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Sakhalin governor rates 45 in poll
The Rybak Sakhalina
A nationwide-poll placed Sakhalin Oblast Gov. Igor Farkhutdinov as 45th on a list of Russia’s most effective local leaders. |
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Sakhalin View Sakhalin resists temporary worker plans Briefs: Last edition
Sakhalin governor rates 45 in poll
The Rybak Sakhalina
A nationwide-poll placed Sakhalin Oblast Gov. Igor Farkhutdinov as 45th on a list of Russia’s most effective local leaders.
In 76 regions across the country, the Moscow-based Center for the Study of Russian Political Culture polled public opinion of the effectiveness of presidents, governors, administration heads, and mayors. Respondents also rated leaders on a scale of one to five, based on local conditions in economics, social welfare, crime, and social justice. And leaders were ranked for honesty, attitudes towards the public, and independent thinking.
Kemerovskaya Oblast head Aman Tuleyev polled the highest of all political leaders rated. Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov rated second, while Krasnodarsky Krai Gov. Nikolai Kondratenko rated third. The center observed that of the top 20 leaders named in the poll, 14 are so-called "red" leaders -- that is, those who have Communist ties, past or present.
Among Far Eastern leaders rated in the poll, governors in Khabarovsky Krai and Amur Oblast placed higher than the Sakhalin governor, followed by leaders in Primorsky, Magadan and Kamchatka.
Sakhalin View
By Andrew Wilson
The world's longest railroad extends its conspicuously wide gauge from Nakhodka to Brest, into and out of all the former republics of the Soviet Union. It threads its northern extremity into Finland and it winds its way down into the Asian steppes of Mongolia, right up to the Chinese border.
Its tracks run right off the dock at the eastern ocean port of Vanino and onto the Sakhalin ferry, whose decks carry container flats and hopper cars to the isolated island across the Tatarsky Strait. But there, a matter of a few meters into the Sakhalin port of Kholmsk, the world's longest railroad runs into a big, bleak building and comes to a mysterious halt, stopping just a few hundred-odd kilometers short of its logical objective, the industrial and commercial center of Sakhalin, the island's capital city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. But why?
There are at least three separate, unrelated railroads on the island of Sakhalin, none of them compatible with the rest of the Soviet railroad. There is a dilapidated railroad in the northern third of the island, built long ago to service the logging industry, left to decay into useless oblivion. Then there is a delightful little children's railroad running the perimeter of the city park in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, carrying its contented passengers on a happy tour through the trees.
The main railroad, though, was built by the Japanese during their occupation of the lower half of Sakhalin Island for the 40 years from the Russo-Japanese War to the end of World War II. Faced with the prospect of having to widen hundreds of kilometers of perfectly usable -- if narrow -- track, the powerful Ministry of Railroads decided to do the only logical thing: It built a rail wheel changing facility at the port of Kholmsk. Now, railcars arrive on the ferry and roll right into the mysterious dark building on the dock, where they are lifted off the track and affixed with sets of Japanese-gauge wheels.
Though its gauge may be different, Sakhalin's railroad remains as vital to the island's welfare as the Trans-Siberian Railroad is to the rest of Russia. And so, in case you might wonder why the cost of railroad transportation is so high on the island of Sakhalin, remember that in addition to the cost of maintaining a specialized rail ferry system from the mainland, the Sakhalin Railroad authority has to contend with the upkeep of this costly wheel-change operation, along with the maintenance of miles of endemic track and a fleet of specially designed narrow-gauge locomotives.
Sakhalin resists temporary worker plans
By Nonna Chernyakova
The Sakhalin Oblast administration is resisting a federal plan to gradually empty the island's struggling northern cities, replacing them with short-term workers on major oil projects.
The federal government plans on July 1 to start rotating temporary oil workers and others to the north, Sakhalin administration officials said. Each shift will stay for a month or so before returning home.
Meanwhile, the federal government has been encouraging emigration from the island and allowing the northern cities' economies to stagnate.
People have been leaving at a steady rate from the Oblast's 59 islands, which ring the southern end of the Sea of Okhotsk. As of 1992, 719,200 people lived in the Sakhalin region, according to the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk newspaper. By Jan. 1 of this year, the population had dropped to 620,000.
According to a forecast by the Sakhalin Oblast Migration Service, there will be only 586,000 people left in Sakhalin and Kurile islands by the year 2000 (the Kuriles are part of Sakhalin Oblast).
The government says it is too expensive to maintain the previous system of paying allowances to people who live in harsh northern conditions. Thus it has helped pay for apartments on the mainland for Sakhalin residents.
The northern end of Sakhalin Island has been the hardest by economic deprivation. Much of the population is either leaving the island or moving south, driven by hard times and the destructive 1995 earthquake. Middle Sakhalin towns such as Makarov, Poronaisk, and even the big port of Kholmsk are almost dead, said Victoria Nikulnikova, a political analyst for the daily Sovetsky Sakhalin newspaper.
Alexander Turinov, an economist and head of the Sakhalin Oblast Inter-Regions Department, said the once-successful port is in a deplorable state because of the decline of manufacturing. High prices both consumer goods and food are also driving people out.
"Right now, we cannot really help the regions, because as you know, everything depends on finances," Turinov said.
Nikulnikova said people who have no jobs aren't willing to stake their future on the hope of petro-dollars. "Besides, people have to live until the [oil] projects start working," she said.
Igor Andreyev, the head of the Sakhalin Migration Service said in an interview with the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk newspaper that 53 percent of the residents live below the poverty level, and it will take 10 to 13 years to improve this.
(In Moscow only 37 percent of population lives below the poverty level, and it will take about seven years for the relative economic bloom to start there.)
Other factors may discourage people from staying in Sakhalin. Until recently, the Russian government considered Sakhalin Oblast a northern territory, and paid local residents extra money for living in such harsh conditions. Now the government is thinking of removing this status from some Sakhalin areas, Nikulnikova said.
Zoya Medvedeva, a spokeswoman for the Sakhalin Economic Committee, said the oblast administration does its best trying to keep people in Sakhalin, contrary to federal plans.
"We came up with an alternative program to the government's," Medvedeva said.
The government says that because Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is on the same latitude as Sochi, on the Black Sea, residents shouldnÒt get an allowance for living in northerly conditions. Medvedeva disputes this.
"They should understand that even if our zone is on the Sochi latitude, it is extremely uncomfortable for living, and the long cold winter is not the only northern factor," she said.
The oblast administration has high expectation of the shelf oil projects. But, she said, "They will only come into real effect in three or four years."
BRIEFS Foreign trade grows in Far East
Foreign trade between Far Eastern territories and neighboring countries has increased by nearly 150 percent over the past years, according to the Svobodny Sakhalin newspaper.
In 1997, total trade for the region increased by 6 percent over the previous years, totaling over $4 billion. Primorye led the region with nearly $2 billion in trade in 1997. Khabarovsky Krai had $938 million in 1997, while Sakhalin Oblast had $935 million. Among the main trading partners of the region are Japan, China, South Korea, and the U.S. Trade with South Korea has seen the greatest increases, with over $700 million in trade last year.
Attracting foreign investment is still considered to be problematic. Only a third of all registered joint ventures are reportedly to be in operation, the newspaper reported. Sakhalin Oblast attracted some $410 million in investment last year. Sakhalin Oblast is officially poor
Sakhalin Oblast is officially considered an impoverished region of Russia, Rybak Sakhalina recently reported.
In the oblast, the average resident receives less than 1.5 times the federal poverty level wage (502 new rubles, or $84, per month). Along with Sakhalin, other regions considered to be impoverished are Dagestan, Adygeya, Karacharevo-Cherkessiya, Kabardino-Balkaria, Kalmykia, the Mary El Republic, Altaisky Krai, Khakhasia, Tuva, Buryatia, Chitiniskaya Oblast, the Jewish Autonomous Region, and Chukotsky Autonomous Region.
The wealthiest residents in the country live in Moscow, with a per capita average of nine times the poverty-level wage, the newspaper reported.
Students say teacher demanded money
Students at a Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk university filed a complaint with the Sakhalin Oblast Federal Security Bureau saying a teacher demanded money for credits.
An investigation confirmed the information, the FSB told Interfax-Eurasia news agency. At exam time the teacher demanded that his students pay varying amounts of cash for credit, without checking their comprehension of the subjects he taught. The man, whose name police are withholding, was detained on charges of bribery. A criminal case is under way.
Ministry must give up boats
In accordance with presidential and governmental decrees, the Ministry of Agriculture must give its fish protection employees and boats to the Federal Border Guard service by March 20.
Sakhalin officials fear, however, that the transfer will strip the region's workforce of skilled labor and will not resolve fishing conflicts in international waters, as it was supposed to do. Unconditional implementation of the decrees would break international laws, said Deputy Director of the Sakhalin Department of Fish and Water Management Sergei Siyanov, because warships used by the Ministry are not allowed outside Russia's economic zone.
Poronaisk high in disease
The city of Poronaisk leads Sakhalin Oblast in reported hepatitis, tuberculosis and syphilis cases, the Sovietsky Sakhalin newspaper reported.
The syphilis rate has risen 52.3 percent since 1996, and the disease has been detected in all age groups -- from children to 70-year-old men.
The region's highly transient populace of seamen, fishermen, and traders also accounts for the outbreak, according to officials in the region. The local government tried to arrange for compulsory medical examination for some residents, a decision that was appealed by the state prosecutor because of human rights infringements. The city police will now try to prosecute people who knew they were sick but infected others anyway.
New oil report published
The first issue of the Pacific Russia Oil and Gas Report is scheduled to debut in April, published by Seattle-based Russian Far East Advisory Group LLC.
This journal will be a quarterly briefing for executives and other decision makers, covering current and future oil and gas projects of Sakhalin Island and other regions of the Russian Far East, of the Republic of Sakha(Yakutiia), and of Eastern Siberia.
Additionally, the briefing will report on projects in the other regions of the Russian Far East and Eastern Siberia. It is produced by the same company that publishes the Russian Far East Update.
The first issue was scheduled to mail in April, and publication will continue on a quarterly basis. For more details or a complimentary issue, contact Elina Erlendsson, P.O. Box 22126, Seattle, WA, 98122, USA.
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