#14 - JRL 7301
Transitions Online
www.tol.cz
August 25, 2003
Russia: Sackcloth in Sakhalin
The sudden death of the Sakhalin governor leaves behind an island on the
brink of an oil boom.
By Yuri Govorushko
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia--More than 1,000 rescuers in the Far East searched for three days before finding the wreckage of an Mi8 helicopter that was carrying Sakhalin Governor Igor Farkhutdinov and 19 others when it disappeared from radar on 20 August. The crash debris and bodies were located on the southern part of Kamchatka peninsula on 23 August. There were no survivors.
One hour after taking off from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatski, the helicopter vanished from radar screens. Traveling with Farkhutdinov were his aide, Yuri Shubalov, and press secretary, Dmitri Donoskoy, along with several officials from the Sakhalin administration and three local businessmen. The flight was headed for Severo-Kurilsk on the northern Kuril Island for a routine check on Kuril's readiness for the coming winter.
The government has asked Emergency Minister Sergey Shoigu to lead an ad hoc investigatory commission into the crash. Just hours after the discovery of the wreckage on 23 August, Shoigu had visited the crash site and made an initial inspection with members of the new commission, who had flown in from Moscow. Then, he would only say that this catastrophe begs many questions," but on 25 August he added that a " 40-kilometer course shift [probably] triggered the crash, [which was] arguably aggravated by heavy weather."
Earlier theories--that the helicopter's equipment had malfunctioned or that it was an act of terrorism--were abandoned after an examination of the wreckage. Both of the flight recorders have been recovered and sent to Moscow for analysis. The chair of the Intergovernmental Aviation Committee, Tatiana Anodina, said that because the recorders are in good shape, decoding them will not take long.
Shoigu said the investigation will be far shorter than the usual month-long process and predicted that an official cause will likely be settled on by 29 August.
Funeral services are expected to take place in Sakhalin's central city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk on 27 August. A three-day mourning period in Sakhalin has also begun.
DEJA VU
In April 2002, the governor of vast Krasnoyarsky Kray and former chair of the RF Security Council Alexander Lebed died under similar circumstances. He was on an official trip in an Mi-8, the most popular Russian helicopter. The machine was flying exceedingly low, only 30 to 40 meters above the ground, and collided with power line. In that crash, the pilots, who survived, were found guilty of "insufficient preparedness for the flight."
While the crash details are being sorted out in Moscow, in Sakhalin, they are sorting out the political details. First Deputy Governor Ivan Malakhov has temporarily assumed the duties of the governor's office, but the date of the next elections has not yet been set. Vacationing deputies of the Sakhalin Duma are likely to return ahead of schedule to convene an emergency session to decide that and other questions arising from Farkhutdinov's death.
Already decided is Igor Farkhutdinov's legacy. The death of this experienced leader is a significant loss for this unique island region.
Before becoming governor of Sakhalin in 1995, Farkhutdinov was the mayor of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. It was Farkhutdinov who fostered the ambitious and--in Russia-- unprecedented oil and gas projects. He backed these initiatives from the very beginning and helped stimulate an influx of overseas investment into the island economy, all of which fostered Russian partnerships with companies like Exxon, Shell, Mitsubishi, and Mitsui to develop the oilfields on the Continental Shelf.
The business of fuel extraction has brought a much-needed injection of money to the impoverished Sakhalin economy; the $10 billion investment by Sakhalin Energy International Consortium--a group with Japanese and Russian partners led by the British and Dutch company, Shell--in a huge pipeline and three drilling platforms was the largest single investment in Russian history.
With all the planned drilling and exploration going on in the waters around Sakhalin, there is expectation that foreign investment in the island could eventually exceed $30 billion. Sakhalin's inhabitants--whose long history of hardship is tied to the very climate and geography that is now paying off so richly--are no doubt hoping, even as they mourn, that Farkhutdinov's successor shares his talent for deal making.
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