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Environmental journalist Anastasia Troyanova and documentary photographer Marina Sycheva from the Kedr.Media, with the support of the "Arсtida” traveled to Chukotka to witness how coal miners are converting the Arctic’s nature into money, and to understand why the locals aren’t resisting it outright.
Beringovsky is surrounded by tundra and rolling hills. The mountains aren’t tall but show off a striking texture, capped with snow and ridges that intertwine and touch the clouds. In June, the region is in a transitional period: nature is just waking up from its winter slumber and preparing to offer its summer bounty of berries, mushrooms, and fish, which all the locals – Russians and Chukchi alike – are so accustomed to.
True, these gifts are becoming scarcer each year. The rich tundra around Beringovsky is increasingly covered in coal dust, fish are disappearing from the waters around Alkatvaam, and for those that are still caught, people find black discoloration inside.
The port, the coal mine, and the Scania trucks rushing back and forth between them all belonged to the Australian company Tigers Realm Coal until 2024, which operated in Russia through one of its subsidiaries, Beringpromugol. But in April 2024, international pressure forced the Australians to sell their assets, which were acquired by the Russian company APM-Invest for $49 million. The business transfer process is currently underway.
Chukotka Teaches Patience
The village store ‘Assorti’ is unusually crowded. Instead of the usual two or three customers, more than 30 people are packed into the small space. They form two lines, glancing at the shelves and over the shoulders of those in front of them. Those at the checkout are listing their purchases to the clerks, seemingly without end. “Fresh goods have arrived, girls!” shouts Larisa Borisovna from the buzzing, impatient crowd.
Larisa is a Chukchi woman. She works at the library, organizes events for adults and children in Beringovsky, attends village meetings, and makes trench candles for the ‘special military operation’ (SMO) – in short, she shows an ‘active civic stance.’
Larisa is over fifty, and her name is not Larisa at all, but Hope (Надежда).
“Since childhood, everyone called me Larisa, but it turned out that my birth certificate lists me as Hope. This isn’t the only time this has happened in Chukotka. There are two theories about why this happened to me. The first is a Chukchi custom where, if a person is seriously ill, they are given another name to protect them from evil spirits. The second is that my father didn’t like the name Hope. He was a reindeer herder in the tundra, so perhaps he wasn’t present when the name was registered in the documents, and when he returned, he started calling me Larisa – and the whole family followed suit. So now I have one official name and another for my family.”
In Chukotka, the word ‘freshness’ (свежестями) refers to fruits and vegetables – rare and expensive products. During the sea navigation period, from July to October, they are brought here in containers from Primorye and the Khabarovsk Krai. In these four months, ‘freshness’ is available in stores more readily than in winter, when they are delivered by helicopter. Air transport is expensive, which affects the already high prices of fruits and vegetables. For as long as the sea ‘window’ is open, Chukchi merchants try to bring in as many goods as possible. And so, after winter, when reserves have already run out and new ones have yet to be made, stores often sell expired goods. And they are eaten.
Chukotka teaches patience and forces one to slow down, as life here is more dependent on nature’s temperament than in other regions of Russia. The sea and sky not only regulate the supply of goods, but also the movement of people. Taking a taxi to another city, boarding a train or bus, or buying a plane ticket and flying out within two hours is not a possibility here. Any trip in Chukotka is a major event: getting stuck somewhere for days due to bad weather is a common affair.
You can reach Beringovsky from Anadyr by air or sea, but in June, the ice has just splintered and begun to drift through the fairway with its sharp teeth, preventing the ‘Captain Sotnikov’ from entering the port. In effect, during the winter and transitional periods, the only way to get to the settlement is via ‘Chukchi airlines.’
Ghost Town
Modern Beringovsky, like Larisa, has two names. Until 2002, the settlement was called Nagorny (Нагорный, ‘Upland’) – it was there that an eponymous coal mine also operated.
The settlement is situated on a mountain ten kilometers from Coal Bay. On its coast, alongside the port, now stand ruins. But it was they who were called Beringovsky until 2002. In 1995, the coastal settlement was decided to be closed due to the outflow of the population, and its name was later transferred to Nagorny, calling it a ‘merger’ – thereby avoiding paying residents the compensation required for the closure of the settlement.
It’s as if the old Beringovsky had succumbed to war. Windows and doors are shattered, roofs are caved in, walls are peeling and slumping over.
Inside, there are piles of debris, mangled furniture, and heaps of unmelted snow. Metal scrap is piled up between houses – barrels, parts of vehicles and machines, old shipping containers. On the ground – the deep tread marks of Scania trucks.
The horizon is obscured by blue-and-white hills, and the cries of seagulls are drowned out by the hum of trucks – some unloading coal, others delivering it to the port dock. Turning around, abandoned houses are overshadowed by the barren blackness of man-made mountains. Looking down, dark pebbles scattered by the water’s edge turn out to be coal. Anchored in the outer roadstead of Coal Bay stands a Chinese vessel, capable of carrying up to 100,000 tons of coal. One by one, Russian 500-ton transshipment boats take their turn to approach it – foreign vessels are prohibited from entering the port of Beringovsky themselves.
“This used to be the police station, here a school, over there a library,” we drive through the ruined settlement with the locals, looking at the buildings and trying to imagine them ‘alive.’ “And this was the movie theater – we couldn’t get tickets for French or Indian films! The square was where all the demonstrations and celebrations took place. You wouldn’t believe it, but even though we’ve lived elsewhere for over 20 years now, both my wife and I still dream only of our old homes here – that they’re rebuilt, or instead, that we’re sitting by candles with nothing around us. At first, we couldn’t even bear to come here – it was too painful to see. Now we’ve gotten used to it.
It’s surprising how quickly everything turned into ruins – it’s been just over 20 years since the time that people were relocated from the old Beringosvky to the mountain.
“It’s because the climate is harsh. We were told in school that nature in the Arctic is fragile, but to me, it’s very aggressive here. When people leave, nature quickly and aggressively reclaims the land,” says local historian Evgeny Basov, pointing to a plant growing through the roof.
WHY IS ARCTIC NATURE CONSIDERED ‘FRAGILE’?
Explained by ecologist Evgeny Simonov*
The Arctic indeed embodies dual characteristics: on one hand, it is harsh and resilient, while on the other, its ecosystems are vulnerable to human influence. In cold conditions, processes of biological recovery are slow. The soil layer is thin, and vegetation is sparse. For example, it takes longer for nature to recover from the tread marks of a tractor than in temperate regions, if it recovers at all. Likewise, it takes more than ten years for lichen fields consumed by reindeer to regenerate, as new moss grows just a few millimeters per year.
“One of the important features of Chukotka is that everything here is temporary. Twenty years pass, and it feels like a whole new life has begun. If you wanted to make a film about life in Chukotka, say, in the 1960s, it would be very hard to find witnesses,” says Basov. “Once, these lands were inhabited only by indigenous peoples – Eskimos, Chukchi, Kereks, and others. Then, in the 18th century, with the explorations of Semyon Dezhnev, Russian civilization began to gradually seep in. But it wasn’t until the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the Russians actively started developing these territories. Youth construction projects began, and during the Soviet era, there was an unofficial formula: work, then leave. Capitalism has only reinforced this formula. In my view, today 80% of Chukotka’s population are temporary residents. This applies to both indigenous people and Russians. Because people aren’t fools; they understand that there aren’t any prospects in the local villages and settlements. They save money, go off on their own, and then take their children and parents to the mainland.”
While people in Chukotka are a temporary phenomenon, the traces of their activities, on the other hand, seem to remain forever.
There are dozens of ghost towns scattered across the Chukotka land. Even in Beringovsky, residential houses neighbor abandoned buildings, and the further you move out from the center, the more the settlement resembles a large dump: streets are littered with broken and discarded equipment, containers, bins, and barrels.
One of the most prominent sites features a ruined “wind farm.” Three wind turbines from the Danish company Vestas were installed in Beringovsky in 2020, but due to the capricious Chukchi weather, they haven’t operated a single day. One, like a weeping willow, has bent towards the ground by force of the wind, another has simply toppled over, and the third continues to stand with two blades – like an art object. No one plans to do anything with this scrap metal. Removing it is expensive, and Chukotka – Beringovsky in particular – already has enough unresolved problems on its hands.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE WIND TURBINES?
The wind turbines were constructed by the company Nord Marin, with the goal of putting them into operation by the end of 2020. The volume of investments amounted to 76.3 million rubles. Former Governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug Roman Kopin stated on his Instagram that the use of renewable energy should reduce the cost of fuel imports, alleviating their burden on the budget, as well as improve the environmental situation by reducing emissions by 15-20%. “If the projects succeed, we will use them as a model and scale them to other settlements,” wrote the governor. However, neither success nor scaling occurred.
Nord Marin has been operating in Chukotka since 2006, specializing in the maintenance and repair of diesel generators at stations throughout the region’s settlements. According to the head of Beringosvky, Sergey Skrupsky, the administration was not given notice about the construction of the wind turbines.
“The idea was good, because the Beringovsky district is the windiest area in Chukotka. Since this area is not part of the settlement, no one sent us any notifications or showed us the project. We witnessed the construction of the wind turbines along with the residents. Specialists from India worked on the project, which was unusual for us. At first we were excited, but then the generators broke down – they didn’t even complete the starting-up and adjustment work. It’s as if the builders underestimated the strength of the wind on the ridge. One simply fell over, another started spinning uncontrollably, twisting and turning, and the third one had a blade break off.”
Beringovsky and its surroundings are the only area in Chukotka with deposits of high-quality coking and black coal. Other regions have predominantly less valuable brown coal, which is why both Soviet and contemporary mining companies are drawn to the lands of southern Chukotka. At the end of 2023, Beringpromugol launched a mineral refinement plant at the Fandyushkinskoye field to produce concentrate by removing impurities from coal. Additionally, having reached deeper rock layers, the company began using explosives at its mining sites.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COKING COAL AND BLACK COAL?
Explained by environmental safety expert and editor of greenthinktank.life, Anton Lementuyev
Black coal is used in energy production, while coking coal is used in metallurgy. Coking coal is essential for steel production and is very expensive. Demand for this type of coal will likely remain high for a long time, unlike black coal, for which demand is expected to decline in the medium term due to the global shift towards alternative energy sources.
Tsardom of Coal
"In 1826, the Russian sloop 'Senavin' entered Coal Bay. The purpose of the voyage was to describe and study the shores of the Bering Sea. Sixty years later, the crew of the clipper 'Kreiser' conducted a detailed survey of the bay and discovered coal outcrops close to the shore," says Sergey Skroupsky, the head of Beringovsky, as he reads us the history of the area from a book.
Skroupsky arrived in old Beringovsky about 40 years ago – his first job here was at a weather station. He puts the book down and continues in his own words: "This marks the beginning of the chronicle of the Beringovsky district. However, in 2009, it was dissolved and merged with the Anadyr district, so the administrative center is now located in Ugolnye Kopi (‘coal mines’). Life became harder after that," he sighs and picks up the history book again to "make sure nothing is confused."
Skroupsky is reluctant to get into conversations about problems; he smooths over the rough edges and chooses his words carefully, so as to avoid offending anyone, but he still calls things as they are: the head knows we’ve spoken with locals and can’t simply pretend that life in Beringovsky is easy.
"I’ll be honest about it – we had high hopes for Beringpromugol. Until 2015, there was a major enterprise here – the Nagorny Mine. We’re a small northern settlement in a contained space, and without the support of a substantial enterprise, life is tough here. Underground mining was deemed unprofitable, which, of course, can be questioned, because the coal extracted by the mine was of very good energy quality, high in demand, and still spoken well of. But what happened, happened. A new company came in. They said things would be better for us than before. No one would be left behind. But now the mining will be done using an open-pit method."
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OPEN-PIT AND UNDERGROUND COAL MINING?
Explained by environmental safety expert and editor of greenthinktank.life, Anton Lementuyev
In underground mining, coal is extracted from mineshafts, where workers are deep below the surface and surrounded by many dangers: high-voltage equipment, dust, and explosive gasses. In such cases, a company owner has to invest in safety measures and mining equipment – both of which are very expensive. Open-pit mining, on the other hand, is simpler, cheaper, and less dangerous, requiring fewer workers. However, it causes severe environmental damage. Massive pits are dug out of the earth, sometimes extending several kilometers in length. For example, in Kuzbass, there is the Bachatsky coal pit, which is 11 kilometers long.
Open-pit mining generates enormous amounts of waste. In Russia today, for every ton of coal extracted, more than ten tons of waste rock are produced on average, which is simply taken out of the pits and piled up into manmade mountains. These waste piles emit greenhouse and toxic gasses, regularly self-igniting due to the high carbon content in the waste rock, and their dust spreads for tens of kilometers. Russia has already surpassed China in the amount of waste produced, with a significant portion coming from the coal industry. However, domestic production volumes lag far behind China's. In 2022 alone, Russia's coal industry produced 5.6 billion tons of waste – equivalent to 40 tons per person or 4.5 whole Mount Everests.
Open-pit mines also contribute massively to methane emissions. Underground mines have degassing systems that pump out and dispose of methane, and albeit with inaccuracies, they measure its volume for reports. In contrast, with open-pit mining, all the methane escapes directly into the atmosphere without being accounted for. Rough estimates suggest that methane emissions from open-pit mining are three times higher than from underground mining.
On top of this, mining with open pits destroys ecosystems and reduces soil fertility, making it toxic from heavy metals and byproducts of explosives, leading to the death of soil microbiota. The dumped waste rock is oversaturated with toxic substances, heats up due to internal combustion, and fails to retain moisture, so plants cannot grow. While it is possible to some extent to rehabilitate exhausted open-pit mines and mitigate their long-term negative impact, smaller and medium-sized mining operators tend to avoid this, and large operators rehabilitate catastrophically little, due to the high cost of such work and weak regulatory oversight.
Sergey Alexandrovich says that the population of Beringovsky officially stands today at around 1,200 people, but in reality, it’s about 700-800, as statistics count people by their registration. The head of the settlement recalls that while the mine was operational, most locals were employed. When it closed, specialists started leaving.
"Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as we hoped – the workers from Nagorny Mine didn’t transition to Beringpromugol"
"This was partly because of the people themselves: some of them are spoiled by easy work, while others have a strong love for alcohol. As well, the new company came here to make a profit and tightened the requirements for personnel. Many couldn't handle the pace and started leaving, so the company began hiring shift workers. Today, at Beringpromugol, God willing, about 20% of the workforce are still locals," says Skroupsky.
The head laments that the relationship with the coal miners "broke down" about five years ago – when people began to actively complain about environmental problems, and the administration sided with the community. Previously, the management of Beringpromugol regularly held meetings with the locals, discussing their plans, but now they have become more distant. Skroupsky notes that the company still participates in the settlement's life: "For New Year's, for example, they gave our kids 65 gifts."
What concerns the locals most isn’t air pollution from coal dust – surprisingly, almost no one seems worried about this – but the billows of dust raised by the Scania trucks, which cover the settlement. For several years, Beringpromugol has promised to water the roads, insulate the port with screens, or cover the trucks with tarps. But none of these promises have been fulfilled: the water truck is rarely used, there are no screens, and the tarps were obsolesced by wind and increased loading times. The truck drivers need to make as many trips as possible between the pit and the port during their shift – their salary depends on it.
"The dust problem is impossible to ignore – we literally breathe it. While Nagorny Mine was operating, dust was also thick in the air. But they transported coal on a different road, so most of the dust went in another direction, and second, the flow of traffic was much less. In its prime, the mine would produce up to one million tons of coal a year, while Beringpromugol has already surpassed 1.5 million. But air pollution was not a major issue then, I think partly because Nagorny Mine did a lot for the people. Both settlements had over seven thousand residents, the mine had its own farm with cows, pigs, chickens. There was work, development, and food that was enough for everyone. We lived like one big family," Skroupsky recalls warmly. "Of course, we understand that this natural resource potential needs to be developed. We have incredibly rich reserves – they should benefit our country. But we need to live in harmony. People should benefit from these developments. Instead, we’ve only been promised a bright future that we still can't seem to see."
The Cursed Tundra
In Beringovsky, you won't find the usual trees. The vegetation consists of dwarf willow bushes, reaching a maximum of one and a half meters in height, and the tundra recently revealed from under the snow, which is the color of dirty straw.
It’s mid-June. You can hear all the living things vibrating, communicating, and stirring around. Gophers dart from mound to mound, partridges run across the marshy ground, and in the distance, cranes take off in a rush at the faintest sound of a person. By the twenties of June, greenery and the first flowers will start to appear. Berries will follow: raspberries, cloudberries, blueberries, lingonberries, cranberries, blackberries, and crowberries. Then come the mushrooms, among which, except for the fly-agarics, there are no poisonous varieties.
However, near Beringovsky, locals no longer gather anything – the area is considered "cursed" by the industrialists.
The settlement itself could be roughly divided into three tiers. The lower tier includes the tundra and the Lakhtina Lagoon, whose shore is dotted with "balka" (literally, timber beams) – small houses that serve as both garages and summer cottages. The lagoon is a fishing spot where, during the salmon run, locals catch various salmonids: red, chum, char, and silver salmon. The second tier of the settlement is filled with scrap metal, abandoned and active greenhouses, where locals grow vegetables and hold gatherings.
The top tier, located on high ground, consists of five-story buildings and municipal structures: Beringovsky has a district hospital and a kindergarten with windows overlooking the smoky road, a secondary school, diesel and coal power stations, a post office, a sports and wellness center, an administrative building shared with the border patrol, a church, a veterinary station, several grocery stores and a hardware store, and a bar-club called “Forever Friday.”
But the focal point of the settlement is the House of Culture. It attracts people not for its cultural programs by any means, but for its free Wi-Fi. Children play video games, while adults browse Yandex and social networks. The name of the Wi-Fi access point – Tigers Realm Coal.
Staying networked in the settlement is a challenge. Mobile calls don’t always go through, and open access to 4G internet is beyond imagination. On the second floor, there’s a library run by Larisa Borisovna. She shows the weekly newspaper “Far North”, which is provided to the library by Beringpromugol – 20 copies a week, handed out to pensioners for free. Larisa recalls that when relations with the coal miners were better, they helped the settlement acquire new books.
In the library’s display stands are remnants of an exhibition for June 12. “We are children of Russia, we are all Russians,” reads one of the signs. Larisa looks out the window and exclaims: “Here, look, look! Even from here you can see how it’s dusty.” One of the library’s regular visitors joins her dissatisfaction and explains:
“Coal dust doesn’t wash off like dirt; it becomes ingrained – that’s why our tundra can’t bloom. It’s all gray and black. And people breathe it in – coal dust, however fine the particles, doesn’t go away. I went out for bread in the winter and felt like I was suffocating; I had shortness of breath and my bronchi ached. I looked at the snow, and it was black.”
Larisa Borisovna adds that dirty snow disappears faster – already by April. In the clean tundra, on the other hand, it remains until early July.
HOW DOES COAL DUST AFFECT HEALTH?
Explained by environmental safety expert and editor of greenthinktank.life, Anton Lementuyev
Coal dust – or any type of mining dust – is a substance that living organisms, particularly humans, are not accustomed to. We haven't encountered it throughout our evolution. Fine particles can enter the bloodstream through the lungs, causing a wide range of diseases. The difficulty is that health problems don't appear immediately but only after 10-15 years – coal industry exposure has a cumulative effect.
A 2021 study conducted by biologists from the Kemerovo and Tomsk regions was particularly revealing. They found that in areas where coal mining takes place and dust exposure affects the population, the risk of congenital fetal defects increases. The highest risks (one in every five pregnancies) were observed in the city of Kiselyovsk, where there is no industry but coal mining, and extraction is done via open-pit mining.
Special attention should be paid to people working in the coal industry and their occupational diseases. Prolonged exposure to coal primarily affects the respiratory system, leading to chronic, incurable diseases of the bronchi and lungs: anthracosis, silicosis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
The next day, I go along with the Indigenous peoples of the area to explore the tundra near the settlement; among us, Larisa and Zhana, a Chukchi woman. Within minutes of being out in the field, all our shoes, pants, coats, and bags were covered in a brown residue. The dust kicked up by the Scania trucks was so dense that the vehicles themselves became invisible, creating a thick “fog.” The particles settled in our noses, on our tongues, and got into our eyes and ears – without a mask and goggles it’s hard to walk here. The trucks pass by without pause: the dust doesn’t have time to settle and dissipate before the next one races by.
“For us, all this is home, we grew up in the tundra. After school, we’d run out and plop right down on the ground, lying there happily, picking berries with our fingers. Oh, my tundra, I can’t bear it,” Zhanna quietly sobs and wipes her eyes with her sleeve. “You can’t come here anymore, there’s nothing left to gather. And us, the elders, do we need much? Just some berries and fish with roe to prepare for the winter. Now we have to go farther and farther away.”
“To go back to the past,” dreams Larisa aloud as she approaches some bushes, trying to clean the dust that has cloaked their buds. “They promised us back then that they wouldn’t harm nature. But the elders had warned us: this won’t end well. Even the miners leaving Nargorny Mine said: you don’t yet know what they’ll turn you into. We thought we were living poorly back then, but in reality, we’re living poorly now. We’ll see what the catch is like in the (Lakhtina) lagoon this year, because they’ve already ruined the (Coal) bay.”
The natives say that for several years now, “uyek” – as capelin is called in Chukchi – hasn’t entered Coal Bay. In the past, they used to catch it by the bucketful every spring.
“Some perish, others survive”
Last year, a young eco-activist and Chukchi woman, Zinaida ‘Zina’ Lifanova, became head of the local association of indigenous peoples. Zina once worked as a cleaner at Beringpromogul, giving her an inside view of the company’s operations. In 2020, she joined the Beringovsky Indigenous Association and began raising concerns about environmental issues – the same year, without any explanation, Beringpromoful terminated her employment contract. Some time later, her husband, who worked as a dockworker at the port, was forced to resign. According to the activist, the “crackdown” affected many people who had helped her gather information on environmental violations – sooner or later, all were dismissed from the company.
Zina believes that the main problem lies with the executive director of Beringpromugol, Sergey Yefanov. The company is managed by the Moscow-based BeringUgolInvest, whose general director is Dmitry Gavrilin.
“It seems to me that he [Gavrilin] is unaware of what’s happening in Beringovsky. If Moscow understood, maybe something would change. But right now, Yefanov, with his attitude, has alienated the entire settlement – ordinary people, the administration, and the [Indigenous peoples’] association,” says Zinaida.
Two of Zina’s brothers are involved in the fighting in Ukraine; one of them has already become disabled. The first was mobilized, and the second went to fight alongside him. This is common in Chukotka: when one man goes to the front, those who remain follow.
"And so it turns out that some of us die for the country, are maimed, while others struggle to survive here. And this is despite the fact that there are so few of us [Chukchi] left. I step outside after work today, and there's nothing left to breathe. Sure, I'm healthy, but for example, my 70-year-old grandmother can't even go outside," the woman says.
These days, Beringovsky is experiencing unusually warm and sunny weather for the area. The dust isn't being dampened by moisture and settling on the ground – all of it lingers in the air.
"Our hands are tied. No matter where we file complaints – there's silence everywhere. This isn't normal! And then, what are we supposed to eat? For Indigenous peoples, fish and meat are staple foods, part of the daily diet," Zinaida continues. "Now they're going to start mining coal even further – then what? Will there be no fish left at all? In Alkatvaam, there's almost none as it is. Hunting – back in my childhood, there were plenty of hares, geese, and ducks. Now, that's gone; the birds have nowhere to nest because of the dust. Hares only started to come back this year – they've been gone since 2014."
For the past three years, Zina has been trying to reach out to the authorities in the Anadyr District and the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, but according to her, the complaints often end up back in the Beringovsky administration. There, the head of the settlement lacks the authority to address all the festering problems.
"It seems to me that my letters simply don't reach the agencies that could respond adequately. I tried to get journalists interested in our problem, but no one has covered our story on federal channels. I even tried writing to the president's website and calling in during his direct line – waited for many hours, but in the end, they just disconnected me. We have poor internet access here, so bringing public attention to everything that’s happening isn’t easy."
Beringovsky activists have been raising their issue at regional meetings for the Association of Small-Numbered Indigenous Peoples of Chukotka for years already, but there has been no response on the side of the company, save for the occasional deployment of a watering truck.
People are afraid to openly express their anger and protest: Zina, Larisa, and a few other activists are rare exceptions.
One of the reasons is that Beringpromugol controls the port, and therefore, the supply of goods, including food, for Beringovsky, Alkatvaam, Khatyrka, and Meynypilgyno.
People say outright, "I might want to speak out publicly, but with the shipping season underway, it's definitely not the time to pick a fight with them. It would cost us dearly. You will leave, but we have to survive here."
They admit: the company can delay the release of containers at the port, causing products, including perishable goods, to arrive late on store shelves. Some Beringovsky residents have relatives working for the company, and they're worried about them too, since finding a job in the settlement is difficult. Many simply aren’t ready to spend the time and energy on a struggle that doesn’t yield results. Conflicts with the industrialists have often led to problems for those who initiated them.
The most intense "battle" with the coal industry was experienced by Stanislav Taranenko, the founder of the Chukchi family-clan community "Altar," whose lands are located south of Beringovsky, by the Amaam Lagoon next to Ushakov Bay. He began fighting against the industrialists back in 2008, when geological exploration of the Bering Coal Basin first began. Heavy tracked machinery trampled reindeer pastures, nesting sites of rare birds, and literally tore up the protected area around the spawning river Amaam, leading to the mass death of fish. In September 2011, members of the community stood up to defend their territories – Taranenko blocked the unloading of equipment in Ushakov Bay with an all-terrain vehicle for four days, for which he was fined 568,500 rubles “for losses due to the vessel downtime." Despite their attempts to resist, in 2013, the Arbitration Court of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug ordered the Indigenous community to pay the fine, even though the "Chukotka Trading Company," which was conducting the geological exploration at that time, had the right to work in the Amaam River only during the winter on thick ice, not in the summer-autumn period. This was followed by reprisals from the Anadyr District authorities, who declared the community's land rights invalid. In 2015, "Altar" eventually defended its land rights, but they have not been able to pay off the fine to this day.
After these legal battles, which led to nothing but problems and debts, the local residents have little enthusiasm left to fight for clean air and spawning rivers.
Zina sits wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Мы вместе Z" ("We stand with Z").
— Do you feel that the rest of the country is with Chukotka? – I ask
— Out there, beyond Chukotka, is another Russia. Here, I know that someone might help me. But when you go there, you’re a stranger everywhere. Here, I feel a sense of “togetherness” (вместе) more. We collect money for wax to make trench candles, and we even tried weaving camouflage nets.
— You mentioned that people in Chukotka have responded actively to the conscription, with many voluntarily leaving for the front. Why do you think this event mobilized people, but the issues at home haven’t united them to the same extent?
— Because this touches the larger homeland. And as for what’s happening here… Even by brothers – they know I’m staying here. They say, well, you’ll find like-minded people there. I reply: who will I find? I don’t know how to answer this question. For some, the homeland is the entire country. For others, like me, it’s our little settlement. And I’m here trying and fighting. But not everyone is like that.
In all the time the company has been operating in these areas, neither Beringovsky nor the neighboring village of Alkatvaam has developed a stable group of eco-activists. Sure, there’s usually someone to take up the role of filing complaints, but the issue isn't just "turnover"; it's more about the disunity of opinions and the overall mood of humble resignation. The stakes are high for the locals: in the event that their protest fails, they could lose jobs, money, and stability. Losing these essentials in Chukotka's isolated conditions is too deeply felt to risk.
"One time, people from Alkatvaam called me, asking me to come and film how the coal miners were polluting their river," one activist concludes. "I said, 'Guys, why don’t you do it yourselves?' They said, 'Well, you’re already used to fighting with them.'"
Read the rest of the story next Thursday, where we talk about life in the village of Alkatvaam, located in close proximity to the coal mines, and about how the Australian company Tigers Realm Coal, which was mining near Beringovsky until April, is in fact connected to the Russian authorities.
