Putin Adds Fuel to Fire of Siberian Regionalism by Opening Door to Destruction of Baikal

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 2 – Earlier, Vladimir Putin cost himself support in the Far East by opening the region to Chinese exploitation and thus enraging Russians east of the Urals (jamestown.org/program/chinese-behavior-in-siberia-sparks-local-anger-against-beijing-and-moscow/ and jamestown.org/moscow-losing-siberia-to-china-commentator-says/).

            Now, he has taken another step certain to cost him even more support there and indeed given the symbolism of Lake Baikal elsewhere as well by issuing what environmental activists are calling “an indulgence for any ecological violations” Russian corporations may commit affecting that body of water (sibreal.org/a/30762640.html).

            The new measure, which Putin signed on July 31, is nominally only about changing the rules governing the construction and operations of railroads; but Russians say that it opens the way to disaster because it allows firms to do what they want by eliminating any requirement for environmental impact statements.

            Environmentalists warn that this will lead to the destruction of the currently protected areas on the shores of Lake Baikal and thus of the lake itself. In their words, “Russia Railways is only the tip of the iceberg” that Putin has sent floating toward the deepest lake in the world and something in which Russians take pride.

            Activists in the Transbaikal say that people there “hate Putin.” And environmentalists there and elsewhere in the Russian Federation have had no trouble collecting more than 140,000 signatures on a petition opposing the measure Putin has now approved (change.org/p/остановите-вырубку-байкала?redirect=fals).

            Putin has forgotten or perhaps has never known that environmental activism along with historical preservation provided in many parts of the former USSR was the form of social activity out of which national movements emerged. Defending nature or old buildings then, something even the CPSU couldn’t openly oppose, quickly led to the defense of peoples.

            By approving what he hopes is a measure that will allow for more rapid economic development, the Kremlin ruler is recapitulating the mistakes of his Soviet predecessors, infuriating people about something that even the current powers that be in Moscow can’t dismiss as irrelevant.