Published: 16 March, 2008, 07:03
Edited: 16 March, 2008, 07:03
There are nine time zones and several thousand kilometres between Moscow and Chukotka. But it's just a 40-minute flight from Alaska. RT finds out how life has changed in the region over the last decade.
While Muscovites consider the eastern Chukotka region ‘the back of beyond’, for Americans it’s the home of their nearest Russian neighbours.
As part of the USSR, Chukotka on Russia's Eastern border zone, was a major military base and not much else. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the army forces left the region and so did hope.
“We had the feeling we had been taken to an island or some unknown planet and left. There was no communication – no planes – and so we didn’t have any food, medicine or fuel. The houses were dilapidated and we couldn’t keep warm. At night, your hair could freeze and get stuck to the wall and you would have to cut it off. People committed suicide,” 60-year old Tatyana Achirgina – an Eskimo born and raised Chukotka – recalls.
She didn’t leave in the1990's when more than half of the population migrated.
And now, when life here has changed she thanks Russia’s billionaire and Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.
Tatyana no longer worries about whether she'll eat or how she'll survive. A retired journalist she's now doing what she always wanted to – writing poems.
Roman Abramovich became Chukotka's governor after the region went bankrupt. With eight years at the helm he did what seemed impossible.
“We've transformed the region into a place that could rely on its own resources, a region where lives would no longer depend on the whims of nature or politicians, where we would not all die of hunger and cold,” local resident Vasily Maksimov says.
Ten years ago people of Anadyr, the capital of the Chukotka area sold their apartments for the price of ticket to the mainland. Nowadays one-room apartments cost about $US 60 thousands. And people are no longer in a hurry to pack their bags.
Some of those who left Chukotka are coming back – and its not difficult – planes fly in four times a day bringing many new faces.
Some of them are quite unexpected, like, a barman from Bolivia, who arrived five years ago.
Hugo is fluent in Russian, used to the climate and makes the area's best Mojito. And he has plenty to do – the restaurant is always busy. So is the city’s cinema and the night club.
“We made people’s life here comfortable. They have places to go out to, and what's more – they're in the mood to do so,” Anadyr mayor Andrey Shchegolkov says.