2009) -- An ATM machine has been opened in the village of Belushya Guba at the Novaya Zemlya archipelago. That is probably the world’s northernmost. The heavily militarized Novaya Zemlya, the site of dozens of nuclear test detonations in the 1960s and 1970s has got its first ATM machine, Rokfeller.ru reports. The cash machine will be used primarily by the military personnel at the far northern archipelago. The Belushya Guba town is located on the 72th latitude. The population of Novaya Zemlya totals about 2,700 (2002), of which about 2,600 reside in Belushya Guba. According to Wikipedia, a total of 224 nuclear detonations with a total explosive energy equivalent to 265 megatons of TNT were made at the archipelago between 1954 and 1990.
Posted 31 August 2009; 1:27:40 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Economic and Commerce Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Oil spill occurs in Tiksi Bay in Yakutia
(ITAR-TASS, 28 August 2009) -- MOSCOW - There is an oil spill in the Tiksi Bay in Yakutia, a source at the Federal Environmental Supervisory Service told Itar-Tass on Friday with the reference to the service’s Yakutia department. He said the accident occurred at about 6:00 a.m. local time on August 23 as crude was being pumped into storage tanks of the Sakha public utility managing company. The amount of the spill is yet unknown. The bay is being cleaned in order to prevent pollution of high seas.
Posted 31 August 2009; 12:58:47 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Far East / Russia, Russia
Khanty-Mansiy AO delegation visits Orkneys
(Khanty-Mansi AO press service, 26 August 2009) -- The official delegation of the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug returned from Scotland. It had been invited by the Board of the Orkney Islands. Governor of Ugra Alexander Filipenko tasked Chair of the Regional Duma Vasili Sondykov to be the head of the delegation. The other members of the delegation are Deputy Chairman of the Government for information policy Oleg Goncharov and First Vice-President of the Khanty-Mansiysk Bank Alexander Smirnov. The members of the delegation participated in the ceremony of unveiling the Memorial for Russian-British Arctic Convoy to be located on one of the Orkney Islands where the fleet of the anti-Hitler coalition states had been located. About 300 participants of the ceremony were welcomed by Vasili Sondykov, Lord-Lieutenant, Consul General of Russia Sergei Krutikov. In his welcoming speech Chair of the Regional Duma expressed gratitude to people of the Islands for courage and Arctic Convoy for help, rendered to the Soviet Union while World War II. While the visit the members of the Ugra delegation held several working meetings with the Chair of the Board of the Orkney Islands Steven Hagan, representative of the Scottish Parliament Richard Gibson, leaders of structures which are in charge of development of tourism, education, transport, power engineering. They discussed issues of organizing the cooperation in education, use of renewable sources of energy, supplies of high-quality food, seafood and etc. The topic of the development of “mutual tourism” between Ugra and the territory of Northern Scotland was of special interest. The interlocutors exchanged proposals which after the thorough study will possibly turn into documents to develop mutually beneficial cooperation of two northern regions.
Posted 27 August 2009; 3:54:27 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Europe, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, International, Prizes, awards and recognitions, Russia, Siberia / Russia
(NRK via BarentsObserver, 27 August 2009) -- A small Norwegian sailboat is detained in Russia’s East Siberia Sea by border guards. The Norwegian sailboat and its three crew members have violated Russian law, says press-spokesman in the Murmansk branch of the border guard, Alexei Astaskin to NRK. The crew indented to sail around the North Pole. They started in Vardø, Norway’s easternmost town in the end of July. "They did not go through the mandatory border and customs control in Murmansk port," the border guard spokesman said. Instead they sailed all the way to the Russia's Far Eastern coast. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry has been in contact with the crew. Press-contact in the Ministry, Ragnhild Imerslund, says they have the impression that the case will be solved. "The cooperation with the Russian border guards is working very well," Imerslund told NRK.
Posted 27 August 2009; 2:41:14 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Far East / Russia, International, Laws and legal, Russia
Last strontium battery to be removed
(BarentsObserver, 25 August 2009) -- Next Monday will mark the removal of the last radioisotope thermoelectric generator (RTG) from a lighthouse on the Island of Vaigach. State Secretary in the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Elisabeth Walaas, will go to Vaigach to overlook the removal. Since 1998 Norway has, in consultations with Russian authorities, financed the removal of RTGs and replaced them with environmentally friendly solar cell technology. The Norwegian Government has spent more than $20 million kroner on the RTG removals with the aim to avoid radioactive contamination of the marine and terrestrial environments. Also, it is important to remove the strong radioactive sources from the remote—and unguarded, areas to prevent unwanted access to sources of radioactivity. According to information from the County Governor of Finnmark in Norway, there have been four attempted thefts from lighthouses powered by strontium batteries in the northern areas. The County Governor of Finnmark is the project manager on the Norwegian side, while the removals are coordinated by Rosatom on the Russian side. After removal the radioactive sources from the RTGs are sent to the Mayak plant in the South Urals for long-term storage. The first lighthouses with RTGs to be removed were those near the border to Norway west of the Fishermen’s Peninsula on the Barents Sea coast. Originally there were 180 RTGs in the Barents Region. Half of them were removed before 2006.
Posted 26 August 2009; 12:45:04 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Environment and Landscape, International, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
Climate change opens Arctic route for German ships
(Erik Kirschbaum/Reuters, 21 August 2009) -- BERLIN - Two German ships set off on Friday on the first journey across Russia's Arctic-facing northern shore without the help of icebreakers after climate change helped opened the passage, the company said. Niels Stolberg, president and CEO of Beluga Shipping GmbH, said the Beluga Fraternity and Beluga Foresight left the Russian port of Vladivostok on the historic and cost-saving journey with cargo picked up in South Korea bound for Holland. The melting of Arctic ice as a result of climate change has made it possible to send Beluga's multi-purpose heavy lift ships along the legendary Northeast Passage, Stolberg said. Beluga got Russian authorities' clearance to send the first non-Russian commercial vessels through the route on Friday. The Northern Sea Route trims 4,000 nautical miles off the usual 11,000-mile journey via the Suez Canal—yielding considerable savings in fuel costs and CO2 emissions, he said. "Russian submarines and icebreakers have used the Northern Route in the past but it wasn't open for regular commercial shipping before now because there are many areas with thick ice," Stolberg told Reuters in an email interview.
Posted 22 August 2009; 11:51:48 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Economic and Commerce Issues, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Kirkenes business participants to study possibilities in Teriberka
(BarentsObserver, 20 August 2009) -- Thirty representatives from the business sector in the Norwegian border town Kirkenes leave for a study tour to the Russian settlement Teriberka, future main base for the Shtokman project. The aim of the trip is to learn more about the possibilities for participation in the development of the village. The participants also hope to tie contacts with possible Russian partners, newspaper Sør-Varanger Avis reports. "We have to be ready the day things start to happen in Teriberka," says communication manager of the Finnmark County authorities Trond Magne Henriksen. "We will not be sitting on the sideline here." As BarentsObserver has reported, Kirkenes sees major business opportunities from the Shtokman project. The town has port facilities and service industries which can supplement the bases on the Russian side of the border. Also Teriberka awaits a major change from a sleepy fishing village to the hub of the world’s biggest offshore gas field. A large part of the visiting group comes from the construction and building sector in Kirkenes, who hopes to get construction contracts when the big work begins. The study tour is organized and financed by Finnmark County authorities and Innovation Norway.
Posted 20 August 2009; 1:28:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, International, Norway, Russia
Murmansk getting ready for Economic Forum
(BarentsObserver, 19 August 2009) -- Murmansk is getting ready for this year’s most important event, the first Murmansk International Economic Forum. More than 300 persons have so far registered as participations in the forum, which takes place in Murmansk October 15-17 and focuses on the theme “The Arctic in the 21st century – development strategies”. The aim is to initiate discussions on the economic development strategy of the North, the forum’s web site reads. Several conferences will be covering issues like development of the energy sector, the fishing industry, cross-border cooperation in the Barents region, management of natural resources in the North of Russia. Special attention will be focused on further development of Shtokman gas condensate field. As BarentsObserver reported earlier this summer, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will take part in the forum.
Posted 19 August 2009; 10:29:00 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Economic and Commerce Issues, International, Northwest / Russia, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues, Russia
(russia-ic.com, 17 August 2009)** -- The Extreme North is inhabited by over 20 peoples and ethnicities, all of them keeping their ancient and interesting culture, an important place in which belongs to useful arts. From olden times the northerners have made clothes, household articles and decorations using natural materials, such as fells of animals and birds, fish skin, wood and plants, and, certainly, carved bone. The folk art of bone carving has been a old tradition with the Chukchi and Eskimos inhabiting the northeast coast of the Chukchi Peninsula and the Diomede Islands. Carving and engraving on bones of polar animals is one of the most striking examples of the inimitable art of the Arctic peoples. Nowadays the art of bone carving has been kept alive only in Alaska, Yakutia and the Chukchi Autonomous District. According to archeological finds the works of Chukchi and Eskimos bone carving existed as far back as the first centuries of Christian era. Bone had been a universal material in the North before metals appeared there. The aboriginal masters used different kinds of bone: walrus tusk, hartshorn, and mammoth bone. The Ancient Bering Sea culture (Old Eskimos culture that existed from the 3rd century BC till the 1st century CE) was peculiar for its animalistic sculpture and household articles made of bone and decorated with relief carving and curvilinear ornamentation. In the following Punuk Period, which lasted till the beginning of the second millennium, sculpture became geometrical, and ornaments changed into rectilineal. The 19th century saw the appearance of narrative bone engraving, originating from petroglyphs of Pegtymel' and ritual wood drawings.
Posted 17 August 2009; 11:24:16 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arts and Artists, Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Cultural Matters, Far East / Russia, Russia
Norwegian/Russian cooperation in the Barents Sea
(Rolleiv Solholm/NRK via The Norway Post, 18 August 2009) -- Norway and Russia will this month begin a joint mapping of undiscovered natural resources in the Barents Sea and around the Norwegian Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, DN Energi reports. The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD), the University of Oslo (UiO) and the Russian Geological Institute (GIN RAS) will participate in the charting mission. In this connection, the UiO has awarded a contract to the Russian research vessel Akademik Nikolay Strakhov which will carry out most of the geological survey for oil and gas as well as general research and mapping. NPD research director Sissel Eriksen says to DN Energi that DPN has cooperated with Russia for some time, and that this latest agreement is a continuation of this cooperation. She underlines that the main task now is charting the area, and not to explore for oil and gas. NPD has earlier estimated that two thirds of Norway's undiscovered resources are to be found in the northern regions.
Posted 17 August 2009; 8:26:51 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, International, Norway, Russia
Reindeer herders battle alcohol on Russia's edge
(Robin Paxton/Reuters, 13 August 2009)** -- ANADYR, Russia - Vladislav Rintytegin is an alcoholic, but he hasn't had a drink in three years. He is leaving on a one-month voyage around Chukotka to help people like him. In Russia's extreme northeast, no village has escaped the scourge of alcohol abuse, he says. "We held an art competition for children. Do you know what they painted?," the 47-year-old Red Cross volunteer asks. "Broken glass, blood, cemeteries. It's all thanks to vodka." Seventy years of Soviet rule failed to subdue Russia's most isolated natives, but "perestroika" proved to be devastating. In the ensuing lawlessness, poachers decimated reindeer herds and unemployment was rife. Suddenly starved of Moscow's subsidies, the indigenous peoples of the far northeast—the Chukchi, Eskimos and Evens—were powerless to stop the collapse of their traditional ways of life. Hunger, poverty and alcoholism, took hold. "People talk now about 'the crisis'. We've been living in a crisis since the 1990s," said Alexandra Khalkachan, 56, a teacher of the Even language in the city of Magadan.
Posted 17 August 2009; 8:05:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Far East / Russia, Health and wellness, Indigenous Issues, Russia
Russia revives gold mining in the Gulags
(Robin Paxton/Reuters, 12 August 2009)** -- KUPOL MINE, Russia - Every winter, an ice road is laid across 400 km (250 miles) of tundra to carry supplies to one of the world's most isolated gold mines. There is no other way for heavy machinery to reach Kupol, the $700 million Arctic mine behind a resurgence in Russian gold production after five straight years of decline. "It's one of the harshest climates I've worked in, and I've worked in the Atacama desert in Chile and at 15,000 feet in Indonesia," said Patrick Dougherty, general manager at Kupol. "But I don't get to pick where the gold is." Only South Africa holds more gold than Russia, but Moscow's fragmented industry has struggled to access vast reserves in its inhospitable Far East. The region was first mined in the 1930s by prisoners of the Gulags set up by Soviet leader Josef Stalin. ... Chukotka, a region revived in the last eight years by the $2.5 billion investment of Chelsea soccer club owner Roman Abramovich, produced a fifth of Russia's gold in the first half of this year. Gold is the region's passport to growth after Abramovich quit as governor last July. Russia ranked fifth among the world's gold miners last year, between Australia and Peru, with an 8 percent share of output. Production rose 13 percent in 2008, the first increase in six years, and jumped another 25 percent in the first half of 2009. "This was solely due to the commissioning of Kupol," said Olga Okuneva, mining analyst at Deutsche Bank in Moscow. "If other large projects in the Far East start producing gold, this will be a major growth driver for the Russian gold industry."
Posted 12 August 2009; 3:11:50 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Russia
Russian-US Polar Bear Commission to meet in Moscow in September
(ITAR-TASS, 11 August 2009) -- ANADYR - The first meeting of the Russian-US Polar Bear Commission will meet in Moscow on September 23-25, Itar-Tass learnt on Tuesday from spokesman of the agriculture department of the Chukotka National Area Igor Mikhno. “Russia at the meeting will be represented, apart from officials of the Ministry of Natural Resources, by a Chukotka Peninsula delegation of four people,” Mikhno said. “The meeting agenda includes the following topics: studies of polar bear population, protection of their natural habitat as well as prospects for aboriginal hunting.” The intergovernmental agreement on preservation and use of the Chukotka-Alaska polar bear population was signed in 2000. It contains detailed regulations on possible hunting of polar bears by Chukotka and Alaska ethnic groups. Earlier, a virtually complete ban on white bear hunting was in force in the Russian Arctic, while American natives in Alaska villages, located on the Bering, Chukchi and Beaufort seashores, were permitted to hunt. The US administration already appointed its representatives to the Russian-US commission—an administration representative, Jeffrey Hafket, and chairman of the Alaska Native Polar Bear Commission Nanuuq Charlie Johnson. The Russian side includes deputy director of the environmental state policy department of the Ministry of Natural Resources Amirkhan Amirkhanov and coordinator of the Bear Patrol monitoring centre Sergei Kavry from northern ethnic groups. The population of polar bears, put down into the Red Book in Russia 50 years ago, is assessed at around 2,000. The situation is monitored by the All-Russian Environment Institute and the World Wildlife Fund. In the opinion of scholars, the number of polar bears in the world will dwindle down by a third over the greenhouse effect in another 50 years. It is suggested to work out urgently a global programme for rescuing these animals. The coming into force of the Russian-US Agreement does not mean an automatic start of hunting polar bears in Chukotka. The bilateral commission will initially examine a programme for polar bear conservation and will decide the question on quotas. A moratorium is also possible on shooting bears both in Chukotka and Alaska.
Posted 10 August 2009; 11:03:14 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, International, Russia, United States
Finland seeks new connections with Murmansk
(BarentsObserver, 11 August 2009) -- It is now very important to develop transport infrastructure in the North – between Murmansk Oblast and the province of Lapland, Finnish Transport Minister Anu Vehviläinen stressed during her visit to the Russian Arctic city last week. "We have actively developing transport connections between Helsinki and Moscow and Sankt Petersburg, but now it is very important to develop transport infrastructure also in the North, between Murmansk Oblast and the Province of Lapland," the minister said, according to a press release from the Murmansk regional administration. Minister Vehviläinen for the first time visited Murmansk, the site for major planned infrastructure investments over the next years. “The visit of the minister shows that the whole world including Finland is following the development of the Murmansk Transport Hub, the Shtokman project and the trans-border cooperation”, the press release from the regional administration reads.
Posted 10 August 2009; 10:56:48 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Communities, Finland, International, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Volcanic ash rises to 23,000 feet
(United Press International via redOrbit, 27 July 2009) -- Volcanic ash reached 23,000 feet above Petropavlovsk in Russia's Far East as the country's northernmost active volcano continued erupting, a geophysicist said. The Shiveluch volcano began erupting in December 2006 and hasn't stopped since. The 10,771-foot volcano is on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The local geophysics service registered more than 170 tremors in the area of the volcano between Saturday and Sunday, a spokesman told RIA Novosti. "Some of (the tremors) were followed by powerful ash bursts and avalanches," the spokesman said. He said the volcanic activity has altered the contour of the volcano, with the crater increasing in size by 50 percent and the slopes having become much steeper. The news service said there are more than 150 volcanoes on the peninsula, 29 of them active.
Posted 27 July 2009; 1:45:48 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Environment and Landscape, Far East / Russia, Natural disasters and other problems, Russia
Take a closer look at Teriberka
(BarentsObserver, 24 July 2009) -- Cows are grazing in the streets and the only decent building is the one currently renovated by the Shtokman Development AG. Welcome to Teriberka, the future hub of the world’s biggest offshore gas field. A two-hour drive towards the northeast from Murmansk will take you to the fishing village of Teriberka. 120 km on a bumpy road takes you across Arctic tundra landscapes to the more rocky seaside where Gazprom and its partners Total and StatoilHydro will build its huge Shtokman gas reception centre and a LNG plant. Teriberka was earlier this year taken out of the Russian border zone, thus opening up for unrestricted access to the area. Still, it took only five minutes after the arrival of a delegation this week to be approached by the FSB. The security officers wrote down the visitors’ passport data and made inquiries about the visit, Barentsnova.com reports. "Like many other old Russian settlements, Teriberka has saved its own atmosphere and a certain charm in spite of Soviet time changes and the recent years desolation. Picturesque costal line, wide sand beach in a bay and projecting rocks make a strong impression on visitors," Aleksey Filin, leader of the Barents Secretariat's Murmansk office told BarentsObserver after this week's visit. About 1400 people live in the town which might soon lose its cozy image to the rough landscapes of the oil gas industry. They will be heavily outnumbered by the about 10000 people who are expected to be involved in the construction part of the project. The permanent field staff is believed to be about 600. New housing quarters and service facilities are to be built near the site.
Posted 24 July 2009; 4:52:46 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Northwest / Russia, Russia, Social Issues, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Russia against arms race in Arctic - foreign ministry
(RIA Novosti, 21 July 2009) -- MOSCOW - Russia is against any arms race in the Arctic, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. Last week, Denmark announced its plans to establish an Arctic military command and a task force amid conflicting territorial claims by the five Arctic states. Commenting on the development, Andrei Nesterenko told journalists that, "Russia is opposed to the unleashing of an arms race in the Arctic Region and suggests as an alternative the boosting of bilateral cooperation in issues of navigation safety, search and rescue and the prevention of ecological disasters." He added that it was in Russia's national interests to maintain peace and cooperation in the region. The Arctic territories, believed to hold vast untapped oil and gas reserves, have increasingly been at the center of disputes between the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark as rising temperatures lead to a reduction in sea ice. In March, the Russian Security Council outlined Russia's strategy in the region, including the deployment of military, border and coastal guard units "to guarantee Russia's military security in diverse military and political circumstances."
Posted 21 July 2009; 10:45:17 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, International, Russia
A new geyser has errupted in Russia [video]
(RIA Novosti, 20 July 2009) -- The first geyser to appear in the remote area of the Kamchatka Peninsula since the 1960s has been aptly named “Peculiar”. See also Valley of the Geysers web cam.
Posted 20 July 2009; 10:32:20 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Environment and Landscape, Far East / Russia, Russia
Eco-boat attempts perilous Arctic voyage
(Anouk Lorie/CNN, 17 July 2009) -- LONDON, England - An eco-friendly French boat is hoping to successfully cross the perilous Arctic sea passage that links the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. "Le Mangier" is attempting to navigate the icy, unpredictable Northern Sea Route, a 6,000 mile passage that skims the northern coast of Siberia. It is a trip that only a handful of leisure boats in history have successfully completed. Not only that, the modified tug boat is also attempting to do it ecologically. The boat's crew is relying partly on wind-power to complete the route, parts of which are only free of ice for two short months during the Arctic summer. Three sails have been added to the tug boat, which normally runs on gas-guzzling motors. ... The voyage, which is projected to take about six months, started in the South of France in April and, if they make it through the route successfully, will end in Japan. The crew's other ecological concessions include relying on solar panels for electricity and warm water, using only long-lasting LED light bulbs eating only organic products during their journey. On-board are seven adults and two children, including a painter, two writers, a scientist and a historian. Currently, the team's primary concern is not the fear of being trapped in ice and being forced to "hibernate" in Siberia's frigid temperatures, but getting the required paperwork in time before the approaching colder months, which cause ice to harden in the passage. "Le Mangier" is in Tromso, Norway waiting for the green light from the Russian government, which rarely allows non-Russian vessels to enter the passage.
Posted 17 July 2009; 2:48:37 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Education and Civil Society, Expeditions, exploration, and field trips, Russia, Tourism / Perspectives, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction, Women, Children and Families
Murmansk to launch first wind park production
(Maria Kaminskaya, trans./Bellona, 16 July 2009) -- MURMANSK - Russia’s northern region of Murmansk will start producing wind energy converters—this was the gist of an informal agreement reached between the local submarine repair yard Nerpa and the Dutch company Windlife Energy. A formal deal between the two parties is to follow soon. As has been previously reported by Bellona Web, Murmansk was recently the host of a business seminar visited by the heads of over 30 Dutch companies. The delegation also included the Netherlands’ Minister of Foreign Trade Frank Heemskerk. In the two days the visitors spent in Murmansk, the Dutch businessmen met with the governor of Murmansk Region, Dmitry Dmitriyenko, and representatives of the region’s largest enterprises. The seminar put its primary focus on cooperation in the energy sector—issues such as the development of the Shtokman natural gas field in the Barents Sea or the construction of the Murmansk Transport Hub were on the table. And, of course, participants discussed the only project already under way—the construction of the first wind park on the territory of the Kola Peninsula, an endeavour led by the Dutch-based Windlife Energy. Investments into the project will come from two European banks and a jointly held Dutch-German banking group.
Posted 16 July 2009; 3:31:08 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alternative Energy / Climate Change Responses, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Global warming to open up north-east Arctic tanker route
(UTV, 14 July 2009) -- A new "north-east passage" for shipping around Russia's Arctic coast and across the North Pole will be opened within a decade as global warming causes the ice cap to melt, Norway's foreign minister has predicted. Jonas Gahr Store, speaking at a recent public lecture in Edinburgh, said the route through previously inaccessible Russian waters, could cut tanker journey times between Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Yokohama in Japan by 40%, and provide a safer and "pirate-free" route for trans-global shipping. "The rise in temperatures across the Arctic is twice the world average. Soon there will be no summer ice—that will open up new routes and new strategic issues for the world," he said. The forecast follows previous predictions that the more famous north-west passage will be opened by climate change. The melting ice also has implications for the global energy market. The Arctic is thought to hold 20% of world resources of fossil fuels—principally sub-sea gas in the massive Shtokman field. The Russian government plans to start extracting gas from the Barents Sea by 2011 with French partners Total and the Norwegian state-owned Statoil. The Arctic operating environment however is extremely hostile. Some 250 miles offshore, Shtokman cannot be reached by helicopter from continental bases. Explorers would also need to contend with temperatures of -50C (-58F) and ice flows the size of Jamaica. With 50 Norwegian exploration and supply companies already registered in Murmansk, Mr Gahr Store believes Russia accepts it cannot develop the area alone.
Posted 15 July 2009; 9:55:25 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, International, Norway, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
The transport complex of Yakutia sees small volume increases
(Leonid Vladimirov/YASIA via Google Translate, 14 July 2009) -- Yakutsk - During the first half of 2009, all modes of transport moved 14.884 million tons of various cargoes, 0.5% more than during the same period last year and moved 45.842 million passengers, or 2.2% more to corresponding level in 2008. These figures indicate that the transport complex of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), in general, has been able to resist the negative influence of world economic crisis. At a regular meeting of the Board of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Informatization of the Republic on 14 July in the report of the First Deputy Minister Marianne Nikiforova thoroughly reviewed the activities of transport and communication complex for 1 semester, have a clear mandate to the industry in July-December 2009. Compared to the first half of last year, this year marked by growth in the volume of cargo, passengers and the volume of passenger traffic, a slight decline in traffic. At 28% reduced volume of inland water transport. The reason: this year there is no transport of sand-gravel mixture for construction of the East Siberia-Pacific Ocean pipeline. Secondly, in the first round of navigation extremely low water levels on the Yana River almost broke all the time for delivery to consumers of goods remaining in intermediate depots. Decreased performance of national airlines. The reason was a decline in custom work on the maintenance of geological and exploration work on the part of AK «ALROSA» and JSC «Lower Lena». A decline in freight traffic by rail has been caused by lower coal demand.
Posted 14 July 2009; 12:36:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Far East / Russia, Russia
Campaign "Fifth term" carried out in Magadan region
(Magadan Region Internal Affairs Directorate press release via RF Ministry of the Interior, 9 July 2009) -- As part of the campaign "Fifth term" militia officers of the Internal Affairs Directorate in Magadan region started taking measures for prevention of offences among children and teenagers during the summer period for from the first days of the summer holidays. In the children's recreation camp "Energetik" employees of the temporary custody center for underage delinquents and juvenile units held a series of conversations concerning the children's personal safety, discussed a number of law concepts and terms the children may require, recollected the traffic safety rules and explained to the teenagers in what way they are liable for offences and crimes they commit. On the examination day the children were to show the acquired knowledge in practice. The children answered questions of a trivia game, produced a composite facial image of a conditional "criminal" who had "committed a theft" some minutes before, designed and made a creative banner urging inhabitants of Magadan region to be law-abiding. In conclusion of the event militia officers and members of the Public council at the Internal Affairs Directorate in Magadan region awarded the winners certificates of honor and sweets while all participants were treated to a huge pie. Now that the children showed excellent competence the militia officers are sure that the work they perform will save young inhabitants of Magadan region from inconsiderate acts.
Posted 14 July 2009; 12:14:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Far East / Russia, Russia, Social Issues, Sports and Games, Youth
Novaya Zemlya welcomes Shtokman developers
(BarentsObserver, 13 July 2009) -- The strictly closed and militarized islands of Novaya Zemly are located 360 km closer to the Shtokman field than the coast of the Kola Peninsula. That makes the archipelago the most suited place for base activities for the Shtokman developers, leader of the local administration Vladimir Smetanin writes in the latest issue of the Sozvezdye journal. "If one looks at the map of Russian Arctic hydrocarbon fields, it is easy to be convinced that Novaya Zemlya has the most favorable location for field development," he argues. Mr. Smetanin writes that the islands have well developed social and transport infrastructure ready to be applied by the Shtokman field developers. The area has five mooring points capable of handling all kind of vessels, and the Amderma-2 airport, which is in the process of being extended and modernized, he maintains. It also has schools, kindergartens, hotels, restaurants and shops, he adds. The local mayor does not however touch upon the strictly militarized status of the area and the ban on foreign visitors. As BarentsObserver has reported, several places now step up bids for base functions in the Shtokman development. Among them is the Norwegian border town of Kirkenes, which maintains that its ice-free and deep-sea fjord can provide valuable service functions for the gas field development.
Posted 13 July 2009; 4:37:34 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Northwest / Russia, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Kildin Saami language camp on Maliy Zimnik Island
(Christina Henriksen/Barents Indigenous People, 9 July 2009) -- B-port.com reports about local Saami gathering at Malyi Zimnik Island in Lovozero Rayon for a language camp this July, 10-24. According to Aleksandra Artieva in OOSMO (Official Organisation of Saami in Murmansk Oblast), the aim is to strenghten the informal style of Kildin Saami oral speech. Another goal is for the participants to overcome the psychological barrier, which often prevents people from putting the language into practice. Participation in the language camp is free of charge, as the project is financed by the Norwegian Ministry of Labour and Social Inclusion and executed by the Centre of Saami studies at the University of Tromsø and the initiative group on establishment of a Saami language centre in Lovozero village The initators have long experience from working with Saami language in the Russian side, and a similar language camp took place last summer, with great success. According to the data from the Kola Saami Documentation Project (KSDP), only around 200 out of the 2000 Saami living in Russia speak Kildin Saami, so measures must be taken in order to keep the language alive.
Posted 12 July 2009; 5:43:58 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Education and Civil Society, Indigenous Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Russian icebreaker sets off on Arctic cruise with 120 tourists
(RIA Novosti, 10 July 2009) -- MURMANSK - More than 120 tourists set sail Friday on an Arctic cruise on board the world's largest nuclear-powered icebreaker, a spokesman for Russia's Atomflot company said. The 50 Let Pobedy (50 Years Since Victory) had more than 120 tourists from Europe and the Americas onboard when it left the port of Murmansk in northern Russia for Franz Josef Land, Vladimir Blinov told RIA Novosti. "The tourists will visit the Franz Josef Land archipelago and see walruses, seals and polar bears in their natural habitat," he said. "The most daring travelers will be able to bathe in the Arctic Ocean," he added. Each tourist paid about $23,000 for the 12-day Arctic tour.
Posted 10 July 2009; 3:35:22 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Russia, Tourism / Perspectives
Russian region removes 'sovereignty' from constitution
(RFE/RL, 18 June 2009) -- KAZAN, Tatarstan - The far eastern Russian republic of Sakha (formerly Yakutia) has passed an amendment that removes the word "sovereignty" from its constitution, RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service reports. Sakha President Vyacheslav Shtyrov and parliament speaker Vitaly Basygysov drafted the amendment, which says that "subjects of the Russian Federation are not eligible to have sovereignty, since the federation as a whole has it." The Russian Constitutional Court issued an order on June 9 directing 11 of its "ethnic republics" to eliminate all references in their constitutions to "sovereignty." The court published its decision in an attempt to urge 10 other entities of the Russian Federation—including the republics of Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Buryatia—to also change their constitutions so that the word "sovereignty" is removed. Bashkortostan's President Murtaza Rakhimov said last week that the laws regarding Bashkortostan's sovereignty might be changed. Officials in Tatarstan have yet to comment on the issue. Tatar intellectuals and politicians say that the exclusion of sovereignty from the laws of Russia's ethnic republics would damage the language, culture, and ethnic identity of their titular populations.
Posted 21 June 2009; 12:35:22 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, Far East / Russia, Laws and legal, Russia
Russian Arctic reserve may save polar bears from extinction - WWF
(RIA Novosti, 15 June 2009) -- MOSCOW - The creation of the Russian Arctic nature reserve could compensate for the damage to the dwindling polar bear population from global warming, the director of WWF-Russia said on Monday. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed a decree on establishing the nature reserve on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, in the Arctic Ocean, earlier on Monday. The reserve is expected to cover an area of more than 8 million hectares. Speaking on the nature reserve, Putin said this is a "unique space with high biodiversity and high bioproductivity." "This is essential for polar bears as there is less and less ice where a polar bear is used to hunting. This is why today is becoming a hard time for the Arctic," WWF-Russia Director Igor Chestin said. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, two-thirds of the world's 25,000 polar bears could die by 2050, as the ice they use to hunt seals melts due to global warming. "We hope that the polar bear population will be saved," Chestin said.
Posted 17 June 2009; 5:39:17 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Laws and legal, Russia
(Barents Indigenous People, 9 June 2009) -- The Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and far East has launched its new and improved website. You will find the new RAIPON website at http://www.raipon.info/ and in English: http://raipon.info/en/
Posted 14 June 2009; 2:00:41 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Indigenous Issues, Internet Resources, Russia
Reindeer herds in global decline
(Matt Walker/ Earth News, BBC News, 11 June 2009) -- Reindeer and caribou numbers are plummeting around the world. The first global review of their status has found that populations are declining almost everywhere they live, from Alaska and Canada, to Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia. The iconic deer is vital to indigenous peoples around the circumpolar north. Yet it is increasingly difficult for the deer to survive in a world warmed by climate change and altered by industrial development, say scientists. Reindeer and caribou belong to the same species, Rangifer tarandus. Caribou live in Canada, Alaska and Greenland; while reindeer live in Russia, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Worldwide, seven sub-species are recognised. Each are genetically, morphologically and behaviourally a little different, though capable of interbreeding with one another. These differences between sub-species dictate how each is affected by human impacts. For example, it has been known for a while that populations of woodland caribou in Canada have declined as human disturbance has increased, caused by logging, oil and gas exploration, and road building, says Liv Vors of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. But then reports started coming in that the numbers of other herds were also falling. "When we discovered that many herds of reindeer also were declining we decided to compile a comprehensive survey to see if this indeed was a global pattern," says Vors. Vors and Mark Boyce at the University of Alberta contacted other researchers and scoured the published literature and government databases for all the information they could find about reindeer and caribou numbers. They compiled data on 58 major herds around the Northern Hemisphere. The scientists were shocked to discover that 34 of the herds were declining, while no data existed for 16 more. Only eight herds were increasing in number. Many herds had been declining for a decade or more. "We were surprised at the ubiquity of the decline," says Vors. ... Unless something is urgently done, all seven sub-species of Rangifer face a bleak future, says Vors. "The concern is that their habitat and the climate are changing too quickly for them to adapt." The annual treks of migratory caribou form one of the last remaining large-scale ungulate migrations in the northern hemisphere. Different sub-species also provide a cornerstone to many indigenous cultures around the circumpolar north, from subsistence hunting of caribou by Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Greenland and Alaska to reindeer husbandry by numerous cultures across Scandinavia and Siberia.
Posted 11 June 2009; 11:41:41 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Conservation and Wildlife, Flora and Fauna, Indigenous Issues, Nordic Region, North America, North Atlantic, Russia
StatoilHydro, Gazprom extend Arctic cooperation
(Reuters, 5 June 2009) -- OSLO - Norwegian oil and gas group StatoilHydro and Russia's Gazprom agreed on Friday to extended cooperation in exploring and producing petroleum resources in northern regions, StatoilHydro said. The agreement is valid for three years and replaces a similar 2005 Arctic cooperation deal between Gazprom, Statoil and Norsk Hydro (Oslo: NHY.OL - news) before Statoil bought Norsk Hydro's oil and gas assets to form StatoilHydro in 2007. StatoilHydro is partnered with Gazprom and France's Total to develop the giant Shtokman gas field in Russia's part of the Barents Sea in the Arctic. 'The Memorandum stipulates that the parties will cooperate in northern regions of Russia and Norway to discover and develop hydrocarbon fields, as well as to design technologies for exploration, production and transportation of corresponding resources,' StatoilHydro said in a statement. Gazprom Chief Executive Alexei Miller, who signed the deal with StatoilHydro's CEO Helge Lund in St Petersburg, said Shtokman would be 'the starting point' for developing Arctic oil and gas resources. Gazprom has said it expects to take an investment decision on Shtokman with Total and StatoilHydro in the first quarter of 2010, and aims to begin exporting gas by pipeline from the field in 2013 and as liquefied natural gas (LNG) in 2014. Lund said the cooperation deal underscored the long-term continuity of the relationship between StatoilHydro and Gazprom.
Posted 5 June 2009; 8:46:23 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Norway, Oil, gas, non-renewable resources, Resource Issues, Russia
Russia says Arctic shelf dispute must be settled by UN
(RIA Novosti, 3 June 2009) -- COPENHAGEN - A final decision on conflicting territorial claims on the Arctic seabed must be made by the United Nations, the Russian foreign minister said on Wednesday. However, Sergei Lavrov said that before a final ruling can be made by a relevant UN commission, "all countries laying claim to the continental shelf and parts of the Arctic should settle their disputes between themselves." The five Arctic coastal nations agreed at negotiations in late May that the UN must decide on conflicting territorial claims. "We affirmed our commitment to the orderly settlement of any possible overlapping claims," U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte said at the time. Foreign ministers from Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States met in Greenland. Arctic territories, believed to hold vast untapped oil and gas reserves, have increasingly been at the center of disputes between the United States, Russia, Canada, Norway, and Denmark as rising temperatures lead to a reduction in sea ice. President Dmitry Medvedev said in September at a Russian Security Council session that the extent of the Russian continental shelf in the Arctic should be defined as soon as possible. Russia has undertaken two Arctic expeditions—to the Mendeleyev underwater chain in 2005 and to the Lomonosov ridge in the summer of 2007—to support its territorial claims in the region. Moscow has pledged to submit documentary evidence to the UN on the external boundaries of Russia's territorial shelf by 2010.
Posted 5 June 2009; 11:53:00 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Resource Issues, Russia
New website: BarentsIndigenous.org
(Jonas Sjøkvist Karlsbakk/Norwegian Barents Secretariat, 20 May 2009) -- The BarentsIndigenous.org website will provide news and further information about the indigenous peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. Activities and projects involving indigenous peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region are key items of the website, as well as promotion of the activities of the Working Group of Indigenous Peoples of the Barents Euro-Arctic Region. A Russian version will hopefully be ready soon, as the website has a particular eye on the Russian side. Information across the state borders is crucial for extended cooperation, and the Norwegian Barents Secretariat has a pronounced focus on indigenous peoples and aims for increased activity and border-crossing cooperation between the Nenets, Saami and Veps of the region. The website is administrated by the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, in cooperation with the Barents Indigenous Peoples' Office (BIPO) in Lovozero, Russian Federation.
Posted 29 May 2009; 3:09:10 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Communications and media, Indigenous Issues, Internet Resources, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
Sami Cultural Centre in danger
(BarentsIndigenous.org via BarentsObserver, 29 May 2009) -- The administration of the Sami-dominated Lovozero Rayon in Murmansk Oblast plans to turn the town's National Sami Culture Centre into a tourist centre. The new Head of Administration in Lovozero Rayon, Mr Dmitry Pisarev, has stated that the National Culture Centre in Lovozero will be transformed into a Centre of Tourism, and that the current institutions situated in the centre must remove their activities from the building, BarentsIndigenous.org reports. The centre was reopened after a major renovation in 2003, and it is currently an important arena for cultural activities in Lovozero.
Posted 29 May 2009; 3:03:58 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Communities, Indigenous Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
NATO-Russia Council: A forum for Arctic talks?
(Mia Bennett/A U.S. foreign policy analyst has suggested that the NATO-Russia Council could serve as a forum for Russia and the West to discuss issues in the Arctic. The Council had its second meeting yesterday after being suspended in the aftermath of the Russia-Georgia conflict. Dr. Charles M. Perry, vice president and director of studies at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, said, “There are some contentions about who owns what. The NATO-Russia forum would be an excellent place to talk about things like Arctic security. Not necessarily solving it all bilaterally … this concerns everybody in the region and right now we are not talking about it very well.” The IFPA is a conservative think tank, while this story was reported in RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned newspaper. Perhaps, then, the Kremlin would be keen on discussing the Arctic in the NATO council, since the news report is generally positive. But getting all of the Arctic states within NATO to agree to partake in such discussions might prove difficult. Only a few weeks ago, Russia kicked two NATO diplomats out of Moscow who happened to be Canadian—the country with which tensions in the Arctic are arguably the highest. Furthermore, there has also been talk among Russian policymakers that greater Nordic security cooperation would be a good development because it would counterbalance NATO and enable Russia to have a separate forum in which to discuss the Arctic. News links: “U.S. analyst says NATO-Russia Council ideal for Arctic talks,” RIA Novosti.
Posted 28 May 2009; 9:48:49 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, International, Russia
New regional government in Murmansk Oblast
(BarentsObserver, 25 May 2009) -- The composition of Murmansk Oblast regional government is finally ready, two months after Dmitry Dmitriyenko entered the post as Governor. The process of forming a new regional government has been ongoing since Dmitry Dmitriyenko entered the post as Governor of Murmansk Oblast two months ago. Today a complete list of the members was published on the regional government’s web site.
Posted 25 May 2009; 3:04:18 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Nordic delegation to Barents Conference
(Nordic Council News, 25 May 2009) -- Parliamentarians from Norway, Finland, Iceland, Russia and Sweden are set to attend the fourth Barents Parliamentary Conference in Syktyvkar, Russia, 26-27 May. The main themes will be indigenous peoples, the environment and the role of parliamentarians in the socio-economic development of the Barents Region. The Nordic delegation has two main priorities: ensuring that education is included as part of the EU's Northern Dimension Cultural Partnership, and that regional co-operation is seen in relation to the Northern Dimension, with the Dimension acting as an umbrella for the respective areas. In addition to the Cultural Partnership, the Northern Dimension also covers partnerships for the environment, health and social care. The Nordic Council delegation includes Vice-President Kent Olsson, Berit Brørby and Asmund Kristoffersen. The Northern Dimension addresses regional challenges in the far north, a region that includes the EEA member states Norway and Iceland, as well as Russia. The aim is to encourage closer dialogue and co-operation between the EU and its member states, as well as the EEA and Russia. The Barents Parliamentary Conference conference is an integral part of inter-parliamentary co-operation in the region.
Posted 25 May 2009; 1:58:30 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, Conferences, meetings, and gatherings, Nordic Region, Russia
Russian to get $30,000 reward for baby mammoth found in permafrost
(Moscow News, 20 May 2009) -- A Russian man who found the corpse of a baby mammoth will receive 1 million rubles ($31,000) for reporting the find to the Republican Mammoth Museum. The corpse was found in Yakutia, a republic in Russia’s north-eastern Siberia, by the side of Khroma river, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports Wednesday. Igor Lebedev, employee of the local Pension Fund, noticed the mammoth, partially washed out of the ground by river water, while walking. Specialists of the Republican Mammoth Museum studied the find and alleged it to be a young mammoth corpse some 15,000-30,000 years old. The animal, who died at about two years of age, had its head, legs and some intestines well-preserved in the cold climate of Yakutia. According to the republic’s legislation, Lebedev will now receive a reward of 1 million rubles. Authorities of the diamond-rich region announced the reward to avert the mammoth corpses being sold on the black market rather than being given for research. In the past few years, mammoths have regularly been found in Russia. In 2004, the corpse of a one-year-old mammoth was found in Yakutia; in 2007, an extremely well-preserved six-month-old female was found in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area.
Posted 23 May 2009; 6:40:21 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar History, Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Research / Reports, Russia
Stoltenberg, Medvedev, and Putin discuss cooperation in Arctic
(Mia Bennett/The Arctic, World Blog Network, 23 May 2009) -- On Tuesday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg visited Russian President Dmitri Medvedev at his residence outside Moscow. The two leaders discussed cooperation in the Arctic, mainly regarding the issue of gas. Medvedev said, “The development of the region as a whole depends on how we form a coordinated position on exploring the gas fields on the Arctic shelf. I think this is one of the most important areas of our cooperation.” The Russian president was chair of Gazprom’s board of directors until just a little over a year ago. Stoltenberg also visited Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Together, they discussed Russia’s presence in Svalbard and the gas field at Shtokman, which Putin noted was a “big bilateral project between our two countries.” Another issue discussed—but far from resolved—between Russia and Norway was the status of the “grey zone” in the Barents Sea, where both countries’ territorial claims overlap over a resource-rich area of 175,000 square kilometers. The United Nations ruled earlier this month that since both countries have legitimate claims to the area, the dispute would have to be resolved bilaterally. Norway wants the territory to be divided based on a dividing line drawn through the middle of the area, while Russia wants the division to be based on the “principal of justice,” which would entail drawing borders in respect to the western coasts of Soviet Arctic territories. Aside from these sticky disputes, Norwegian-Russia relations are generally friendly. Last year, trade between the two countries increased 45%. Stoltenberg and Norwegian Defense Minister Jonas Gahr Støre have often commented that they are not worried by Russian military development in the Arctic, saying that it is only logical. While there have been a few minor spats over Russian jet exercises outside of Norwegian airspace, tensions have never reached the level of the Canadian-Russian relationship, for example.
Posted 23 May 2009; 5:24:52 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Norway, Russia
Russia: Arctic is no EU affair
(BarentsObserver, 19 May 2009) -- The Arctic is not an issue in Russia-EU relations, Russian Ambassador to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told Euractiv.com. In an interview about the upcoming EU-Russian meeting in Khabarovsk, Russia’s EU Ambassador Vladimir Chizhov made it clear that the Arctic is not an issue in EU-Russia relations. “We believe that in the foreseeable future consolidated efforts of the Arctic states are sufficient. Let me remind you that that there is no EU member state among the Arctic states," Chizhov said, Euractiv.com reports. That position is not shared by the EU, however, which last November adopted its Arctic Communication. As reported by BarentsObserver, that document outlines a clearer and more active role of the union in Arctic issues.
Posted 19 May 2009; 12:55:29 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Europe, Russia
Medvedev calls on Norway for coordination in Arctic development
(Itar-Tass, 19 May 2009) -- BARVIKHA - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev calls on Norway for a coordinated stand on Arctic development. At the meeting in his out-of-town residence with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Soltenberg, he noted that Russia and Norway “are northern, Arctic countries, and the development of the region as a whole depends on their taking a close, coordinated stand on matters of Arctic development. ... I believe this is one of the most important trends of cooperation,” the Russian president said. He noted that on the whole relations between Russia and Norway had been developing “quite well” of late. “There has been a substantive growth of trade turnover recently,” Medvedev added. “This year does not promise to be very easy, but our colleagues are working, and a regular session of the intergovernmental commission was held recently. I do hope that this will allow us to reach new economic milestones, despite the current economic difficulties,” the Russian president said. He noted that economic matters would be discussed during the talks. “I hope that your visit will be useful and productive; I mean a number of important documents will be signed during the visit, new results will be achieved that will strengthen friendly interaction between our countries,” Medvedev said. According to the information of the Russian side, trade turnover between Russia and Norway decreased by 36.4 percent in January-February 2009 as compared with the same period in 2008, making up 237 million dollars. Russia’s export dropped by 54 percent, making up 96 million dollars, while import decreased by 13 percent, amounting to 141 million dollars. Some 120 enterprises with the participation of Norwegian capital are registered in Russia, its volume being nearly 1.5 billion dollars. Norwegian capital is developed mainly in Russia’s north-western regions, particularly in the Murmansk, Arkhangelsk, and Leningrad regions, with industry, wholesale trade, services, telecommunications and the mass media being the priority areas.
Posted 19 May 2009; 11:58:19 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, International, Nordic Region, Northwest / Russia, Norway, Russia
Russia warns of war within a decade over Arctic oil and gas riches
(Tony Halpin/Times Online, 14 May 2009) -- Russia raised the prospect of war in the Arctic yesterday as nations struggle for control of the world’s dwindling energy reserves. The country’s new national security strategy identified the intensifying battle for ownership of vast untapped oil and gas fields around its borders as a source of potential military conflict within a decade. “The presence and potential escalation of armed conflicts near Russia’s national borders, pending border agreements between Russia and several neighbouring nations, are the major threats to Russia’s interests and border security,” stated the document, which analysed security threats up to 2020. “In a competition for resources it cannot be ruled out that military force could be used to resolve emerging problems that would destroy the balance of forces near the borders of Russia and her allies.” The Kremlin has insisted that it is not “militarising the Arctic” but its warnings of armed conflict suggest that it is willing to defend its interests by force if necessary as global warming makes exploitation of the region’s energy riches more feasible. The United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark are challenging Russia’s claim to a section of the Arctic shelf, the size of Western Europe, which is believed to contain billions of tonnes of oil and gas.
Posted 15 May 2009; 11:09:48 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, International, Russia
Russia Russian trawler runs aground in Barents Sea
(RIA Novosti, 11 May 2009) -- STOCKHOLM - A Russian fishing boat with 12 people on board has run aground in the Barents Sea near Medvezhy Island, Norwegian media reported Monday. Norwegian rescuers evacuated the Petrozavodsk's crew by helicopter, with no one reported injured. "All 12 crew are feeling fine. The helicopter with the Russian trawlermen will land on Medvezhy Island for fueling and will then head for Norway," a rescue spokesman said.
Posted 11 May 2009; 8:48:33 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Barents Euro-Arctic Region, Circumpolar News, Natural disasters and other problems, Russia
Germans estimate North-East Passage navigable in 10 years
(Deutsche Presse-Agentur via Monsters and Critics, 4 May 2009) -- Kiel, Germany - After studying ice formation on the Siberian coast, German scientists forecast Monday that regular ships would be able to sail through the entire North-East Passage between Europe and Asia in summer in 10 to 15 years. Heidemarie Kassens of the Leibniz Oceanography Institute in Kiel said earlier estimates this would happen by 2050 were out of date because of the rapid pace of climate change. The passage through Arctic waters north of Russia would link the Atlantic and Pacific. Speaking after a six-week expedition to the Laptev Sea off Siberia, she called the development alarming. The region was a major source of new ice, but this year it had produced very little, she said. It was noticeable that many Atlantic species of plankton were invading the Arctic and displacing Arctic species. 'The ice cover on the sea is melting faster than our models forecast,' Kassens said, adding that Siberia's permafrost was thawing too. The expedition saw buildings on the permafrost cracked and in danger of collapse. The Transdrift Expedition was tasked with studying so-called polynyas. A polynya is open water between the coastal ice field and the pack ice of the Arctic Ocean which remains ice-free despite the cold of winter. A polynya directly responds to changes in sea currents or air circulation, and can indicate changes in the whole Arctic.
Posted 5 May 2009; 9:31:45 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Arctic Ocean, Circumpolar News, Climate Change and Weather, Environment and Landscape, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Barents Monitoring: Nenets AO 2008
(BarentsObserver, 4 May 2009) -- The year 2008 was rather successful for the economy of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Retail trade turnover grew 10%. The incomes of the population also increased sufficiently – by an estimated 29 %. The annual growth of industrial production index was 4,1%. However, the volume of investments in the main capital showed negative dynamic with annual decline of 28%. Read about trends and developments in the Nenets AO in the regional Barents Monitoring report. BarentsMonitoring.NenetsAO2008
Posted 4 May 2009; 3:07:26 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Northwest / Russia, Research / Reports, Russia
Russia to build floating Arctic nuclear stations
(UTV, 3 May 2009) -- Russia is planning a fleet of floating and submersible nuclear power stations to exploit Arctic oil and gas reserves, causing widespread alarm among environmentalists. A prototype floating nuclear power station being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvinsk is due to be completed next year. Agreement to build a further four was reached between the Russian state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, and the northern Siberian republic of Yakutiya in February. The 70-megawatt plants, each of which would consist of two reactors on board giant steel platforms, would provide power to Gazprom, the oil firm which is also Russia's biggest company. It would allow Gazprom to power drills needed to exploit some of the remotest oil and gas fields in the world in the Barents and Kara seas. The self-propelled vessels would store their own waste and fuel and would need to be serviced only once every 12 to 14 years. In addition, designers are known to have developed submarine nuclear-powered drilling rigs that could allow eight wells to be drilled at a time.
Posted 2 May 2009; 9:24:23 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alternative Energy / Climate Change Responses, Circumpolar News, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Springtime smoke in Siberia is our arctic haze
(Ned Rozell/Alaska Report, 2 May 2009) -- Arctic haze is a blob of air pollution that sloshes over the northern cap of the planet in springtime. It's visible as a murkiness that prevents you from seeing Denali, or as dark bands on the horizon from the windows of planes flying over northern Alaska. On a bad day, it can make Alaska look like Los Angeles or Denver. In the 1970s, scientists studied the northern air and found sulfur and black carbon floating in it from dirty smelters in Russia and other areas in Eurasia. Last spring, a team of scientists from Colorado took six flights north from Fairbanks in a plane designed to sniff the air and collect samples. After analyzing air from above northern Alaska and the sea ice north of Barrow, team members have concluded what much of the dark stuff was. It was soot from forest fires in southern Siberia and Lake Baikal, and from farmers preparing their fields by burning stubble in Kazakhstan and southern Russia.
Posted 2 May 2009; 5:09:19 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Alaska, Circumpolar News, Contaminants and Pollution, Natural disasters and other problems, Russia
An-2 single-engine biplane crashes in Yakutia killing crew
(ITAR-TASS, 30 April 2009) -- MOSCOW - An Antonov-2 single-engine biplane has crashed in Yakutia, killing the crew, the Far Eastern regional center of the Emergency Situations Ministry has told Itar-Tass over the telephone. The plane was en route from Lensk to Magan. At 00:48 Khabarovsk time the plane suffered a crash near the village of Pokrovka, 16 kilometers away from the final destination. There was a crew of three and no passengers on board. Nobody survived. Firefighters and rescue workers are already at the scene. The causes of the crash are still to be established.
Posted 1 May 2009; 10:50:13 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Far East / Russia, Natural disasters and other problems, Russia, Transportation, Infrastructure and Construction
Production of furniture and beer declines in Arkhangel'sk region
(IA Regum, 30 April 2009) -- Since the beginning of the year in the Arkhangelsk region the production of many types of industrial goods has declined. According to statistics, timber production in the area has decreased by 11.1%, and lumber is down by 30.4%. Furniture production has declined in consequence. Thus, since the beginning of the year the production of chairs fell 50%, sofas - 55%, and cases - more than 40%. A decline in food production is occuring, too. Since the beginning of the year the production of beer has declined by almost 60%, while meat products are down by 25%. The production of some commodities has grown. Liquor production, for example, is up by nearly 30%, animal fats by 26%, and oil by 35%. (Translation assisted by Google Translate)
Posted 30 April 2009; 2:40:05 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, Economic and Commerce Issues, Northwest / Russia, Russia
Russia against increasing military presence in Arctic - Lavrov
(RIA Novosti, 29 April 2009) -- Russia has no plans to increase its military presence in the Arctic or to deploy weapons in the region, the Russian foreign minister said on Wednesday. "We [Russia] are not planning to increase our military presence in the Arctic and to deploy armed forces there," Sergei Lavrov said following a ministerial meeting of the Arctic Council in Norway's Tromso. The Russian Security Council posted on its website last month a document entitled: The Fundamentals of Russian State Policy in the Arctic up to 2020 and Beyond. The document outlines the country's strategy in the region, including the deployment of military, border and coastal guard units "to guarantee Russia's military security in diverse military and political circumstances." According to the document, Russia will create by 2020 a group of forces to protect its political and economic interests in the Arctic. The top Russian diplomat also said that the meeting, which was addressed by the former U.S. vice president Al Gore, did not discuss the issue of banning military forces from the Arctic region. Gore, who won the Nobel Prize in 2007 for his work on climate change, told delegates that "we must take action now" to prevent climate change.
Posted 29 April 2009; 11:35:11 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Autonomy, Sovereignty and Politics, Circumpolar News, International, Russia
Russia insists it won't militarise the Arctic
(AFP, 29 April 2009) -- TROMSOE, Norway - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Wednesday Moscow had no plans to boost its military presence in the Arctic, saying existing laws could resolve disputes in the much-courted region. "We are not planning to increase our armed forces presence in the Arctic," Lavrov told reporters at the close of an Arctic Council meeting in the northern Norwegian town of Tromsoe. "The decisions taken provide for strengthening the potential of the coast guard," a move needed because the melting ice cap is leading to more human activity in the region, he said. An official Russian document made public in March suggested that Russia would deploy units from the army and the FSB security service in the Arctic. Russia said it planned to put troops in its Arctic zone "capable of ensuring military security," including the "creation of (an) actively functioning system of the Federal Security Service coastal guard." The announcement came as bordering countries are rushing to make territorial claims in the Arctic, a region potentially rich in natural resources that will become increasingly accessible as climate change melts the ice cap. To clarify things, Russia's national security council issued a statement last month saying it did not plan to militarise the Arctic, a position Lavrov reiterated Wednesday. "The existing legislation in the world allows (us) to deal successfully with all issues which might arise," he said.
Posted 29 April 2009; 11:05:27 AM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar cooperation, Circumpolar News, International, Russia
Russian Post to open office on Svalbard
(Barents Observer, 28 April 2009) -- Russia plans to open a post office on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard in the near future. Telecommunication networks, including satellite and mobile systems will be expanded and developed further. In course of the next two months, Russia and Norway will sign an agreement on opening of a branch of Russian Post on Svalbard. The decision about this was made by a Russian-Norwegian working group on information technologies and innovation on a meeting in Oslo this week. Svalbard is under Norwegian jurisdiction, but has a particular status where Russia has the right to conduct business on the archipelago. The working group also discussed the development of telecommunications on Svalbard, like expansion of the existing GSM-900 mobile telephone network. Russian authorities plan to open a multiservice telecommunications network in the Russian settlement of Barentsburg that can provide inhabitants and companies with multimedia and interactive internet services. For this the Russian satellite “Ekspress-AM1” will be used, web site Comnews.ru writes.
Posted 28 April 2009; 11:37:47 PM. Permalink
Tagged: Circumpolar News, International, Norway, Russia
email to: agra...@yukoncollege.yk.ca
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