Category Archives: Sakhalin
A Day Somewhere Near Poronaysk
Yesterday I spent the day in a place called Gastello, situated just outside Poronaysk about 280km north of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. I’d travelled up the night before on the same train I took to Nogliki in July, only this time I wasn’t in the business class carriage. My travel was courtesy of one of the oil companies, who for security reasons reserve an entire carriage at the front of the train and employ a moody security guard with hideous shoes to ensure nobody comes in who isn’t suppposed to.
The journey to Poronaysk takes 7 hours, at an average speed of 40km per hour, and the train gets in shortly before midnight. The train back from Poronaysk also leaves at around midnight, thus cleverly ensuring that few outsiders see the place in daytime; I am led to believe that there are few completer shitholes on Sakhalin Island than Poronaysk, which is nothing more than a small fishing port. I found myself sharing a compartment with two Russian men, neither of whom could speak English, which was good in a way because I could practice my Russian, something I’ve not done properly for a while. Sometime before nightfall the guard came around asking if anyone wanted to play him at chess, and I unwisely accepted. Twenty minutes, two games, and two wins to him later, he picked up his board and pieces and went off in search of some decent opposition.
The drive from Poronaysk to Gastello takes about 20-30 minutes, and drivers have two options: drive along the road and risk destroying your suspension, or drive along the beach which has been washed smooth by the sea. It says something about the state of Russian roads that people prefer driving along a beach than taking the highway. At first when our driver whisked us onto the beach, which was bathed in the light of a full moon, we wondered where the hell he was going, but on Sakhalin Island it is wise to not worry about strange behaviour and better to just allow events to unfold. Needless to say we arrived where we were supposed to.
As our train back was leaving after midnight, we thought it would be a good idea to pop into the local hotel in Poronaysk and have a beer in the small bar located inside. Unsurprisingly for a Wednesday night in Russia, the place was full of people – almost all in their 20s – drinking heavily. Equally unsurprisingly, after a few minutes one of the young men, who was completely drunk, wanted me to join him and his mate at the bar. The invitation came after the following conversation, which took place in Russian:
Him: Ah, Michael Jordan!
Me: Eh? WTF? Oh, yeah, Michael Jordan. Ha ha!
Him: Something something Michael Jordan.
Me: Do you know Michael Jordan?
Him: Yes, I know him very well.
Me: Oh. Splendid.
Him: Something something facists.
Me: Eh? WTF?
Him: Facists! You know, Hitler!
Me: Oh, yeah. Facists. Yeah, facists. Yeah.
For reasons which my readers might find strange, I declined his invitation to join him, which led to him twice coming up to me afterwards and, clearly offended, say things to me which made our initial conversation sound like a public reading of Shakespeare. It was in this bar that I tried to order a vodka and orange, but they had run out of orange juice. It seems they ran out of change as well, because the woman behind the bar made no attempt to return my 100 Roubles to me in the 15 minutes between me handing her a 500 Rouble note and my leaving to catch the train.
The journey back entailed me having to do one of those things I’d always hoped I’d never have to do: enter a 4-berth Russian railway carriage which has 3 people sleeping in it already, and the spare bed – inevitably a top bunk – is piled high with the others’ luggage, the space between the beds has a suitcase in it, and there is no sign of your own bedding. At least the oil company’s carriage had people in it more patient and understanding than a carriage full of ordinary Russians trying to sleep off a hangover, so after a fair bit of clambering, heaving, and sweating, I managed to get 3 hours sleep.
Sakhalin’s Governor Resigns
Following the poor response of the local authorities to last week’s earthquake on Sakhalin, the regional governor has been forced to resign:
Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted Tuesday the resignation of Ivan Malakhov as governor of the Sakhalin Region in the country’s Far East following last week’s tragic earthquake.
…
President Putin appointed Alexander Khoroshavin [the mayor of Okha] acting governor of the region and also nominated him for the post.
After hearing a report from Minister for Emergency Situations Sergei Shoigu, President Putin criticized the relief operation and efforts by local authorities and, in particularly, the work of former Governor Malakhov.
The president ordered the minister to investigate the poorly organized relief effort, namely, why adults and children were forced to sleep on concrete floors in tents, and why local authorities and the governor failed to visit the city of Nevelsk, which was most affected by the quake.
For those of you who have been dozing at the back, regional governors in Russia are not elected: they are appointed by the president.
Of course, this wouldn’t be Russia without volumes of intrigue and speculation surrounding the resignation:
Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and one-time Kremlin insider, said Malakhov fell out of favor with Rosneft, the company Belkovsky said helped the governor take the helm of the region.
“Malakhov wasn’t persistent enough in the battle against foreigners,” said Belkovsky, citing what he said were well-connected sources.
Malakhov forged ties with the foreign companies operating on the island instead of lobbying for Rosneft’s interests, he said, adding that any new candidate will be Rosneft friendly.
…
Gazeta.ru reported that a battle between Gazprom and Rosneft over Sakhalin oil and gas riches was the real cause of Malakhov’s departure.
Khoroshavin, the new acting governor is close to Rosneft, and he and Rosneft head Sergei Bogdanchikov have known each other for a long time, Gazeta.ru reported. They worked together at the Okhanneftegazdobycha oil company in early 1980s, it said.
Khoroshavin is the mayor of Okha, a town of 30,000 on Sakhalin Island, which is also home to a major Rosneft office.
“You could say that Rosneft won a tactical victory over Gazrpom in Sakhalin,” political analyst Rostislav Turovsky was quoted by the news portal as saying. “Now it will have an advantage in the dispute over Sakhalin-3 and Sakhalin-4 deposits.”
Whatever is going on here, it is one hell of a way to run a country.
An Earthquake Hits Sakhalin Island
An earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale has hit Sakhalin Island near the town of Kholmsk, no doubt causing several thousand dollars worth of improvements. More seriously, one woman was killed in the nearby town of Nevel’sk when a roof collapsed. I wrote about my visit to both of these towns last October here.
There is mild confusion in the town of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. The oil companies, always with one eye on a potential lawsuit, sent all their employees home before the quake had completed a single oscillatory cycle. By contrast, the oilfield service providers refused to unlock their workers from their chains, cracked the whip harder, and laughed louder. On the way home I noticed a lot of Russians stood around outside their workplaces doing nothing and looking gormless. This marks a change from business as usual only by way of their physical location.
My mother-in-law has been watching the news from St. Petersburg, and has rung up to inquire as to our safety. So far, the wallpaper is doing a good job of holding our apartment together and continues to look strong.
I wrote about Sakhalin’s earthquakes in a less glib fashion here.
Dark Clouds
Adjectives Amended
My pleasant, reliable, and sober minibus driver this morning managed to write off our minibus by driving it into a ditch.
The thumping sound you can hear in the background is my head whacking my desk. At least he passed the breathalyser test.
Two Days Somewhere Near Nogliki
I’m now back in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, having spent Monday and Tuesday up at the OPF near Nogliki.
The train journey to Nogliki was probably the best I’ve had on a Russian train, almost certainly because I was in the business class carriage. The differences between business class and ordinary class are as follows:
1. Two beds per carriage instead of four.
2. Small TV, albeit not showing anything most of the time. Just as everyone was going to bed, they put on an Antonio Banderas 4-in-1 special DVD, and they showed us the first 20 minutes of The 13th Warrior before stopping the disc and starting again from the beginning, at which point I switched it off.
3. Bedding comes as standard, as opposed to being an optional extra. They also provide a small towel in addition to the standard tea towel.
4. Food is provided in the form of a packed lunch. I didn’t realise this, and hence boarded the train in time-honoured tradition with provisions which would have served to feed the city of Troy during its 10-year siege. Anyway, I got the packed lunch on top, which contained bread, cheese, salami, yoghurt, soup, an apple, chocolate, tea, coffee, sugar, salt, pepper, plastic cutlery, and a bottle of cognac. The latter would have served well to help passengers get to sleep (or start a fight), but oilfield workers are now usually subject to alcohol tests when they disembark, the oil companies having found most of their workforce turning up completely ratarsed in the days when the Sakhalin projects were in their infancy. It is forbidden to take alcohol onto the accommodation camps or the offshore platforms, so we all had to leave the bottles unopened on the train. The return journey was a different matter though…
5. The interior decor is a bit nicer. You get a few extra lights and mirrors.
6. The toilets are cleaner, and they provide you with soap and toilet paper.
7. You get a little overnight bag containing a toothbrush, toothpaste, shoe horn, comb, etc.
8. Your carriage companion is an oilfield worker, as opposed to a toothless babushka, drunken soldier, or smelly old man. On the way up I shared a carriage with a member of a Scottish dredging crew, on the way back with a 25 year old Russian apprentice driller.
Other than that it was all pretty much the same as any other Russian train journey. The awful music, the lurching and rattling of the train, the inexplicable 20 minute stops in the middle of nowhere, the silly little net curtains which stop you seeing out the window, the strip of linen running the length of the corridor to protect the carpet. Ah, the memories!
So, after 14 hours and a reasonable night’s sleep, I got to Nogliki. From there three of us clambered aboard a Toyota Landcruiser and spent the next two and a half hours driving along a dirt road through endless forests and mountains, never once encountering a town or so much as a village. Eventually we arrived in a mosquito-infested swamp in which somebody had decided to build an Onshore Processing Facility. I think the nearest sizeable town was Nogliki which we’d left umpteen miles behind. If this place isn’t a replica of hell, it’s a damned good effort at one. The people I met there looked at me with hatred in their eyes when I told them I was only there for a two-day visit. They looked at me as if I’d just run off with their wife.
So I’m back in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk now, and boy am I glad.
Insane Russian Law #725493612
One of my employees is a pleasant, reliable, and sober young man in his 20s, who works for us as a minibus driver. Finding a pleasant, reliable, and sober young man to work as a driver in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is akin to finding a pleasant, reliable, and sober builder in West Wales.
Unfortunately, it looks as though we’re going to have to get rid of him. His driving license expires next month, and in order to renew it he needs a permanent local address, where he is registered with the Russian authorities. In any normal country, a permanent address means anywhere which you are living, including a place you are legitimately renting. But in Russia, you can only get registration at an address if you own the property, or you were born into that address, i.e. your parents owned it. Our driver is from Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, and was registered at his parents’ apartment for most of his life, but they sold the place and moved away, leaving him renting a place here. When they sold the place, they lost their registration at that address, and the new owners were entitled to register themselves there instead. My driver then found himself without a registered address in his home town, or indeed anywhere else.
In Russia, those who do not have a registered address are classed as homeless, or bums. In short, a tramp. That this chap has a job, a place to eat, and a bed to sleep in matters not to the Russian authorities: if he is not regsitered somewhere, he is homeless.
And if you are homeless, you cannot renew your driving license. And if he doesn’t have a driving license, he cannot work for me as a driver, and he loses his job. Insanity.
Summer in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk
I apologise for not having updated you all with what has been going on in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and its environs over the last few weeks, but I’ve been flat out at work.
During the winter it is difficult to get construction and maintenance work done on the oil and gas facilities in Russia, so during the summer everybody is running about like mad trying to get everything done before the snow comes. In addition, last week the first part of the gigantic LNG facility at Prigorodnoye south of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk was commissioned, using gas imported from an LNG tanker moored at the offload jetty. As the project is some way behind schedule, it was deemed a good idea to try to save time by commissioning some of the completed sections of the facility ahead of time. The pipeline which would supply the gas to the facility is not in place yet, so in order to commission the various parts they needed to import it, which marked the first time ever that Russia has imported LNG, by sending it backwards from the offloading jetty into the storage tanks (which are cooled to -160C under normal operating conditions). Exciting stuff, eh? Anyway, this period of LNG import required me to spend a considerable amount of time hanging round the site in case things went wrong. As it turned out, it went without a hitch, which is a major credit to the engineers in Sakhalin Energy.
The weather has varied from week to week between brilliant sunshine with bright blue skies and dreary low grey cloud. Temperatures have got up to 32C, and sometime in late May/early June the entire south of the island turned deep green and vegetation, which appeared from nothing in a matter of days, shot up to form an underbrush three feet deep. Grass on Sakhalin grows in metres per second, but the local authorities have not yet heard of lawnmowers. Instead vegetation, inlcuding grass, is kept at bay using gangs of men with strimmers. With the vegetation came the mosquitos, which are horrible massive things which sip on blood like my wife sips on Mai-Thais around swimming pools. They leave horrible itchy bites which take a few days to go away. A week or so back I bought myself a mountain bike so I could join a group who regularly ride the excellent trails and tracks around the city. Unfortunately, along these trails and tracks the mosquitos attacked me with such ferocity it left me wondering what these things eat when I’m not around.
This evening I am taking a 14-hour overnight train to a town called Nogliki, which is halfway up the island. From there I have a 3-hour trip by 4WD to an Onshore Processing Facility (OPF), which is only the third most remote such facility in the region. The other two require a plane trip from Nogliki to Chayvo yet further north, or a flight to Khabarovsk and a further 16-hours in a Kamaz truck. Sounds like I should convince my superiors to invest in a company helicopter. In any case, people tell me the train trip to Nogliki is entertaining, and judging by my previous adventures on Russian trains they are not making it up. I’m also expecting a whiff of nostalgia as I make my bed and buy my compulsory tea in a metal-framed glass from the babushka who terrorises the trains’ passengers into behaving.
So for the next few days I’m out of town, and depending on the state of the internet connection at the OPF, I might not be posting until late in the week. So in the meantime, I’ll leave you with some pictures I’ve taken over the last month or so with my new Canon 30D and EF 24-105 L IS USM lense. There are a couple of promotional shots I took of the new terrace bar at the Pacific Plaza Hotel, where my wife is the sales and marketing manager. I’ve included them just for the hell of it.
Now I’ve been here a while…
12 ways to tell you live in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk:
1) You call an 8-minute drive to work a commute.
2) Everyone you know works for one of six companies. Everyone’s salary is ultimately paid by one of two.
3) You find yourself describing the previous winter to newcomers. You find yourself exaggerating the depth of snow, the temperature, and practically everything else.
4) You find yourself asking such questions as “Can you buy a bike here?” or “Where can I buy a light bulb?”
5) You watch all your sports on TV after midnight.
6) You watch the latest blockbuster films 3 weeks before their release in the US. You are almost used to them having been recorded in a Malaysian cinema with a video camera.
7) You doubt anyone at home will believe you when you describe the Russian women.
8) If you are stationary at a junction for more than 90 seconds, you start complaining about the traffic.
9) Items on sale in the supermarket become topics of conversation.
10) Drinking in a nightclub until 7am is, for the first time since college, socially acceptable.
11) You have three dates permanently etched in your mind: next leave, date you leave for good, estimated date when Gazprom boots all the expats out.
12) Wars rage, governments fall, stock markets crash, trophies are won, kings are born, cities are destroyed…and you know nothing about any of it.
UPDATE
And a further 15, promoted from a comment courtesy of “BearBait”, who I was reliably told was supposed to be working today:
13) You think nothing of paying USD3000 for an apartment refurbished with leopard skin touches, a dodgy boiler, pneumatic door bolts and an alcoholic living in the stairwell.
14) You start to eat mayonnaise with everything.
15) You dont blink at paying USD10 for 4 dubious looking tomatoes in winter.
16) The smell of apartment stairwells is compellingly comforting.
17) Its suddenly completely normal to go camping in the middle of nowhere and meet 30 men in camo who want you to drink vodka shots, eat boiled eggs and salted tomatoes (grown in their dachas).
18) You describe the death toll in terms of construction accidents, road fatalities, icicle impalings and bear munchings.
19) You are no longer phased by swarthy men drinking their 2nd Baltika at 8am on your way to work.
20) If a Bubushka approaches when you are a queue you give her wide berth. You’ve been here too long when you shove back.
21) You always keep spare change for the incredibly jolly legless man at Dom Trgovli Rynok.
22) You plan your vacations around the melt season in April/May.
23) During home leaves you become overwhelmed in Tescos, then you see they sell Baltika and you buy it for nostalgia.
24) The first time you forgot to deactivate your apartments alarm 5 men in black armed with Kalashnikovs burst into your foyer.
25) You can discuss the finer points of the latest Uaz Patriot.
26) You walk carefully like a penguin all winter in Northfaces finest ice boots being overtaken by impossibly glamorous Russian ladies in skyscraper high heels.
27) You find a copy of your companies HSE safety measures from your induction and realise that you socialise in all the black zones.