Kamchatka,, view from helicopter

Music

Campbell:  As the mist clears on a new day, Yuri Dubik flies to work.

01.00.00.00

00.12

His office, for the next few hours, a giant Soviet built helicopter, will take him to a world of awesome but dangerous beauty.

00.18

Kamchatka volcanoes

In Kamchatka, Creation has not yet ended.

00.35

Yuri:  You can see it not only in the volancos, but also in the earthquakes that occur here often. For us it’s wonderful because we are professional who work on the volcanos. But for those that live here it’s a real danger

00.38

Kamchatka map

Music

00.58

Campbell and Yuri in helicopter

Campbell:  Yuri first came here as a young scientist 32 years ago. He’s been captivated ever since. The lure was a chain of almost 500 volcanoes.

1.17

Yuri took me over some of the 29 that are still active. Their immense subterranean heat sending steam through the ice and snow.

1.27

Music

1.36

Campbell:  Our destination was a volcanic lake named Karymski, recently covered by fresh lava after a giant eruption.

1.46

Yuri:  It was an exceptional eruption, because the eruption took place here. All this lake was boiled and steaming.

2.00

Campbell:  After two and a half years it’s still steaming.

2.12

Yuri:  Yeah. And that lake is still warmer than it should be.

2.14

Yuri at lake

Campbell:  Until recently, Yuri could rarely share his passion for Kamchatka, or even use the rudimentary English his mother taught him as a child.

2.25

Yuri:  This is real moon surface. Small craters, there’s boulders, all things.

2.38

Campbell:  Amazing place.

2.47

Lake

Campbell:  For the west it might as well have been on the moon. There were no foreigners among the small closed community of scientists, fishermen and military.

2.53

Kamchatka was a spectacle of nature sealed off by politics.

3.03

Music

3.10

Campbell:  If the world had gone to war it would probably have started here. Radar stations track the north Pacific sky, ready to alert MIG fighter jets for quick and merciless attacks.

3.18

The peninsula was dotted with military bases and a nuclear powered fleet.

3.32

Even Soviet citizens needed special permits to visit.

3.40

Like most of Russia Kamchatka can no longer rely on the state it defended.  The Military are still here the troops and officers are lucky to even get their wages. The 270,000 residents of the capital, Petrapavlous have felt the collapse of the soviet state harder than most. 

3.50

Beaurocrats in distant Moscow, nine time zones to the West, did nothing to prepare them for life after the cold war. The Kamchatkas authorities believe Moscow’s neglect may prove to be it’s salvation. The legacy of military occupation is that their environment is almost unspoilt.  The years of military restrictions kept out development as well.

4.11

Vice Governor

I’m happy to say that the destruction that occurred in Russia over the years never reached Kamchatka.

4.36

Vice Governor getting into helicopter

Vice Governor Vladimir Balakayev has a dream. It’s not of helicopters transporting troops or vulcanologists, but wealthy – even armed – western tourists.

4.48

Vladimir:  We realise that we still can’t attract large groups of tourists to Kamchatka. It’s due to the fact that our tourism infrastructure isn’t up to scratch. Everyone in Kamchatka is ready to welcome tourists from all corners of the world by starting with an amateur tourist industry but ending up with a professional one.   

4,59

View from helicopter

Music

5.26

Businessmen in helicopter

Campbell:  On this second helicopter ride, the passengers were European businessmen holding an out of the way convention.

5.35

Most were keen on enjoying nature, though some were more intent on killing it. Two of the men had paid $5,000 extra to go bear hunting.

5.42

Yuri and Campbell disembark helicopter

As yet, helicopters are the only way to travel around Kamchatka. The Soviet military only built roads to connect their bases, not the remote town and settlements.

5.52

But even at this embryonic stage, where tourism is confined to the rich and occasionally bloodthirsty, a small trickle is becoming a steady stream.

6.03

FX:  Geyser

6.15

Campbell:  Until 1941, nobody had ever seen the Valley of the Geysers. The area was so remote it was only discovered after scientists stumbled across it during a long overland trek. Now, as many as four helicopters a day are bringing tourists.

6.20

Valley of the Geysers

Scientists still come to study one of the world’s biggest concentrations of geysers and hot springs. But for them such field trips are now rare events.

6.41

Their shrinking budgets have to stretch to buying seats on tourist flights. Even so, Yuri shows little resentment that his once exclusive domain has been thrown on the private market.

6.52

Yuri interview

Yuri:  I think this peninsula can survive after great earthquakes, eruptions. So, I hope that it can stand the peoples too. But it depends on people of course. On their education, ecological education, on their mentality.

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7.08

Campbell:  Yuri hopes to see visits that go beyond hunting and sightseeing to eco-tourism.  Something that might give work to scientific guides as well as business people.

7.37

Yuri : In my experience I met many, many people who are interested, to know new things.  So they  came not only to see the landscapes,  beautiful landscapes, but to know more about the earth and this is the right place for these purposes

7.51

Campbell: The concrete horror of the soviet Petrapalous capital ? is testament to the soviets stunning disregard for the physical environment. Across the soviet union authorities dug up or developed everything they could in the process destroying most of the country.  The post soviet authorities here face a choice – do they continue to protect the environment at any cost or start digging?

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8,22

Music

8.48

 Campbell :The one thousand  kilometer peninsula holds an abundance of minerals and high quality forests.

8.54

Music

8.59

 Campbell: So far development has been small scale, unlike in the rest of Russia where corrupt local administrations have raced to strip the regions resources and split the proceeds.  Vice Governor ? promises that won’t happen here.

9.04

Vice Governor: The first thing we did about the development of mineral resources was to say that the natural environment found today in Kamchatka must be protected. Therefore all projects linked to the gold-ore industry in Kamchatka are watched over by ecologists. And the search for technology in Kamchatka done through Canadian, American, and Australia companies, and others, must not harm our rivers, our fish or our natural environment.

9.20

Campbell: For once a local government might actually mean it.

9.57

The big timber and mining interests have  less influence than other parts of Russia.  Kamchakas isolation and lack of roads make logging and mining  much more expensive.

10.03

A far stronger lobby here is the fishing industry which is solemnly opposed to development. 

10.16

Salmon isn’t just  abundance here it’s almost embarrassingly easy to catch and fishermen like Alexander Barayin want to keep it that way.

10.28

While Russia has lax rules for protecting fish stocks, in Kamchatka  they’re stronger than anywhere else in the country.  Logging can’t take place within 300 metres of a river.  It’s totally forbidden near areas where fish spawn.

10.41

I think we will be able to resist the temptation to sell the territory as some kind of easy solution or to get rich oe to get help from sponsorship. We have the goal of leaving something for our children.

10.57

Music

11.27

Campbell:  Like everywhere in Russia, Kamchatka faces an uncertain and precarious future. But this is one place that could rise above the post-Communist fate of decline and decay.

11.34

Simple economics is guiding it towards a post-Soviet rarity – preservation of a wilderness for generations to come.

11.51

Music

12.00

Negus

Negus:  Eric Campbell there in the spectacular wilds of Kamchatka peninsula. And that’s our program for another week. Hope to see you again next week for more of Foreign Correspondent. Ciao.

KAMCHATKA

Reporter               ERIC CAMPBELL

Camera TONY DE CESARE

                                DEAN JOHNSON

Sound   VIACHESLAV ZELENIN

Editor                    GARTH THOMAS

28:48:09