Infrastructure/Borderline: Structures that shape the landscape
Infrastructure/Borderline: Structures that shape the landscape Ivan Kuryachiy
1. Empire of the Void Russia is the Empire of Void. Being unable to manage the enormous extent of its landscape, land tends to be clustered along the key infrastructural frameworks. Infrastructure as a mechanism for transforming the value of the land—the main tool of colonization of vast territories. A synthetic map of the settlement pattern, shadow of the economical and geopolitical interests. For centuries infrastructure shaped the country, a multi-layered grid of interconnected roads, animaldriven transportation and waterways, but was concentrated primarily in the West-European part of Russian Empire, where more than 90% of the country’s population lived.
In the XX century, the country’s claw-like grid geometry evolved to become a linear passageway, with the Trans-Siberian railroad as its new, extended backbone stretching from the West to the East. Cities left aside of this new infrastructure were condemned to inevitable stagnation or deterioration. Tobolsk - the capital of Siberian Tzarhood that once controlled all territories from Urals to Alaska, soon became a forgotten provincial town. And conversely, the small village of NovoNikolaevsk evolved into the huge hub city Novosibirsk—with a population growth from 8 thousands to 1,4 million in next 100 years.
2. A Triangle of Power After the USSR disintegrated, a host of new states emerged on the region’s geopolitical map. The biggest of them was the Russian Federation - the core of former Empire. The collapse triggered a number of mutations in the Russian landscape. If we examine these processes—many of which are still under way—the “corpus” of the emerging state can be recognized. That is, the new organism that took its genetic background from its predecessor, the USSR, borrowed some elements from its neighbors, and employed some barbaric strategies that can be traced back to the medieval time. To identify the structure of that body, we need to indicate its basic joints – points of accumulation of economic, political, social and cultural energies. And if we were to name them, they might be described as The Castle, The Battlefield and The Treasury. This triangle-shaped corpus indicates the current “geometry of thinning”, the primary cause of the misbalance in the existing landscape pattern. Territories beyond that triangle are delegated to Feudal Lords and doomed to shrink. The Castle is Moscow. The old capital of the tzars and Soviet rulers, it now aggregates all branches of political power of the state. Through a vertical of power, the reigning delegates the control of land to Feudal Lords through a sophisticated and corrupt system. Moscow is home to the main Russian corporations and more than a half of total number of banks, and accounts for near the 10% of country’s budget and the same percentage of Russian population. It became the main migratory destination, draining out people from Eastern regions and exUSSR territories.
The Battlefield is the south-west of Russia: the Caucasus and Krasnodar regions. With a large number of human and economic resources expended in numerous wars and ongoing conflicts over the last 20 years, this land is the true frontline of the geopolitical games of the state. Region has the highest natural growth of population, compared to an overall decline in the country. It absorbs a vast amount of the budget with superprojects like Olympics-2014. The Caucasus republics are up to 90% subsided by the federal budget. The Treasury is two regions in north of Siberia: the YNAO and HMAO. Almost unsettled, they provides 95% of Russian gas production (18% of world total) and 67% of oil production (8,7% of world total). It is the main source of money for the State, with 73% of total Russian export dedicated to gas, oil and oil products. GRP per capita of YNAO region is equal to the one in USA. Zooming in, the epicentre of state power can be clearly identified. It is the area called the “Heart of Europe” because of the fact it provides a quarter of Europe’s gas consumption. It is the hugest gas field in the world, situated in the vast tundra below the Polar circle in Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous region. This name is derived from the land – Yamal peninsula – and its people, the native Nenets minority.
3. Colonization Having been conquered in the XVI century, those territories were kept out of the sight of the government for centuries. Colonized area was left unsettled by the state because of the hostile permafrost condition. Only two outposts were created to trade the only known resource of Siberia – furs. The uninhabitable context led to abandonment of one of those settlements in the following 60 years; another one counted less than a thousand of inhabitants until XX century. The Russian North was like a big fridge, preserving local nomad subcultures for more than 300 years until the invasion of the industrial machine. The language, traditions, beliefs and nomadic life pattern survived untouched through years of shift from Tzardom to Soviet Union. The following layer of colonization was Stalin’s Trans-Polar railroad project, stretching for 1451km. It was planned to connect the northern lands of Soviet State and provide access to a port with access to the Northern Ocean. Projects #501, #502 and #503 were constructed using the GULAG labor camp system and were mostly abandoned after the Stalin’s death. The constellation of dispersed, disconnected settlements was left here as another monument of failed land use model in the Polar region.
After WWII, in 1960s the battle for resources brought the Soviet industrial machine to rediscover this gas wonderland. Unique amounts of resources and unique ability of plan economy made it possible to justify the efficiency of nearly any type of settlement here. Generic Soviet city with microrayons of prefabricated houses was just multiplied among permafrost tundra. Cities were placed not according to the logic of urban demands, but close to pioneer gas extraction facilities. In the 1980s, a complex geopolitical chess game led to the first connection of gas infrastructure from YNAO region to Germany. The 4451km long trunk pipeline connected NATO countries and USSR—at the peak of Cold War. It became first infrastructural object that interconnected Eurasian continent, and the mark of a burgeoning process of globalization.
4. Layers of infrastructure. Now more than 60% of current Russian cargo is dedicated to the transportation of sources of energy. The pipeline networks became the primary typology of Russian infrastructure, even overtaking the railroads – the previous framework that was shaping the country for centuries. In last 15 years the overall length of trunk oil and gas pipelines in Russia increased by 18,000km, while the length of car roads remained unchanged, the operational length of railroads declined by 1000km, and number of airports was cut down by 60%.
Russia, in other words, is becoming a big gas pumping machine. By expanding the pipeline network as the skeleton of new Empire, Russia multiplies its gas & oil dependency, thus falling into a tailspin. The speed of gas transfer through pipeline system is 40km/h–faster than the railroad connection between Nadym and Noviy Urengoy, the main gas “capitals” of the state.
The gas processing unit on Yamburg gas production site (YNAO region, Russia). Photo: Ivan Kuryachiy
5. Gas religion Built from scratch in conditions of permafrost, this young breed of gas cities was the last wave of Soviet industrialization. With more than a half-a-million overall population they are totally reliant on the gas production. (the same could be said about Russia as a whole). Gas “generals”, authorities, ordinary workers and their families pray for high gas prices that can bring the stability and prosperity to the Russian state. It could be understood as a new religion, with natural gas as an invisible vaporous goddess or Holy Spirit, and citizens as the adepts of this new belief. The root of this phenomenon are not new or in any way exceptional. The same way ancient civilizations created the Gods of their main economic source they rely on - agriculture. It was the Osiris and Izida in Egypt, Ishtar in Mesopotamia.
Times change, and with economic model shifted from agriculture to industry, and then post-industry, and Pantheon of Gods is being changed according to it. Russia is still stocked to the oil-dependent model, and that reflected in that Gas Paganism appeared in the last decades. There is a strong background of Orthodox Christianity in Russian society, and the symbols of this emergent belief are very much influenced by it. The gas wellheads are shaped like a cross. The intersection of two main gas trunk pipelines, named the main gas facility in the world by US Dept of State in Wikileaks report as one of the world’s most critically important pieces of infrastructure, is called “the Cross” by locals. Even the minaret of the newly built Muslim mosque in Nadym city takes the form of a gas flame, very similar to the Gazprom corporate logo. Adjacent to mosque, the big Pyramid building is placed, referring to basic objects of cult of ancient cultures.
6. Weapon of choice At the other end of the pipe, the faith of European gas adepts is also fervent. They are addicted to the continuous flow of that gas emanating from the Northern Temples to their houses and fireplaces. On very local level they are the hostages of a continental-scale infrastructure which, like a steel funiculus, connects them to the distant energy source. Given the up to 90% dependence on Russian gas in East European countries, the object of infrastructure became the geopolitical weapon of choice, a final line of defence against the expansion of NATO and EU in ex-USSR countries. Russia first used this weapon when it interrupting the gas supply to Lithuania for two days in October 1992. After the adoption of a law that changed legal status of Russian minorities in Estonia, the gas supply was stopped for 19 days in June 1993. The switching off of the gas flow to Moldavia in 1994 led to the absorption of the country’s export pipeline system by Gazprom. After Belarus refused to share control on its pipeline network, Gazprom began the “Gas War”, as it was baptised by a deputy of president Putin. In February 2004 this truncation of the gas supply left Poland, Baltic states, East Germany and even Russian Kaliningrad region without heat for 18 hours 47 minutes. The Kremlin was accused of “terrorism on a very high level” by head of Belarus. On 1 January of 2006 Gazprom blocked the gas supply to Ukraine for 4 days. And on New Year holiday of 2009, the supply was stopped and then totally switched off for two weeks.
In Ukraine, the Gas War resulted in the election of a proRussian government that abolished the plan to join NATO and extended the presence of Russian Navy bases on Black Sea. The gas infrastructure can be considered, without exaggeration, the most effective weapon of modern Russia. And thanks to Gazprom’s creation of a vast and widespread network of trunk pipelines all over the Europe, it is a resilient weapon that is not hostage to any single European country.
7. Overprotection In order to protect the Holy Land of gas— the main gas fields of YNAO —exceptional mechanisms were put in place. Its status is largely defined by its condition of “borderzone” – a area with a special legal status stretching along the perimeter of the Russian state and varying in width from a few hundred meters to three to hundreds kilometers. This spatial typology is defined by precise restrictions as to access and land use.
After collapse of USSR, the border law was suspended: the width of all borderzones shrank to 5km. Successively, the control of those lands was given to regional administrations, who used the law primarily to monopolize resources. The whole of Chukotka became a secured border area by decree of governor Abramovich, and the President of Yakutia created a border zone half the size of India so as to cover and control world’s biggest diamond mines.
Historically the settlement structure in those border areas was denser than in other territories, largely as a result of economic and cultural exchange process between bordering countries. Traditionally, the border zone areas fell under the control of the Ministry of Finance – a clear indication that trade was perceived as the main function of these territories. Successively, border settlements were forcedly created by government for the physical protection of the wide territory of the empire. With growth of bureaucracy in Empire, the borderzone width began to increase. In the 20th century, the role of borders changed – evolving into a geopolitical tool under control of Special Services such as the KGB. In the 1930s, in particular, a process of “operated thinning” was undertaken through the forced evacuation of border zone, transforming it into a “frozen belt” that surrounded the inner land of the Soviet empire.
In 2004, after election Putin as the president, the control of border territories was assigned to the Federal Security Service (FSB). In the most sensitive spots of the territory it grew dramatically, and the largest borderzone area, unsurprisingly, was created in YNAO region. Its extent was greater than all of Germany. With more than 700km depth from the State border line, it covered all the gas fields, allowing the FSB ability full control of all access to them.
8. Gas nomads This northern energy empire consists of 2 parallel worlds: shaken, not stirred. The first is the local native population, defined by tribal traditions and nomadic land use. Having lived for centuries in the fragile nature of the tundra, they leave almost no traces on this landscape. Their nomad settlements are mostly temporary, and economic basis - reindeer herding and fishing - is entirely renewable. Natives have longer life expectancy and higher birth rate than Russians and the regional average. The other world is the industrial gas machine that invaded these territories over the last 35 years. It employs the same nomadic style of land colonization, but in an extensive way. The first “gas airborne” had temporary houses, no roads and worked on a rotational basis. But then the “prefabricated cities” were established and “gas nomads” started using them as the base for exploration of Northern resource fields. This, in turn, triggered the deterioration of a fragile landscape: it takes 20 years for the tundra to recover after having been crossed once by a heavy truck. The symbiosis and conflict of those two worlds became progressively more and more evident. With start of gas extraction, the void of Northern landscape was sliced up by trunk pipelines, which became an obstacle on the routes of reindeer herding. To grab the land for gas production from natives, Gazprom began offering them subsidies, thus creating dependency. Company and regional government provide natives with snowmobiles, dwellings, gasoline, money and social services. Together with tough legislation concerning the land usage permissions (like fishing quotas), it causes a mutation of their pure nomadic lifestyle, blurring it with sedentary elements.
And Gazprom (unwittingly, perhaps) learned a lot from the local nomads—for example that it is not effective to create permanent cities in permafrost conditions. In 1990s, in the quest for efficiency, the company restructured and disposed all its “social burdens”, placing the gas cities on the knife edge between permanence and temporariness. The new “gas nomad” model of Gazprom uses cheap labor force from all ex-USSR to work on a short-term rotational basis. On a new gas giant field, Bovanenkovo, that will begin production in 2011, there are no kindergartens or block housing. Hotels, communication center and administration offices – everything is made of quick-mounting lightweight metal constructions, ready to be dismounted and relocated. YNAO is the proving ground for a new land use model that is becoming a new trend in Russian landscape (and was even claimed in 2010 as the State program): the concentration of shrinking population in large 20 agglomerations, while leaving only temporary resource extraction outposts on the rest of the land.
Upper photo: Rotational-based workers on construction site of Bovanenkovo gas field on Yamal peninsula, YNAO region, Russia Photo: Andrey Cherdyncev Below: Native nenents nomad in in YNAO region, Russia Photo: Vyacheslav Ivko
9. Reshaped Geometry The immense scale and vast void of the Russian territory is understood as a problem, an obstacle to the efficient development of the country. But it can be turned inside-out, if the country is analyzed not in its boundaries, but on the world scale. That was not possible in USSR time because the country was closed with limited economic and social connections with outer world. But now, in the globalized world, only the global countries can benefit. One of such examples is the “land grab” phenomenon that appeared the last decades. Russia is the only politically and economically stable territory that borders Europe, Middle East, Asia and America. And the connection between these 4 spots can become the new geometrical framework to restructure the country. The “Russian Cross” can implement cargo and passenger infrastructure, turning Russia into a hub that benefits from it. Transit function can become the substitution of the current oil- and gasdepended model. And as the service economy, more advanced that current primary economy, will lead the shift towards a sustainable and advanced social and economic model.
1. Empire of the Void Russia is the Empire of Void. Being unable to manage the enormous extent of its landscape, land tends to be clustered along the key infrastructural frameworks. Infrastructure as a mechanism for transforming the value of the land—the main tool of colonization of vast territories. A synthetic map of the settlement pattern, shadow of the economical and geopolitical interests. For centuries infrastructure shaped the country, a multi-layered grid of interconnected roads, animaldriven transportation and waterways, but was concentrated primarily in the West-European part of Russian Empire, where more than 90% of the country’s population lived.
In the XX century, the country’s claw-like grid geometry evolved to become a linear passageway, with the Trans-Siberian railroad as its new, extended backbone stretching from the West to the East. Cities left aside of this new infrastructure were condemned to inevitable stagnation or deterioration. Tobolsk - the capital of Siberian Tzarhood that once controlled all territories from Urals to Alaska, soon became a forgotten provincial town. And conversely, the small village of NovoNikolaevsk evolved into the huge hub city Novosibirsk—with a population growth from 8 thousands to 1,4 million in next 100 years.
2. A Triangle of Power After the USSR disintegrated, a host of new states emerged on the region’s geopolitical map. The biggest of them was the Russian Federation - the core of former Empire. The collapse triggered a number of mutations in the Russian landscape. If we examine these processes—many of which are still under way—the “corpus” of the emerging state can be recognized. That is, the new organism that took its genetic background from its predecessor, the USSR, borrowed some elements from its neighbors, and employed some barbaric strategies that can be traced back to the medieval time. To identify the structure of that body, we need to indicate its basic joints – points of accumulation of economic, political, social and cultural energies. And if we were to name them, they might be described as The Castle, The Battlefield and The Treasury. This triangle-shaped corpus indicates the current “geometry of thinning”, the primary cause of the misbalance in the existing landscape pattern. Territories beyond that triangle are delegated to Feudal Lords and doomed to shrink. The Castle is Moscow. The old capital of the tzars and Soviet rulers, it now aggregates all branches of political power of the state. Through a vertical of power, the reigning delegates the control of land to Feudal Lords through a sophisticated and corrupt system. Moscow is home to the main Russian corporations and more than a half of total number of banks, and accounts for near the 10% of country’s budget and the same percentage of Russian population. It became the main migratory destination, draining out people from Eastern regions and exUSSR territories.
The Battlefield is the south-west of Russia: the Caucasus and Krasnodar regions. With a large number of human and economic resources expended in numerous wars and ongoing conflicts over the last 20 years, this land is the true frontline of the geopolitical games of the state. Region has the highest natural growth of population, compared to an overall decline in the country. It absorbs a vast amount of the budget with superprojects like Olympics-2014. The Caucasus republics are up to 90% subsided by the federal budget. The Treasury is two regions in north of Siberia: the YNAO and HMAO. Almost unsettled, they provides 95% of Russian gas production (18% of world total) and 67% of oil production (8,7% of world total). It is the main source of money for the State, with 73% of total Russian export dedicated to gas, oil and oil products. GRP per capita of YNAO region is equal to the one in USA. Zooming in, the epicentre of state power can be clearly identified. It is the area called the “Heart of Europe” because of the fact it provides a quarter of Europe’s gas consumption. It is the hugest gas field in the world, situated in the vast tundra below the Polar circle in Yamalo-Nenetsky Autonomous region. This name is derived from the land – Yamal peninsula – and its people, the native Nenets minority.
3. Colonization Having been conquered in the XVI century, those territories were kept out of the sight of the government for centuries. Colonized area was left unsettled by the state because of the hostile permafrost condition. Only two outposts were created to trade the only known resource of Siberia – furs. The uninhabitable context led to abandonment of one of those settlements in the following 60 years; another one counted less than a thousand of inhabitants until XX century. The Russian North was like a big fridge, preserving local nomad subcultures for more than 300 years until the invasion of the industrial machine. The language, traditions, beliefs and nomadic life pattern survived untouched through years of shift from Tzardom to Soviet Union. The following layer of colonization was Stalin’s Trans-Polar railroad project, stretching for 1451km. It was planned to connect the northern lands of Soviet State and provide access to a port with access to the Northern Ocean. Projects #501, #502 and #503 were constructed using the GULAG labor camp system and were mostly abandoned after the Stalin’s death. The constellation of dispersed, disconnected settlements was left here as another monument of failed land use model in the Polar region.
After WWII, in 1960s the battle for resources brought the Soviet industrial machine to rediscover this gas wonderland. Unique amounts of resources and unique ability of plan economy made it possible to justify the efficiency of nearly any type of settlement here. Generic Soviet city with microrayons of prefabricated houses was just multiplied among permafrost tundra. Cities were placed not according to the logic of urban demands, but close to pioneer gas extraction facilities. In the 1980s, a complex geopolitical chess game led to the first connection of gas infrastructure from YNAO region to Germany. The 4451km long trunk pipeline connected NATO countries and USSR—at the peak of Cold War. It became first infrastructural object that interconnected Eurasian continent, and the mark of a burgeoning process of globalization.
4. Layers of infrastructure. Now more than 60% of current Russian cargo is dedicated to the transportation of sources of energy. The pipeline networks became the primary typology of Russian infrastructure, even overtaking the railroads – the previous framework that was shaping the country for centuries. In last 15 years the overall length of trunk oil and gas pipelines in Russia increased by 18,000km, while the length of car roads remained unchanged, the operational length of railroads declined by 1000km, and number of airports was cut down by 60%.
Russia, in other words, is becoming a big gas pumping machine. By expanding the pipeline network as the skeleton of new Empire, Russia multiplies its gas & oil dependency, thus falling into a tailspin. The speed of gas transfer through pipeline system is 40km/h–faster than the railroad connection between Nadym and Noviy Urengoy, the main gas “capitals” of the state.
The gas processing unit on Yamburg gas production site (YNAO region, Russia). Photo: Ivan Kuryachiy
5. Gas religion Built from scratch in conditions of permafrost, this young breed of gas cities was the last wave of Soviet industrialization. With more than a half-a-million overall population they are totally reliant on the gas production. (the same could be said about Russia as a whole). Gas “generals”, authorities, ordinary workers and their families pray for high gas prices that can bring the stability and prosperity to the Russian state. It could be understood as a new religion, with natural gas as an invisible vaporous goddess or Holy Spirit, and citizens as the adepts of this new belief. The root of this phenomenon are not new or in any way exceptional. The same way ancient civilizations created the Gods of their main economic source they rely on - agriculture. It was the Osiris and Izida in Egypt, Ishtar in Mesopotamia.
Times change, and with economic model shifted from agriculture to industry, and then post-industry, and Pantheon of Gods is being changed according to it. Russia is still stocked to the oil-dependent model, and that reflected in that Gas Paganism appeared in the last decades. There is a strong background of Orthodox Christianity in Russian society, and the symbols of this emergent belief are very much influenced by it. The gas wellheads are shaped like a cross. The intersection of two main gas trunk pipelines, named the main gas facility in the world by US Dept of State in Wikileaks report as one of the world’s most critically important pieces of infrastructure, is called “the Cross” by locals. Even the minaret of the newly built Muslim mosque in Nadym city takes the form of a gas flame, very similar to the Gazprom corporate logo. Adjacent to mosque, the big Pyramid building is placed, referring to basic objects of cult of ancient cultures.
6. Weapon of choice At the other end of the pipe, the faith of European gas adepts is also fervent. They are addicted to the continuous flow of that gas emanating from the Northern Temples to their houses and fireplaces. On very local level they are the hostages of a continental-scale infrastructure which, like a steel funiculus, connects them to the distant energy source. Given the up to 90% dependence on Russian gas in East European countries, the object of infrastructure became the geopolitical weapon of choice, a final line of defence against the expansion of NATO and EU in ex-USSR countries. Russia first used this weapon when it interrupting the gas supply to Lithuania for two days in October 1992. After the adoption of a law that changed legal status of Russian minorities in Estonia, the gas supply was stopped for 19 days in June 1993. The switching off of the gas flow to Moldavia in 1994 led to the absorption of the country’s export pipeline system by Gazprom. After Belarus refused to share control on its pipeline network, Gazprom began the “Gas War”, as it was baptised by a deputy of president Putin. In February 2004 this truncation of the gas supply left Poland, Baltic states, East Germany and even Russian Kaliningrad region without heat for 18 hours 47 minutes. The Kremlin was accused of “terrorism on a very high level” by head of Belarus. On 1 January of 2006 Gazprom blocked the gas supply to Ukraine for 4 days. And on New Year holiday of 2009, the supply was stopped and then totally switched off for two weeks.
In Ukraine, the Gas War resulted in the election of a proRussian government that abolished the plan to join NATO and extended the presence of Russian Navy bases on Black Sea. The gas infrastructure can be considered, without exaggeration, the most effective weapon of modern Russia. And thanks to Gazprom’s creation of a vast and widespread network of trunk pipelines all over the Europe, it is a resilient weapon that is not hostage to any single European country.
7. Overprotection In order to protect the Holy Land of gas— the main gas fields of YNAO —exceptional mechanisms were put in place. Its status is largely defined by its condition of “borderzone” – a area with a special legal status stretching along the perimeter of the Russian state and varying in width from a few hundred meters to three to hundreds kilometers. This spatial typology is defined by precise restrictions as to access and land use.
After collapse of USSR, the border law was suspended: the width of all borderzones shrank to 5km. Successively, the control of those lands was given to regional administrations, who used the law primarily to monopolize resources. The whole of Chukotka became a secured border area by decree of governor Abramovich, and the President of Yakutia created a border zone half the size of India so as to cover and control world’s biggest diamond mines.
Historically the settlement structure in those border areas was denser than in other territories, largely as a result of economic and cultural exchange process between bordering countries. Traditionally, the border zone areas fell under the control of the Ministry of Finance – a clear indication that trade was perceived as the main function of these territories. Successively, border settlements were forcedly created by government for the physical protection of the wide territory of the empire. With growth of bureaucracy in Empire, the borderzone width began to increase. In the 20th century, the role of borders changed – evolving into a geopolitical tool under control of Special Services such as the KGB. In the 1930s, in particular, a process of “operated thinning” was undertaken through the forced evacuation of border zone, transforming it into a “frozen belt” that surrounded the inner land of the Soviet empire.
In 2004, after election Putin as the president, the control of border territories was assigned to the Federal Security Service (FSB). In the most sensitive spots of the territory it grew dramatically, and the largest borderzone area, unsurprisingly, was created in YNAO region. Its extent was greater than all of Germany. With more than 700km depth from the State border line, it covered all the gas fields, allowing the FSB ability full control of all access to them.
8. Gas nomads This northern energy empire consists of 2 parallel worlds: shaken, not stirred. The first is the local native population, defined by tribal traditions and nomadic land use. Having lived for centuries in the fragile nature of the tundra, they leave almost no traces on this landscape. Their nomad settlements are mostly temporary, and economic basis - reindeer herding and fishing - is entirely renewable. Natives have longer life expectancy and higher birth rate than Russians and the regional average. The other world is the industrial gas machine that invaded these territories over the last 35 years. It employs the same nomadic style of land colonization, but in an extensive way. The first “gas airborne” had temporary houses, no roads and worked on a rotational basis. But then the “prefabricated cities” were established and “gas nomads” started using them as the base for exploration of Northern resource fields. This, in turn, triggered the deterioration of a fragile landscape: it takes 20 years for the tundra to recover after having been crossed once by a heavy truck. The symbiosis and conflict of those two worlds became progressively more and more evident. With start of gas extraction, the void of Northern landscape was sliced up by trunk pipelines, which became an obstacle on the routes of reindeer herding. To grab the land for gas production from natives, Gazprom began offering them subsidies, thus creating dependency. Company and regional government provide natives with snowmobiles, dwellings, gasoline, money and social services. Together with tough legislation concerning the land usage permissions (like fishing quotas), it causes a mutation of their pure nomadic lifestyle, blurring it with sedentary elements.
And Gazprom (unwittingly, perhaps) learned a lot from the local nomads—for example that it is not effective to create permanent cities in permafrost conditions. In 1990s, in the quest for efficiency, the company restructured and disposed all its “social burdens”, placing the gas cities on the knife edge between permanence and temporariness. The new “gas nomad” model of Gazprom uses cheap labor force from all ex-USSR to work on a short-term rotational basis. On a new gas giant field, Bovanenkovo, that will begin production in 2011, there are no kindergartens or block housing. Hotels, communication center and administration offices – everything is made of quick-mounting lightweight metal constructions, ready to be dismounted and relocated. YNAO is the proving ground for a new land use model that is becoming a new trend in Russian landscape (and was even claimed in 2010 as the State program): the concentration of shrinking population in large 20 agglomerations, while leaving only temporary resource extraction outposts on the rest of the land.
Upper photo: Rotational-based workers on construction site of Bovanenkovo gas field on Yamal peninsula, YNAO region, Russia Photo: Andrey Cherdyncev Below: Native nenents nomad in in YNAO region, Russia Photo: Vyacheslav Ivko
9. Reshaped Geometry The immense scale and vast void of the Russian territory is understood as a problem, an obstacle to the efficient development of the country. But it can be turned inside-out, if the country is analyzed not in its boundaries, but on the world scale. That was not possible in USSR time because the country was closed with limited economic and social connections with outer world. But now, in the globalized world, only the global countries can benefit. One of such examples is the “land grab” phenomenon that appeared the last decades. Russia is the only politically and economically stable territory that borders Europe, Middle East, Asia and America. And the connection between these 4 spots can become the new geometrical framework to restructure the country. The “Russian Cross” can implement cargo and passenger infrastructure, turning Russia into a hub that benefits from it. Transit function can become the substitution of the current oil- and gasdepended model. And as the service economy, more advanced that current primary economy, will lead the shift towards a sustainable and advanced social and economic model.
