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Despite the large-scale oil drilling in Sakhalin and the need for housing for foreign specialists, local architects complain they are left without jobs.

A few lucky ones help foreign firms to build houses on their projects, but 80 percent of the architects’ firms are without jobs, said Sakhalin Chief Architect Valery Klochkov.

“The full potential of the architects and designers won’t be needed here even into the distant future,” he said.

In the past, when ugly Soviet-type apartment blocks were erected everywhere, even in areas with seismic danger, some Russian architects were already thinking progressively. In 1988, the State Committee for Architecture commended Sakhalin architect Ivan Konorev’s project, called “the Flying Saucer” because of it’s UFO appearance. The committee was recommended its use in areas with the severe northern conditions.

The building he designed consisted of module-blocks of three meters square, which could be assembled into apartment buildings with a garden in the center. Thanks to its movable basement, designed like a ship’s hull, the building was resistant to earthquakes and avalanches. It could even be built on marshland.

“The number of blocks and design can vary,” said Konorev, who used principles of nomads’ tents in his design.

Even before the Neftegorsk earthquake, he was building this design.

“As if this man foresaw the Neftegorsk earthquake, he kept insisting on changing city planning in the north of Sakhalin,” Sakhalin newspaper Gubernskiye vedomosty wrote in August 1996.

Konorev was chief architect of Okha (78 kilometers north of Neftegorsk), and workers actually began building the project. The Okha authorities started to build a Flying Saucer for Russian oilers, but economic reforms cut off the money earmarked for the project. The building was abandoned.

However, experts still think that with some changes the project would work well for the island.

“It was an interesting project, especially for the northern Sakhalin,” Klochkov said. “Unfortunately, it was not implemented.”

Now there are new requirements for warmth protection and seismic resistance, but with modifications, Flying Saucers still could still be built, he said.

With the Sakhalin I and Sakhalin II oil projects, the foreign companies involved plan to build houses for their workers, but they do not use the local architects’ designs.

One problem with Russian design ideas may be cultural. Americans are used to living in houses, and apartments won’t satisfy some of them.

A month ago in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the American Sakhalin Energy Investment Company started to construct one-story American-designed houses for 48 families, along with 56 apartments, and 50 visitor units. The first phase of the $50 million project is planned to be finished by September 1998. The contractor is the Sfera-Ioca joint-stock company, which won the bid on construction and technical assistance.

Konorev charges that American project’s basements might not be safe for the Sakhalin conditions. “The houses can fall apart during an earthquake, or if the marshland goes up or down,” he said.

Anatoly Zalpin, general director of Sfera-Ioca, said this is simply untrue. “The most up-to-date methods are used in the project,” he said. “All the plans are reviewed by experts. Our specialists make sure that all the requirements are strictly followed.”

Klochkov said the proposed wooden houses are environmentally safe. As far as seismic and fire safety are concerned, he said, so far no one has found any faults.

Stephen Cravey, infrastructure manager for Sakhalin Engergy Investment, added that the houses his firm is building were designed to withstand winds of 100 miles per hour. Designers will use standards developed in earthquake-prone areas such as Los Angeles, Anchorage, and Sakhalin, he stated.

Klochkov said a few more foreign projects are expected to be implemented in Sakhalin. The Japanese Mitinoku Bank is building an office with the technical assistance of the Russian firm Grenada, using a Japanese architect. American firms will build a downtown recreation center for foreigners in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, while a Russian firm will provide only technical assistance. However, Klochkov still praised the oil development projects, adding that without them, there would have been no prospects for the area at all.Within the project Sakhalin I, there will be a village for oil workers in Nogliky area (500 kilometers north of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk). A bid for the general contractor of the area is about to be announced, said Alexander Kryazhkov, deputy director of Sakhalinmornefte-gasshelf, one of the four partners in the consortium managing the project.

“The general contractor will later hold bids for design and construction work,” Kryazhkov said.

He was optimistic about the future of Russian architects. “It is part of the agreement, he said, that 70 percent of work will be done by Russian enterprises.”

For that purpose he recently visited many companies and factories in Sakhalin, Primorye and Khabarovsky krais and created a database of the enterprises to be involved. “It is only in the survey stage,” he said. “The full swing will happen in 1998.”