MAKING THE RED ONE GREEN
The Soviet Union is at last
Odessa THE usual crowd is at the Soviet Riviera this summer. On the beaches of Odessa, Siberian factory workers are jostling apparatchiks from Moscow and farmers from Vitebsk for their annual place in the sun. Despite the economic uncertainties of perestroika, flights south to the Black Sea coast have been booked solid two months in advance.
One would like to think that, after enduring a year of almost continuous upheaval, the Soviet holiday-maker de- serves his rest. But there is no escaping glasnost. On the back pages of Odessa's evening newspaper, local environmental authorities have been publishing frank reports on pollution at local beaches. As a result, many would-be swimmers are stick- ing close to their deck chairs.
`The concentration of substances in the waters of the Gulf of Odessa has dimi- nished from the high levels of early June', said one recent notice. 'But the concentra- tion still exceeds the permissible limits, with traces of carbolic acid and ammonium nitrates.' The worries of pollution aside, this represents the welcome end of yet another Soviet taboo.
Just a few years ago, such a display of civic candour about the environment was unthinkable. But we are in the post- Chernobyl era. Now, even if the facts are sometimes truncated, everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to the local mayor Makes sure to include something about `our endangered environment' in the stan- dard speech to the Party faithful. Needless to say, the greening of the world's first workers' state is long overdue. Despite having written some of the tough- est environmental laws anywhere, the Soviet government has rarely seen fit to apply them. While Russians are among the great lovers of nature, the 70-year-long drive to make their country a major industrial power has left little room for anxieties about clean air and water. But like so many other recent developments in the Soviet Union, the growing public con- sciousness about ecological issues raises more questions than it answers. The most important question is linked to the current debate over the role of the citizen in a 'socialist democracy'. It is one thing for authorities to complain about dying rivers and polluting factories, but who will make them clean up the mess? Fyodor Morgun, recently appointed to head the new national environment protec- tion committee, won one of the biggest rounds of applause at last month's Moscow party conference when he presented a hit list of what he described as the 'ecological disaster zones': sewage was threatening the Caspian and Baltic seas, the Aral Sea in central Asia was in terminal condition, and pollution in the Volga would soon make the waters of Russia's mightiest river un- drinkable. 'Those who are responsible for these problems', he said, 'must be named and punished.'
Morgun, not unlike his Western counter- parts, would prefer to be the one doing the naming and punishing to keep matters from getting out of control. But Soviet people, also not unlike their Western counterparts, are taking things into their own hands. They have borrowed both the pressure tactics and the crusading spirit of the early environmental campaigners in Europe and North America with increasing and — to Soviet authorities — unnerving success.
A recent demonstration by several thousand residents in a suburb of Lenin- grad halted production at a chemical fac- tory which was accused of poisoning the air. In Kazakhstan, local protests forced the cancellation of two irrigation projects that would have altered the ecology of the Lake Balkhash basin. Three days of street demonstrations in the southern Caucasus region of Ossetia over the contamination of the local water supplies led to the sacking of the regional Communist Party chief. A few of the more ardent pro- heritage and environment groups are close- ly linked with the conservative Russophile Right.
Soviet authorities are, to say the least, uncertain about where to draw the line between popular protest and political dis- sent. While the former may be an accept- able part of the national fight against tureaucratism., the latter threatens the authority of the state. A case in point occurred last month in Georgia, where the authorities resumed construction of a rail- way after a long-running popular campaign had succeeded in stopping the project. The protest against the railway, which would have required the destruction of several historic mountain churches, was closely tied to nationalist unrest in the republic, and the proximity of events in Armenia may have convinced local party leaders that it was better not to be seen to give in.
The situation in Odessa, however, offers some hope that political common sense can prevail. This was once the loveliest city in southern Russia. Today it is awash in the detritus of Soviet-style industrialisation. The embankments where Alexander Push- kin used to sip Turkish coffee are framed by the monstrous cranes of a modern harbour. Factories and peeling apartment blocks have long since replaced the pun- gent slums of Moldavanka, the neighbour- hood where Isaac Babel's Jewish gangsters roamed, and the waters that used to slap against the famous Potemkin Steps now carry the industrial wastes of much of central Europe — brought by the Danube and Dnieper rivers as they empty near here into the Black Sea.
The citizens of Odessa have risen to the defence of their city with a vengeance. There are several extremely vocal environ- mental groups, including a 'city ecological club' which attracts thousands to its regular meetings. 'There is a protest almost every week about something to do with the environment,' says a harried Vasily Mironenko, the town's chief architect. Mironenko speaks from experience. He was the target of furious protest when he tried to prune the chestnut trees on the city's main boulevard this spring. 'Never used to be noticed before, much less criticised,' said Mironenko with a hint of a sigh. 'This is probably a good thing. Perhaps people don't always know all the facts, but they are forcing us to be careful in taking decisions.'
The architect's rueful acknowledgment represents a kind of epiphany for the Soviet bureaucrat. The presence of lobby groups outside the control of officialdom has ruffled the heretofore stately progress of apparatchik decision-making. A prop- osed housing project for 300,000 people on the edge of Odessa, for instance, has been holding the equivalent of environmental impact hearings.
Local 'green' anxieties had been simmer- ing long before bureaucrats felt it prudent to react. According to residents, a nuclear energy complex near the city had to be cancelled shortly after Chernobyl, when workers from nearby villages simply re- fused to expose themselves to the danger of radiation. But the astonishing spread of the grass-roots environmental movement this year is one clear product of the Kremlin's efforts to encourage regional activity — a policy intended to pull the Soviet citizen from his traditional apathy towards government into the New Jeru- salem of civic participation.
When it is successful, the process creates people like Sasha Dunayev, the 23-year- old student chairman of the local Komoso- mol environmental unit at Odessa universi- ty. 'We would like to see implementation of the existing laws,' says Dunayev, who organises volunteer clean-ups on Odessa's endangered beaches. 'For instance there are fines imposed for pollution, but the money just goes into the state treasury instead of being used to clean up the damage.'
Like his compatriots, Dunayev worries that the Black Sea will begin to look like its name. Five big industrial plants spew sewage and chemical waste into the waters around Odessa alone, he says. But he insists it is not too late for people to make a difference: 'Anyway, if you don't do any- thing, you'd be psychologically dead, wouldn't you?'
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