Valery Sharov. The crime continues

The crime continues
Valery Sharov

Publication date: May 17, 2000

In the Republic of Bashkortostan, on the most beautiful river of the Southern Urals, Belaya, the criminal construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir is underway - the last of the surviving “projects of the century” for the turns of great rivers and the construction of grandiose reservoirs is being implemented. Started and closed due to environmental and economic failure in the late 80s, revived and continued in the late 90s, it has successfully migrated into the third millennium and is ready to bring untold harm to nature and people.

Unbending construction

At the exit of this beautiful river (locally it is poetically called “Agidel”) from the mountainous part to the plain, in the area of ​​​​the village of Verkhnebikuzino, after cutting down a large amount of forest and stripping off the vegetation cover from the ground, the construction of the dam itself is already in full swing. A dam, which, stretching 600 meters across and rising 60 meters high, will dam this cheerful and bright mountain river and turn it into a 70-kilometer stagnant swamp. From here, dozens of rare, Red Book species of animals and plants will disappear forever. In the swamp itself, which is located on the territory of the Bashkiria National Park and will certainly have an impact on the two nature reserves located nearby, the organic matter remaining from clearing the reservoir bed will rot and poison with the products of decomposition not only the living creatures preserved in the reservoir, but also all the surrounding mountain air. Hundreds of tourists who spent their vacation here on an exciting rafting trip along the picturesque river will forever forget the way to it, and residents of several villages that fall into the flood zone upstream of the river will apparently be forced to simply flee from their homes...

However, environmental Armageddon is still ahead, and now around the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir a different kind of chaos is happening - moral and legal.

People living here are protesting. Local, Russian and foreign environmental organizations and the public are protesting. Our main environmental government organization, the State Committee of the Russian Federation for Environmental Protection (Goskomekologiya of Russia), is protesting, constantly pointing out to the republic the violation of a whole list of its own and Russian laws. Even the General Prosecutor’s Office, after publications in the central press and an appeal from the State Committee for Ecology of Russia, went to Bashkiria last November and, having familiarized itself with the history of the construction, canceled (“due to the incompleteness of the inspection carried out”) the decision of the local prosecutor’s office to refuse to initiate a criminal case, and all materials were again sent to the prosecutor's office of Bashkortostan to organize an additional inspection. But where is it? For the republican authorities, it seems, nothing and no one can now decree.

As a result, the last “construction project of the century” acquired a number of phenomena, the analogues of which are simply impossible to find. First of all, it began and proceeded not only in the absence of the state environmental assessment of the project, which is necessary in such cases, but even without the project itself! At the same time, the authorities of the republic and the construction management, invariably assuring everyone and everything that only design and survey work was going on in the area of ​​the future site, carried out real preparatory work for the construction of the dam itself and related structures. They pulled power lines through the national park, cut down forests, dug up highways, and chiseled rocks for a drainage canal with a hydroelectric power station. And no official protests from Russia, drawing up reports of violations of laws, issuing orders to suspend work, or even interference in the case by the Prosecutor General’s Office could influence this construction extravaganza.

At the end of last year, the State Committee for Ecology of Russia, exercising its legal rights to do so, sent an order to the relevant Bashkir bank to cease all financial transactions related to the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir. And then he imposed a significant fine of 500 thousand rubles on the general construction contractor, Yumaguzinsky Reservoir LLC. It would seem that's it - close up the shop! No matter how it is.

The bank reported on the fulfillment of the order. The general contractor, having not paid the fine, is trying to challenge it in court. And construction... is moving in the same direction, as if nothing had happened. Hundreds of people work on it, dozens of pieces of heavy equipment cut down forests and land. We have already started filling the dam itself, but taking photos and videos at the site has become more difficult - security has appeared. Like this: there is no money for a fine, funding is closed, but the “project of the century” continues successfully! That is why it is the “project of the century”.

Bashkiria is a dream

However, one should not consider the authorities of Bashkortostan as a kind of stupid bear, falling into the ripening collective farm oats and carelessly devouring sweet oatmeal on both cheeks - accompanied by the yelping of dogs, stunned by such impudence, the distant cries of people and even the lonely shots of a guard berdank loaded with blank cartridges. From the very beginning of this terrible project, although they presented strong arguments about the need to build a reservoir for a variety of reasons (naturally, all with gross exaggerations and outright deception), but, as if realizing that they were doing some kind of disgrace, they took every now and then all sorts of body movements to give it at least a relatively handsome appearance.

Then they will throw in a well-paid comprehensive study on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the future reservoir to local scientists sitting on a starvation diet. And then, ignoring the most terrible consequences they state, they will begin, citing the opinion of scientists, to talk about harm that is completely acceptable for nature. Then they organize in their Ministry of Emergency Situations a sort of local-scale environmental assessment of a non-existent feasibility study of a project - naturally, with a positive conclusion!

Otherwise, they will wrap such a territorial-legal carousel around the planned reservoir that they will almost go crazy. First, by the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Bashkortostan “On measures to maintain ecological balance in the middle reaches of the Belaya River” dated June 23, 1999, they decide “... to include in the prescribed manner the water area of ​​the Yumaguzinsky reservoir in the Bashkiria National Park (without changing the boundaries and area of ​​the park) ". The reservoir, which has not yet been built, does not have a positive state environmental assessment and even a feasibility study for the project itself, is being introduced into a specially protected natural area where all economic activity is prohibited by law! And then - as if a thunderclap struck some tall Bashkir head - they realized the absurdity of the adopted resolution and did something completely opposite. They say, if the public is so intolerable to see that we are building on the territory of the legally protected Bashkiria National Park, then, if you please, we will “change its borders.” This is what Midhat Shakirov, Deputy Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Bashkortostan, told me directly in the same June 1999.

In the simplicity of my soul, I thought it was a joke, a gesture - well, a local official decided to impress a journalist from Moscow, nothing more. Since, according to the Law of the Russian Federation on Specially Protected Territories, national parks are federal property and the republic has no right... But no! A couple of months after this conversation, the Cabinet of Ministers of Bashkortostan actually adopted the Resolution “On clarifying the boundaries of the Bashkiria National Park”, which actually removes from it the territory where the future reservoir is already being built and if the criminal project is brought to completion, the future reservoir will overflow.

Strange, scary people... As if the disappearance of the nests of rare falcons and owls in the forests, taimen and grayling in the water, endemic plants in the meadows will not happen or will decrease because the future reservoir will destroy their habitats without the name “national park”. After all, they already live here! While they are still living...

But, be that as it may, all these naive, ridiculous and characteristic attempts for a republic that has recently gained sovereignty to circumvent its own and federal laws and ruin the unique nature come up against - like a river in a dam - the strict need to undergo a thorough examination of the project at the federal level. A positive conclusion on it must be given by federal bodies: Gosstroy, the Ministry of Emergency Situations, the Ministry of Natural Resources (the successor to the notorious Ministry of Water Resources of the USSR) and the State Committee for Environmental Protection (Goskomekologiya of Russia). And if in the first three instances this problem always found a favorable understanding and is now almost solved, then the State Committee for Ecology of Russia from the very beginning took a position of decisive opposition to the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir - constantly pointed out the violation of laws, the severe environmental consequences of this “project of the century”, fiddled with the prosecutor’s office, issued orders, fined the builders and even seized their bank account.

Moreover, its chairman Viktor Danilov-Danilyan addressed the Russian Government on December 23 last year with a draft Decree of the President of Russia “On the suspension of regulatory legal acts of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Bashkortostan on issues related to the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir.” The covering letter indicated all the blatant facts of the construction chaos happening on Belaya and related violations of laws. The draft itself, in addition to canceling the relevant decisions of the government of Bashkortostan, in a separate paragraph ordered the cabinet of ministers of the republic to bring the normative and legal acts specified in it into conformity with federal legislation. Alas, it did not reach President Yeltsin, who was preparing for his final repentant speech to the people - the project was sent for approval to... Bashkiria. And, having received from there the appropriate “wise and well-founded” explanations about the necessity and harmlessness of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir on 6 sheets, they did not consider it necessary to bother Boris Nikolaevich, who was leaving the presidency, with such trifles.

Encouraged by this turn of events, the Bashkir authorities continued to pursue the line of ruining their own nature under the new Russian government. At the beginning of February, the State Committee for Ecology of Russia received a letter signed by the head of the Belsk Basin Water Administration V. Goryachev, informing that the long-awaited feasibility study of the scandalous project was finally ready. However, instead of this feasibility study itself, which the State Expertise Department has been waiting for for more than a year, the message contained only a request to determine the level of organization and conduct of the state environmental assessment of design materials for the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir.

Let us note, by the way, that this issue had already been resolved in the fall of 1998. Then, in response to a similar request from Bashkiria, the head of the state environmental assessment department, Gennady Chegasov, unequivocally answered: “At the federal level!”

This time, apparently for better orientation of the State Committee for Ecology of Russia in such a serious issue, after this letter another one arrived - from the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Bashkortostan M. Shakirov, in which the respected Midhat Akhmetovich explained the following to the Chairman of the State Committee for Ecology of Russia V. Danilov-Danilyan:

- The Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Bashkortostan considers it possible to entrust the state environmental examination of materials from the feasibility study for the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir on the Belaya River... to the State Committee of the Republic of Bashkortostan for Environmental Protection.

They say, just trust us, and we will decide everything honestly and legally. Let the goat into the garden! However, the main state environmental authority further toughened its position and responded to the high Bashkir official: “The issue of conducting a state environmental assessment of the feasibility study for the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir can be resolved only after eliminating the contradictions between the legislative acts of the Republic of Bashkortostan and the laws of the Russian Federation...”.

Look for... money!

However, let’s leave the rather boring bureaucratic correspondence and turn to the most interesting subject, without which no one today will not only start a multimillion-dollar construction project, but will not even sneeze! Towards finance.

As has already become known, in Bashkortostan over the past ten years a whole series of grandiose construction projects have been started, but never completed. These include the Bashkir Nuclear Power Plant, the predecessor of the Yumaguzinsky Reservoir, the Ishtuganovsky Reservoir (started and frozen more than ten years ago), the Khimvolokno plant in the north of Ufa, and other facilities. All of them were eventually closed at one stage or another under various justified pretexts, but they managed to gobble up a lot of money. Isn’t this where the true reason for the next criminal project launched, standing in the same row, lies? There is no point in dwelling on the mechanisms of cashing out and pocketing funds received for such grandiose construction projects - they are banal and known to everyone. Now it is much more important to find out where such considerable funds for obviously doomed projects come from.

Initially, the source of financing for the Bashkir “project of the century” was declared to be industrial enterprises located in the cities of Meleuz, Salavat, Ishimbay, Sterlitamak downstream of the Belaya, which supposedly regularly suffer from a lack of water in the summer. Many of them were among the 23 founders of Yumaguzinsky Reservoir LLC, who, apparently, are paying for the first stage of construction with their share participation - it was estimated in 1998 at approximately 50 million rubles. Objective data raises serious doubts about the truth of their “suffering” from lack of water and their voluntary participation in the project. By the way, in the already mentioned assessment of the impact of the reservoir on the environment, made by Bashkir scientists, it is stated approximately the following: if a gap at least two meters wide is formed in the body of the future dam, then the water gushing through it will flood 84 populated areas in a day. Including all the cities listed above. So, if something happens, water users will drink water to the very top!

But, be that as it may, most of this money seems to have already been spent. And it’s unlikely just for business, since all the work is carried out using the well-known “people’s construction” method - the equipment of various organizations is driven in through all sorts of barter and offsets, and the people there are paid almost nothing. During my visit to the construction site in June last year, I had the opportunity to speak with many of the people working there. One local worker, instead of the promised “four hundred rubles a month,” was given four kilograms of meat and... one hundred rubles per quarter. Others, forest fellers brought here from the other end of the republic, were not paid anything at all for the same period. And they were going to give up “this is a hopeless cause,” confident that in their place they would find others who would be deceived in the same way. Crime squared - the residents of the republic, taking advantage of their cash-strapped state, are forced to ruin their native nature, and even do not pay for their hard work!

However, here we are talking only about design, survey and preparatory work on the “construction site of the century.” The main construction (if it is possible to obtain all the necessary positive examinations), according to the plans of its organizers, requires much more serious funds. And here the share participation of local enterprises is clearly not enough. We need a lot of money from outside! The federal budget is now also unlikely to fork out money - they don’t have enough themselves. Where to get it?

The answer came from Austria. It turns out that the Yumaguzinsky reservoir has long been included by the government of Bashkortostan among the priority development projects of the republic financed by foreign investors. And the well-known industrial development organization UNIDO, which is a branch of the UN, is actively searching for them. Serious claims made against this project by all organizations interested in observing laws and preserving nature, as well as a powerful wave of publications on this topic in the Russian press, have reached Austria. As a result, in November 1999, representatives of the State Committee for Ecology of Russia and the Russian Greenpeace were invited to Vienna for the next meeting of the expert group on the issue of possible financial support for a number of Bashkir projects (including the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir), along with a representative delegation from Bashkortostan.

“There was a feeling,” Ivan Blokov, Greenpeace campaign coordinator who was present, told me that representatives of the Republic of Bashkortostan were sent here with one single goal: to get money for the construction of a reservoir at any cost. And we are talking about tens of millions of dollars here! They used excessively inflated figures for losses from floods, unsubstantiated indicators of drinking water shortages, and unsubstantiated statements about the high cost of alternative projects. Chairman of the Legislative Assembly of Bashkortostan Boris Tolkachev assured those gathered that from a legislative point of view, the project for the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir is impeccable. And this is in violation of 14 federal and republican laws, including the Constitution of the Russian Federation! Naturally, representatives of the State Committee for Ecology of Russia and I opened the eyes of international experts...

As a result, the Bashkir currency seekers received a natural turn from the gate. That this is exactly the case is evidenced by an official letter to Russian Greenpeace from the Department of International Organizations of the Russian Foreign Ministry:

“Following the results of the meeting of experts on the construction of the Yumaguzinsky reservoir (Republic of Bashkortostan), held on November 25 this year in Vienna, the UNIDO Secretariat proceeds from the fact that all issues related to this project, including legal ones, must be resolved in accordance with the procedure established in the Russian Federation at the federal level. UNIDO will consider the possibility of providing advisory services on the project only if it is appropriately approached by the competent federal authorities of Russia. Until these issues are resolved, UNIDO no longer plans to engage in this project..."

However, such disappointing results of the consideration of the project in a reputable European organization did not prevent the authorities of the republic from continuing to deceive their people, which began from the moment of the decision to resume the criminal “construction of the century.” Publications appeared in the local press that completely distorted what happened in Vienna. Such, for example, as the following brave message from “Bashinform”:

“In general, the participants of the round table stated the full compliance of the presented project with the norms of international law, federal and republican legislation and came to a consensus on the issues discussed...”

Such a sharp contrast in views (outside and inside Bashkiria) on the outcome of the decision on the fate of foreign funding for the Yumaguzinsky reservoir indicates not only that the local authorities absolutely do not care about their people, their nature and the opinion of competent foreign specialists. It seems they have not yet given up hope of bringing this criminal construction project to completion! This is evidenced by the relentless pace of work at the site. One and a half million dollars worth of forests there have already been cut down, and even in extremely difficult winter conditions, construction of the main dam was in full swing.

The wave raised by interested state and public environmental organizations and in the press against this construction, apparently, will no longer allow funds to be received for it from abroad or from the federal budget. Additionally, Greenpeace and the Moscow Helsinki Group have already made relevant requests to various institutions, banks, embassies of other countries and all interested parties. A major scandal and trouble await anyone who tries to support Bashkiria here. And the republic has only one way left - to extract money from the founders of Yumaguzinsky Reservoir LLC, who were brought into its composition in a variety of ways. And this means taking money from one’s own people, who are already begging. But his patience may soon run out - strong protests from Bashkiria are already reaching the Russian public, despite the high fence erected in their way by the republican authorities.

Perhaps it would be easier and calmer to admit your own mistakes and stop before it’s too late, saving both nature and a lot of money? And if the Bashkir authorities do not want to lose face by admitting mistakes (although, in my opinion, the authority’s authority can only rise from this), then you can stop, referring to the opinions of many experts, including those from official Russian organizations. Fortunately, Bashkiria has a lot of experience in stopping the grandiose construction projects that have begun!