Image of Northern Utopia More Myth than Fact

In response to "Window on the World," by Ilya Mogilyovkin.





Editor,


I was surprised by the Utopian nature of Ilya Mogilyovkin's article on the Russian North. It seems to me that to talk of creating a super-industrialized region in an area which is currently struggling to avoid infrastructural collapse is at the very least premature, and flies in the face of reality. Much of the Russian Far North and Northeast has become a land of broken dreams, with Russians once attracted by large salaries and other benefits going south in droves and leaving ghost towns behind them.


If there is to be investment, and if it is not, as is usually the case, used to line the pockets of local bureaucrats, it may eventually stem the drift south, but this could take decades. And how will the manpower and dedication be found for such projects as the "Polar Siberian Railway," a project which makes the Baikal Amur Mainline sound like a vicar's tea party?


Assuming the spirit of communism returns, and such grandiose projects are carried out, has Mr. Mogilyovkin asked himself how desirable this will all be for the environment? The richest area in natural resources, and the most developed, the northwestern Kola Peninsula, is now an ecological disaster area thanks to years of sulphur dioxide pollution, power station accidents, etc. Can we really expect these phenomena to be absent in the rest of the North? And will oil exploitation be insured against further disasters like that at Usinsk?


In the form in which it is presented here, this project would have made Stalin proud. Is this kind of development the price the world, and Russia, is going to have to pay for the revival of its economy?


Bob Greenall


Moscow





Nuclear Quandary


In response to "U.S. Democrats to Lose Best Defense: Nunn" by Martin Walker.





Editor,


Martin Walker was right to say that the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has helped to finance the reduction of the former Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal. But Senator Nunn and Russian defense leaders would declare with one voice that the program has not "funneled some $400 million a year into the Soviet and Russian military."


At an international conference in Monterey, California, in August, Senator Nunn noted that the program was possible only because its funds were to be dispersed to American contractors to provide goods and services to facilitate both dismantlement of nuclear arms and their safe transfer from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus for dismantlement in Russia. At the conference General Yevgeny Maslin led the Russian representatives in expressing regret at these same provisions.


Nonetheless, all sides agreed that this program, which is partly under the Republican budget ax and not "immune from cuts," has helped denuclearize three states of the former Soviet Union and helped the fulfillment of U.S.-Soviet bilateral agreements for reducing nuclear weapons. They also agreed that the program should continue. Whether or not his working model of U.S. -Russian cooperation will continue, now that Senator Nunn will not be present to lend it support, is another question.


Darrell Stanaford, Visiting Researcher


Institute for World Economy


and International Relations


Honest Appraisals


In Response to "The Rise and Fall of Moscow's Expat Royalty," by Mark Ames





Editor,


I am so sick of reading the letters of wounded but righteous foreigners declaring their admiration for Russia and her people and desire to blend in as equals. These people are to be applauded, but no matter how much they tell us about their attitude to Russia, it will not change the way the community thinks or behaves. The visible foreigners in Moscow are those who do not or cannot blend in and, as any minority group in any society, must blame the enemy without. As anyone who was here in the '80s knows, the expats then were revered and had access to privileges that no Russian could ever imagine. Russians were barred from Western supermarkets, did not have luxury cars, housekeepers, drivers or nannies, and were never seen dining in what were then hard currency restaurants. Most Westerners -- the vast majority -- who worked for large organizations got used to this rarified atmosphere, and their attitude to "the natives" was and still is benign sympathy coupled with hearty disdain and, recently, envy. So, congratulations to Mr. Ames for an honest appraisal of the community as a species.


Irene Chernenko


Manager, Moscow Office


N.H. Dunn Commodities





Seeking Publicity


In response to "Lawmaker: 'Cult Plans Mass Suicide.'"Associated Press.





Editor:


Vitaly Savitsky -- deputy head of the State Duma's committee on public and religious organizations who visited the Siberian religious movement led by Vissarion -- wrote "that once [the leader of the movement] runs out of funds, he will probably organize a mass suicide to prevent revolt by his followers." But his claims about the ideas and financial habits of the head of the organization, Vissarion, is not based on fact.


Savitsky is interested in publicity before elections, and the serious, but unproved, accusations against Vissarion helped him attain this.


The history of cults such as Aum Shinrikyo caused too many people to believe that all non-Christian religious movements are potential terrorists. But politicians, journalists and Christians, must be more accurate and cautious in spreading information.


Yakov Krotov


Moscow