The Moscow Times reports that UNESCO are becoming so concerned about the environmental safety of Lake Baikal that they are considering putting the Lake, already a World Heritage site, on their “in danger” list. And not just that, but they may even do so without the permission of the Russian government:

An evaluation team from the World Heritage Committee plans to visit the lake in late October and make a final recommendation on the designation, said Mechtild Rossler, the World Heritage Center’s Europe director.

“We’ve made our position to the Russian authorities clear” about the threats facing the lake, Rossler said by telephone from Paris. “The question is whether they want to take their obligations as signatories to the World Heritage Convention seriously.”

Up until now, a wood pulping mill in Baikalsk had been the main environmental problem facing Baikal, but UNESCO is becoming increasingly worried about the impact that the building of an estimated 500 illegal homes on the lakefront, and the proposed construction of an oil pipeline just north of the lake, the route of which is so close to the shore that:

“By Transneft’s own assessment, an oil leak along the present route could reach the lake in 20 minutes. The technology doesn’t exist to respond to a leak that quickly,” said Greenpeace’s Vazhenov.

The Pearl of Siberia, as Baikal is often called, is a place that is close to the heart of many Russians, a site of which they are extraordinarily, and justifiably, proud. Politically, it is by far the most sensitive environmental issue in Russia today. As in so many Soviet bloc countries, environmental movements were the fore-runners of protest against communist government, and moves to protect Baikal were an instrumental part of the development of environmental groups in the Soviet Union. Despite the government’s attempts in recent years to demonise environmental groups - particularly foreign groups, such as Greenpeace - an issue of this magnitude will, I believe, be viewed sympathetically by all Russians, and not just Siberians.

The Russian government is often - and rightly - accused of being in thrall to the oil industry but, in this case, I cannot imagine that they will let an oil pipeline run so close to the Lake, even if the cost of developing a different route does increase Transneft’s costs. In the face of a high level of public concern, for the Russian government to be seen to sitting idly by while greedy developers destroy Russia’s natural jewel would be a huge blow to its prestige and, if an external organisation were to so publicly shame them, the Russian government would be humiliated.

Can you imagine ambassador from the US, or an EU country saying this?  They’d be fired before you could even blink.

Russian Ambassador to Latvia Viktor Kalyuzhny thanked Cardinal Janis Pujats, head of Latvia’s Roman Catholics, for the latter’s criticism of the recent gay and lesbian parade in Riga, the Baltic Times newspaper reports.

The paper quoted the Russian diplomat as saying that it would be impossible to organize such a parade in Russia, as “it is anti-human.”

He also criticized authorities’ decision to allow the march, which took place on July 23.

GayRussia.ru are hoping to organise a parade in Moscow for next summer, by the way, but they’ve met with a negative reaction from Yuri Luzhkov, the city’s Mayor:

"If I receive such a letter, I will refuse," Luzhkov told the Interfax news agency late Friday, explaining that he "guards the Muscovites’ interests, and the capital’s inhabitants would be categorically set against such an initiative."

There is still a long way to go for gay rights in a country that only legalised homosexuality in 1993, and until 1999 classified it as a form of mental ilness. 

Having said that, though, from my own private observations, acceptance of homosexuality does seem to be increasing.  In the Siberian city of Irkutsk, for example, a major local nightclub used to hold well attended fortnightly gay nights.

An expedition has discovered the wreckage of an American bomber from the Second World War - in the middle of Siberia, reports RIA Novosti.

The wreckage of a World War II U.S. bomber has been discovered in the Siberian republic of Yakutia, a local official said Thursday.

[…] The expedition in Siberia discovered parts of a fuselage, propellers, a bomb rack, parts of the cockpit panel and engine, armor plates, machineguns, and pilot’s personal items.

The team has not found the remains of the pilot or his documents, though.

The discovery of an American plane from that era in central Siberia isn’t actually all that unexpected, as during the WW2 the US used to send bombers to Russia along a route that crossed Alaska and Siberia.

The Guardian newspaper has an alarming special report, complete with huge picture on its front page, about how global warming is affecting Siberia.  Badly, is their conclusion.  And, as the permafrost in Siberia will melt extremely rapidly once the process is begun, this could have dramatic and negative consequences for the rest of the world:

The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world’s largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.

It is a scenario climate scientists have feared since first identifying "tipping points" - delicate thresholds where a slight rise in the Earth’s temperature can cause a dramatic change in the environment that itself triggers a far greater increase in global temperatures.

[…] The researchers found that what was until recently a barren expanse of frozen peat is turning into a broken landscape of mud and lakes, some more than a kilometre across.

Dr Kirpotin told the magazine the situation was an "ecological landslide that is probably irreversible and is undoubtedly connected to climatic warming". He added that the thaw had probably begun in the past three or four years.

More on the peat bogs here.

English newspaper The Sun reports that Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich is offering two of his star players the chance of the holiday of a lifetime… in Siberia. 

A source said: “Roman treated them to an amazing holiday on his yacht during the summer. But next year the reward on offer is to go and see his family roots in Russia.

“He’s really keen to let the lads see the area where people regard him as a hero. Roman’s been a massive contributor to the economy.”

Running a website being entitled siberianlight.net, I could hardly recommend that they do anything but accept Abramovich’s offer to see one of the most beautiful regions on the planet.  It’s just a shame that, if they go during the summer break, they’ll miss all of the snow.

President Putin has just signed a decree authorising the transportation of terrorists (read: people from Chechnya and the surrounding regions) to Siberia. 

[U]nder jurisdiction of the edict are people who are sentenced for "terror, diversion, rebellion, assault of state bodies, participation in illegal armed formations, hostage taking, and human trafficking." RTR [a Russian TV station] commented that "prisoners accused (or convicted) of terrorism and their accomplices should be separated by thousands of kilometers."

Presumably this decree is meant to reduce the chance that any terrorists/rebels from Chechnya will be able to collaborate with local prison guards sympathetic to their cause, but more likely this decision will act like a red rag to a bull among Chechens.  It’s not just the historic allusions to Siberian gulags which spring to mind, but Stalin’s mass deportation of a million or more Chechens during the Second World War.  Chechen rebels are going to have a field day telling their own people and the world at large that Putin is ethnically cleansing Chechnya of its people, and sending them off to a murderous, wintry exile.

Hat tip: A Step at a Time

David McDuff notes that today is a national day of mourning in Estonia, marking the 1941 mass deportations to Siberia, and quotes from a factsheet provided by the Estonian government:

On the night of 14 June, families were woken up in the middle of the night, given a few hours to pack, taken to the train stations, and separated without warning. Women, children and elderly people who were to be deported for 20 years were sent to Siberia, while men were sent to forced labour camps in the far north. The total number of deportees on 14 June was equivalent to about 1 per cent of the Estonian population. […]

Towards the end of the 1950s, survivors were granted the opportunity to return to their homeland. However, approximately only one in four June deportees benefited from this decision. It is known that at least 6,957 persons never returned home because they were either murdered or tortured to death, starved to death in prison camps or during their forced migration, or simply went missing.

Amira over at The Golden Road to Samarqand has been inspired to do some research into Siberia, and she’s posted details of a few great websites about Siberia.  It’s the kind of thing that, given the name of this blog, I should be doing myself, except I keep getting distracted by events in Moscow.

My favourite site has to be the Ethnologue Report for Russia, which has a list of the many, many languages still alive (some just barely) in Russia today.

A couple of week’s ago in the Carnival of the Revolutions, I noted that there are still 12 million slaves in the world.  Thankfully, there are people out there who are trying to do something about it. 

Andrej Mucic, for example, will cycle 7,000 miles across Siberia, from Magadan in the Far East to Moscow in the West, to raise money for the American Anti-Slavery Group.

"I chose Siberia for a few reasons: (1) the legacy of the gulags, (2)
the English word for slave comes from the word Slav, and (3) many
Russians today are trafficked as slaves. I want to raise awareness in
the US about this issue and also in Russia. I’d like the Russians to
know that their suffering is being noticed by people very far away."

Visit his site, where you can find further details of Andrej’s route, and information on how you can donate.

The Guardian today reports on the increasing threat that Siberian forest fires are causing to the global environment.

Fires in the Siberian forests - the largest in the world and vital to the planet’s health - have increased tenfold in the last 20 years and could again rage out of control this summer, Russian scientists warn.

They say they have neither the money nor the equipment to control or extinguish the huge forests fires often started illegally and deliberately in the Russian far east by rogue timber firms who plan to sell cheap lumber to China.

I remember a couple of huge fires when I was in Irkutsk, a couple of springs ago.  You could occasionally see the smoke hazing up the atmosphere, and I’d hear about how helicopters were dumping water on the flames to try and extinguish them if they got too close to a village or town. 

More scary to me, though, were the small fires that used to break out all over town in tinder dry parks and patches of wasteland.  People never seemed to do anything to put them out, but instead left them to burn themselves out.  Coming from the green and somewhat damp environment of England the idea of letting a fire burn itself out in the middle of a city seemed to be a trifle dangerous to me, but I figure it can’t have been that dangerous, otherwise someone would have done something to put them out, right?  Right?