#8 - JRL 7282
Irish Times
August 9, 2003
The fate of the Chukchi and their reindeer is in Abramovich's hands
An indigenous people from Russia's far east has been saved by the whim of a billionaire - for now at least.
Chris Stephen reports from Kanchalan village in Chukotka

The little cluster of yarangas, squat tents made from reindeer skins, looks from the air like a scattering of sugar cubes on the great green billiard table that is the tundra of Chukotka province.

It is about as far away from the flash boardroom of Chelsea Football Club as it is possible to be - yet like the West Londoners - they owe their existence to Russian tycoon Roman Abramovich.

In a story to warm the hearts of multi-billionaires everywhere, the yarangas, and the native Chukchi who live in them, have been saved from extinction by Abramovich.

Three years ago he arrived in this dirt-poor province, as far-flung from Moscow as it is possible to be without falling off the map, to find the native Chukchi facing extinction. A decade after the collapse of the system of subsidies that supported them in Communist times, the Chukchi had been forced to eat their once prized reindeer herds simply to stay alive.

Reindeer numbers dwindled from half a million to barely 150,000.

Thousands of Chukchi had thrown in the towel - like America's Red Indians, they headed for the grim towns on the coast and a half-life of drink and depression. The Chukchi stomach is not made for alcohol, one reason why so many turned their lives inside-out through drink.

"Before the changes, things were desperate," says Oleg Petrovich, the dimuitive leader of the village of Kanchalan. "We had nothing to live on, so we killed our reindeer to eat the meat."

Enter Abramovich. How he made his billions, through a string of rigged auctions of state-owned oil fields, remains hugely controversial. His decision to become governor of the province may have had as much to do with politics - and the tax breaks he gets from being here - as noblesse oblige. Nevertheless, the effect has been profound. He has quite simply saved a native culture from extinction.

Elected governor in 2000, he struck a deal with Petrovich and other head
herdsmen: If they started breeding their herd, rather than eating them, he would pay them a monthly wage.

Petrovich jumped at the chance.

Next, Abramovich began rebuilding the decayed support structure of villages and river jetties, down which the Chukchi once sent reindeer meat to market.

Then Abramovich brought in the kind of vehicles needed for a province so remote that it has no roads.

Hundreds of jeeps, vans, trucks and Cold-War era armoured personnel carriers were bulk bought, then sent four thousand miles east in what is still called The Great Convoy.

They have given the Chukchi mobility, letting them move people, supplies and reindeer through the barren wastes which are snowbound for eight months of the year with temperatures as low as minus 50 degrees.

And now, once again, the yaranga's are springing up across the emptiness. These tents are superbly designed to deal with the climate.

Each has a fire permanently going in the middle. Some of the smoke curls up through a hole in the roof but much remains inside. This is annoying for strangers but essential to continuously coat the skins that form the tent's inner wall.

All of which means Petrovich keeps his love affair with his yaranga.

The yaranga's are moved about once every four months. For the rest of the time, the women, children and the elderly stay put.

The men in the tribe meanwhile stay with the reindeer herd, 1,500 strong, which moves in a slow circle using the yaranga circle as its hub. Supplies and school for the children are at Kanchalan, reachable by twice a month flights laid on by Abramovich's private fleet of bright orange helicopters.

Reindeer numbers have begun to increase. Confidence is returning. At Kanchalan village, half a day's walk, a Canadian company is building a timber-framed school for the children of herdsmen spread over hundreds of miles.

One of the few Britons to know Chukotka is Rupert Wilbraham, organiser of Ice Challenge, a failed attempt last year to get a specially-adapted vehicle to drive across the pack ice from Alaska.

"I was there 10 years ago, it was a desperate place," says Mr Wilbraham. "I can only see positive things in what Abramovich has done. The place has massive potential for fishing and hunting."

Chukotka is not out of the woods yet: Simply pouring in money has not seen the herds recover. For one thing, breeding is a slow business. For another, herdsmen who leave rarely return.

"It is a hard life and a special life," says Petrovich. "You have to be born into it. Those who leave it do not often come back."

Support for the Chukchi is mirrored in the region's towns, where new hospitals, sports halls, even museums, are being built so far that Turkish guest workers have to be imported to do the construction.

Another benefit of having a billioinare governor is that corruption is
non-existent: Abramovich simply has no need to do the kind of petty deals that have stained the reputation of governors elsewhere in Russia.

But behind the pleasure is anxiety: Abramovich announced this week he will not run again as governor.

He admitted that: "The work is tiring, I get much more pleasure from football than from being a governor."

If he leaves, his billions will leave too, along with the administrators he has brought in from his oil company, Sibneft, who are slashing red tape.

"Their enthusiasm will last as long as Abramovich stays," says anthropologist Niobe Thompson, of Cambridge University, who is here studying the Chukchi. "That's the big question. It is time to stop thinking about what Abramovich has done and start asking what comes next when he leaves."

The answer may not be very encouraging. Chukotka has begun to blossom - it is home to the world's biggest gold discovery made last year, again by a Canadian company - but industry is otherwise undeveloped.

And Abramovich has come up against a federal government that insists on keeping laws that require foreigners and even other Russians to get special permits before setting foot in the province.

The rule dates from Cold War days when Chukotka was the front line with the United States, 80 miles away in Alaska.

The war is over but central government remains intractable, starving the region of investment because the sort of people who could develop it cannot even set foot in the place.

But Thompson shares Petrovich's enthusiasm: "I am optimistic," he says. "This place has changed so much that I'm almost nostalgic for the way it was two years ago."

"The young people have stopped trying to leave. They see a future here. They see a new Chukotka that they want to be a part of."