From Siberia with Love

With Seasons Bright and Dark

2009-10-08T05:12:00.001-07:00

Last year I wrote of Sosnovka as “being in the epicenter of something great, of witnessing a movement coming into its own.” I wrote those words just one day before Misha Jones’ passing. Losing Misha, who held us together and pushed us forward in so many quiet ways, could so easily have brought discouragement, could have easily caused Sosnovka to stumble or fade with time. Instead, a stronger, more mature and more enduring Sosnovka has emerged.

The maturity we glimpsed this year at Sosnovka comes with the passing of seasons, both bright and dark. How easy it is to grow weary in this work, to lose oneself. But Sosnovka defies, linking us together and driving us forward with a million threads of friendship, laughter, and tears.

The defining moment of this year’s Sosnovka was without question the awarding of the first annual Misha Jones Award to Sergei Shapkhaev from Buryatia for his work to empower people in remote communities. Like Misha, Sergei never passes up a chance to help out a leader from a distant village, offering an encouraging word or piece of technical advice. The applause that erupted when Sergei’s name was announced for the award was intense and sustained, offering sweet release for hidden thoughts and emotions.

Sustained by memories of Misha’s wit, intellect, and life fully sacrificed for Russia’s people and wilderness, Sosnovka carries on. This year we welcomed participants from previously forgotten regions—Chukotka, Tuva, and the Jewish Autonomous Region. We rallied behind Aleksei and Sasha from Krasnoyarsk, brave defenders of the Angara River who were falsely accused of extremist activities this spring, but their names were cleared by the local prosecutor. We feverishly planned campaigns for the coming year and forged brave new partnerships between indigenous leaders and enviros. And yes, oh how we soaked up the beauty of fall in Primorye and cherished every moment in such rich company!

--RE--

2009-01-25T07:57:00.000-08:00

It is a time to
REnew hope,
REmake America, and
REjoin the world.

RE, a drop of golden sun indeed!

For the first time in several years, I was not embarrassed this week to travel abroad as an American. I did not hide my passport or disguise my accent. I even witnessed a group of Europeans offer spontaneous applause to the US. I nearly fell off my chair.

I traveled to Tromso, Norway, last week for the Arctic Frontiers Policy and Science conference. An event geared toward facilitating networking and high-powered connections on Arctic governance and commercial exploitation, enviros and indigenous were not the most welcome or integrated participants. But I nerded out on policy conversations and found distinct pleasure in playing a lefty role legitimized by the more radical--and acrimonious--Greenpeace representatives.

Arctic Norway in winter? Shockingly high prices, remarkably endearing people, and ironically beautiful in darkness.

Misha Jones, 1953-2008

2008-09-24T22:49:00.000-07:00

I received the news of Misha's death late Tuesday night Moscow time. Yesterday (Wed.), between meetings, all I could do was walk. Early on, I found myself in the center of Red Square, without knowing how I'd gotten there. I think I wanted to mourn Misha in the heart of Russia, but when I stood there, I realized, eto ne to. The real heart of the real Russia that Misha knew so well and loved as his own is far away, scattered in thousands of village kitchens, centered by hot tea and boiled potatoes. And so, I just kept walking, wherever my feet would take me. I probably covered 15 miles.

Misha was a mentor and a friend. There will be time in future days to muse on Misha's ideals and life work to empower local people in Russia. There will be time to enjoy good Mexican food and to reread the copy of Desert Solitaire that Misha gave me in Alaska. There may even be a time for a thoughtful reflection and a peaceful goodbye. But for now, Misha, the pain is great and you are dearly missed.

Souls Glimpsed and Souls Bared

2008-09-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

Much has been said and written about the Russian Soul. I will tell you a secret: to truly glimpse the poetic richness of the Russian Soul, you must be willing to not sleep, or at least to rally for the hours of 12-3am, when much happens. For those who know me well, you know this is not a natural feat ;), but one I gladly perform when in the company of such as these. The songs, oh the songs! The stories! The toasts! The laugher! And the tears.

Baikal Images

2008-09-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

(Note: images by Olga Moskvina, Marina Rikhvanova, Dima Lisitsyn and yours truly)
Did I mention that fall in Siberia is the sort of beautiful that is best described as painful? The majesty of the Creator's hand is undeniable ... To God be the glory, now and forever!

Gravitas, Loyalty, and Balconies

2008-09-21T05:38:00.000-07:00

It’s overwhelming really, the feeling of being in the epicenter of something great, of witnessing a movement coming into its own. An old friend asked me yesterday how we keep Sosnovka from getting stale, from becoming just another worthless conference, merely a travel opportunity for opportunistic types. The answer is in the truth that Sosnovka is just as much about relationships as it is about the actual work that we do. The trust and respect that connects Sosnovtsy runs deep, smoothing potential conflicts and inspiring us all to push harder and further than ever before. Friendships and professional relationships blur together and are compelled forward by the beauty of Russia’s wilds. This year, our backdrop was Lake Baikal, a place of indescribable beauty, both in-your-face and undeniably subtle. After four days of intense work and play with many of my professional heroes, the connection and loyalty I feel for these people is weighty.

What is Sosnovka? In 2006, I wrote this about Sosnovka in Altai:
Sosnovka is an annual meeting of all the top environmental activists from Siberia and the Russian Far East, with a few lawyer and policy types from Moscow thrown in for good measure. The conference is always a blur of intense strategy conversations and jovial social time. (To my great relief, the vodka consumption was mild this year.) Many of the Sosnovtsy are old friends who see each other once or twice each year, which means Day One of the conference involves a lot of who got married, who had kids, and who got divorced conversations. What a treat to now be a part of this merry band! Our strategy conversations were simultaneously broad and narrow, covering the hottest topics, both new and old: forestry, protected areas, mining, fisheries, oil and gas development, alternative energy sources, etc. Not enough time, so much information, so many ideas, so many plans …

I cannot say the same of the group’s vodka consumption this year ;), but I can say that I am humbled by the knowledge that many of my dear Sosnovka friends would drop everything to help me if need be. I am personally grateful. Oh, and we laugh a lot together too. Two highlights (in order of laughs elicited):
1. Dima’s spontaneous 5:45am decision to jump on Petr’s and Chagat’s shoulders and scale my balcony, putting him together with Misha Kreindlin in the elite club of Sosnovtsy who have scaled balconies for me. [I am left wondering, would anyone in California join this club? Doubtful.]
2. Mid-banquet decisions to shuffle the world’s geography, putting San Francisco somewhere between Chita and Blagoveshensk in the Russian Far East, and putting the Altai both in the Russian Far East and in the Arctic. [Because clearly, we have this authority ;).]

To my Sosnovtsy, now scattered throughout Russia, you are dearest of friends and the best of colleagues ... I love you all!

Sosnovka Faces

2008-09-21T05:25:00.000-07:00

Sakhalin Images

2008-09-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

Rachel and I parted ways today and I miss her company already! My week on Sakhalin Island has been a fascinating and eye-opening journey and I praise God for every experience and conversation!
Images:
Rachel and me
Shoddy Sakhalin-2 construction
Poisonous mushroom
A fisherman pulls in his set net
Beauty in the sky

A Study in Community Organizing and Activism

2008-09-10T18:00:00.001-07:00

Dmitry "Dima" Lisitsyn is relentless. From the moment he wakes up in the morning until the moment he falls asleep, he is constantly moving, constantly asking questions, and constantly pushing those around him to try harder and perform better. After just three days in the field with Dima, I am more convinced than ever that we should clone him. Well, not really, but you get the point. Whether addressing us, shopkeepers along the road, or construction workers on the Sakhalin-2 pipeline route, Dima has this uncanny ability to disarm and charm, while extracting critical information with measured precision.

Sakhalin Island was once a prison destination turned Chekov muse. Today, the island is crisscrossed by oil and gas pipeline infrastructure and the capital city, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk is a boomtown like none other. A two-room apartment in the city can be rented for a mere $1600/month, food prices are among the highest in Russia, and pimped out luxury SUVs can be counted by the dozens. For the average local, this boom for few has meant certain bust for most.

Rachel, Dima, and I were particularly captivated by comparing Shell's practices on Sakhalin and in the Alaskan Arctic. This company is rotten. Shell could easily write a textbook on how to break promises, give and take bribes, buy off scientists, divide and conquer local opposition, and emasculate environmental assessment processes. It is a dirty, unsettling business.

What Hit Them

2008-09-06T00:58:00.000-07:00

I now have the dubious distinction of seeing my name in print in Russian. From a page three article on the Fishery Congress Expo in this week's Vladivostok paper "Weekly News" (September 5): "Leah Zimmerman of Pacific Environment came to Vladivostok presented an unusual project. Research has shown that an increase in oil development in the ocean leads to a decline in biological resources. If we don't change this trend, we will have neither one nor the other. This position, not typical from Americans, received support among participants in the Fishery Expo." Well, they almost got part of it right at least. I imagine "typical" for Americans means, not typical for the Bush administration. I oscillate between thinking Rachel and I actually accomplished something and thinking that this is just one more tasty addition for the FSB file I've compiled in my head. Yes, I watch too many spy movies for my own good.

El Mafioso and the Seven Feet Yacht Club

2008-09-06T00:56:00.000-07:00

Rachel and I were invited along with other distinguished (read: rich, connected, and/or foreign) congress participants to a party thrown by the governor. Thousands of dollars of food, booze, entertainment, and fireworks amused guests for hours. In all my time in Vlad, I somehow never wandered to the Yacht Club before this party.
Most breathtaking moment: sunset behind and between bazillion-dollar boats
Most James Bond moment: playing around in a $250,000 car (baby baby soft white leather seats ...)
Most gut-wrenchingly disturbing: realizing that the teenage girls overdressed in Oscar-worthy gowns were likely prostitutes brought in specially for the event

Random shot of the Amur Bay:

Skinny Jeans and Carabiners

2008-09-01T14:52:00.000-07:00

What happened to this place? One of my favorite travel games is called Identify-the-Foreigners. But I'm confused. In one day, I've seen more goth teens and more skinny jeans paired with Converse All Stars than have yet appeared in good ol' G-Rap, Michigan. And then, in my favorite coffee shop (read: the best lattes on the planet), there was a 30ish man who carried himself like an American and himself carried a messenger bag with a carabiner casually dangling from the strap. Just when I was about to make some witty comment in English to find out who he was, I noticed his Russian novel and overheard him speak. Definitely Russian. My inner radar is all out of whack!

I was reminded just where I am while at breakfast this morning. A delegation of seven from North Korea sat across from me, Kim Il Jong lapel pins glistening under the fluorescent lights.

In other news, I happened to arrive in Vlad at the same time as our beloved VVP (Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin) was preparing to depart. I snapped a few pictures of his motorcade as it drove by. I like to think the big man himself was waving at me and Artur ;). Watching the news last night, I listened as Putin talked about planned construction and infrastructure expansion in Vladivostok. "The buildings should be made of solid, modern materials. Not gold and diamonds, but not shoddy either. Solid, modern materials," he sputtered. I was amused the PM would waste so much breath acting as general contractor, bothering with something my brother could handle in five minutes (hi, Matt!). Then again, rumors are flying that millions earmarked for the ambitious modernization plan have already disappeared into peoples' pockets.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2008-08-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

In an attempt to not fall off the radar while enjoying being off the grid, here's where to find me over the next four weeks:

Sept. 1-5 Vladivostok (persuading the Russian fish mafia to oppose offshore oil and gas drilling)
Sept. 6-11 Sakhalin Island (hoping for bear sitings--just not too close--while photographing construction violations along an oil pipeline route)
Sept. 12-21 Lake Baikal (catching up with colleague friends and plotting the next greatest campaign ever)
Sept. 22-24 Moscow (convincing paranoid journalists that Georgia is still irrelevant in the Wild East, where Buffalo Bill's West meets 1920s Chicago. Fine fine, outrageous oil and gas reserves might tip the scales, but who's counting?

Happy as a bee in the Trinity Alps

2008-08-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

I want to tell everyone about the Trinity Alps. And yet I want to tell no one. The invigorating terrain, staggering biodiversity, affirming solitude, and voluptuous stary skies delight. In 2007 and 2008 I wandered into the woods there, heart eager, but confused. Each time, I emerged refreshed. It's not the place, but the hand behind it that guides my heart, reminding me of both my insignificance and inherent worth.

A new friend in a Tokyo park (photo from Oct '06)

2007-02-12T12:05:00.000-08:00

2006-11-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

Privet! An Amur leopard (critically endangered!) in Primorye.

reindeer and honey in the altai

2006-11-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

(Excerpted from a September 23 email)

May it never be said that I like Moscow. As a city, it's an awful place: expensive, loud, dirty, and pretentious. Moscow has too many McDonald's, Ikeas, and TGI Fridays for its own good, but paint a cow blue and it's still a cow. You know you're still in Russia when:

You go to a chain store in a very modern Western-style shopping mall one morning and try to buy something for 300 rubles ($12) with a 500 ($19) ruble bill. The sales person says with a straight face, "You cannot buy this. I do not have change for a 500 ruble bill."
Next, you go to a go to a KFC/Rostics chain because dangit, you just want some good ol' fried chicken. The pictures of sandwiches and chicken strips are enticing, but when you order, you are told they don't have any chicken strips, but they do have five sandwiches. Five? Yes, we have five. Well, it's a good thing I only want one. Ice cream? Don't even try.
You are ready to go home, but have one small task left: change 9000 USD into rubles to pay for a conference. You go to a big bank because the rate is good and you prefer to whip out all those crisp greenbacks in a private room. "We don't have $9000 in rubles to sell you. I can only do three thousand, maybe four." You're kidding, right? Is this a newspaper stand or a bank?! Stink. Three bank stops later, all the money is finally changed.

Phew, that's out of the way! Now I can go on to ramble about the Russia that I love … the sleepy Siberian towns, the meandering mountains and rivers, the struggling fishing communities on the Pacific, and the generous and rugged people who live in Siberia and the Far East – on the edge of true wilderness. Yosemite and Yellowstone delight, but falter just as Edward Abbey penned and ultimately pale in comparison to Russia's remote wilds. Does the tree that falls far from the nearest human make noise? It matters not, but it does matter that this tree's sole existence is to give glory to its creator. This is part of why I love the wilderness! So complicated and, well, wild, and yet so strikingly simple.

The first thing I noticed when I landed in Barnaul (at 6am) is that the sky is loud. Barnaul is located on the steppe, the flatlands, not far from where the Altai Mountains lift up from the land with a quick sweep of God's creative hand. The weather in Barnaul is dizzying, changing every five minutes and boasting clouds that taunt anyone who dares to watch. Cumulus – stratus fratus – stratocumulous – altocumulous – cirus – cumulous again. Amen! Every sunrise and sunset above the city is a marvel.

Sosnovka is an annual meeting of all the top environmental activists from Siberia and the Russian Far East, with a few lawyer and policy types from Moscow thrown in for good measure. The conference is always a blur of intense strategy conversations and jovial social time. (To my great relief, the vodka consumption was mild this year.) Many of the Sosnovtsy are old friends who see each other once or twice each year, which means Day One of the conference involves a lot of who got married, who had kids, and who got divorced conversations. What a treat to now be a part of this merry band! Our strategy conversations were simultaneously broad and narrow, covering the hottest topics, both new and old: forestry, protected areas, mining, fisheries, oil and gas development, alternative energy sources, etc. Not enough time, so much information, so many ideas, so many plans …

Don't worry, we took a half day off to go white water rafting on the might Katun. Given the fall water level, the rafting time was more about photo ops than white water, but can't complain – I laughed so much my stomach was sore until the next day. Yes, our guides made all the women wear these HUGE waterproof moon pants things. I grumbled and said I was fine without, but it was a losing battle. I did, after all, want to be an anstronaut when I was little. And yes, I was glad later that I had them on. Cold mountain water and frigid fall winds are a nasty combination!

After Sosnovka, I was relieved of conference wrap-up duties in Barnaul and so decided to escape to the mountains with Dima and Zhenya of Sakhalin Environmental Watch. Dima is THE premier activist in all of Russia and I was eager for a chance to pick his brain! How did you get involved in this work? What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the movement? What motivates you? How in the world does Natasha do this work along side of you with a 2-year-old at home as well?! I heard you're an Orthodox believer, can you tell me about that?

Dima, Zhenya, and I rented horses, found a guide, and rode up to a beekeeper's hut in the mountains on the edge of a reindeer farm. The next morning, we awoke to SNOW. No joke. But it turned to rain as we rode down to lower elevations. We discussed the healing properties of reindeer antlers and rode the edge of the mountainous reindeer pasture hoping for a sighting. Needless to say, we saw no antlers, but did see a bunch of reindeer behinds as a herd heard us and ran away.

Like every outdoor experience I've ever known in Russia, our horseback riding trip was, well, extreme. Cold, wet conditions made steep, steep terrain perilous at best for the horses. I felt sorry for them at first and tried to console my horse, but it seemed somehow that my horse was enjoying herself in spite of the conditions. Then I remembered that this is what she was made for – her purpose. Of course she is delighting in God's hand no matter what the conditions, why would she do any other? Why then should I grumble and fight the Lord's hand in my life? Better for me to instead choose to delight in that path every day, no matter what the conditions.

Other lessons learned and relearned:

An "Antler bath" (a hot bath with reindeer antler extract) feels like a regular bath, but is pleasant insofar as the extract smells like cake batter. I kid you not. Yellow cake batter!
God is one. On the first Sunday I was in Russia, I worshipped informally and in English with two American families and a Russian friend (Jane) with whom I was reunited. On the second Sunday, I went with Oksana (from Kamchatka, stayed with her family in February) to a Russian Orthodox church. Two very different experiences. "There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:4)
Being around children and families is good for the heart and soul. What a delight it was to just enjoy the Wickers, to play with the girls and to talk about Russia and life and ministry with Tim and Lisa!
I've (to my great surprise) developed a taste for carbonated water, salo (straight fat from an animal – think bacon without the meat), and mead (honey wine). I might detest buckwheat cooked Russian-style, but honey from the plant makes a delightful wine, as it turns out. The Altai region is known for its delicious and varied honey.
The stars on the other side of the world are different from what we see in North America now. (I know, I know – duh!) But what a treat to see a different chunk of the sky than I enjoyed a few weeks ago in the Sierras. The Milky Way was particularly brilliant last week in the Altai … Oh my stars!

I marvel at this life and can scarcely believe the things I have seen, and yet I long to just sit in a room with you all, talking with you one by one, listening to what the Lord is doing in your lives, what He is teaching you. And in this all, the chorus resounds, "Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you." (Psalm 63:3) To His name be the Glory!