Sunbathing in Siberia (22 page)

Krasnoyarsk 26, the Secret City

Not all of my time alone during those all-nighters was spent writing. Much time was also spent pissing about on the internet, talking to Nastya on Facebook Chat and looking up odd facts about Russia, in between tiptoeing to the kitchen to make tea.

While looking into the history of Krasnoyarsk, I kept coming across the phrase ‘Krasnoyarsk nuclear contamination'. I found dozens of articles giving sketchy details of Krasnoyarsk's nuclear facilities and an apparent environmental disaster. In my sleep-deprived state of delirium, reading reports of contamination, radiation sicknesses and pollution of the Yenisei, my heart raced with caffeinated panic at the thought that I might be living in a nuclear-contaminated city. While some articles referred to Krasnoyarsk, others referred to Krasnoyarsk 26 (K26) and Krasnoyarsk 45 (K45). I typed these names into Google maps hoping to distinguish one from the other. I had no such luck; the map led straight to the centre of Krasnoyarsk city. This is because K26 and K45 were no longer known by these names, but were now Zheleznogorsk and Zelenogorsk respectively. With further research I discovered that K26 and K45 were ‘secret cities', created during the cold war to produce weapons-grade plutonium and enriched uranium. The reason I couldn't find them on the map was that under the Soviet Union, secret cities were given names of PO Boxes inside well-established cities. K45 is the number of a post office located in Krasnoyarsk, while K26, I am told, is a PO Box number that probably refers to a village just a few miles out from Krasnoyarsk city.

Since the collapse of the USSR, the existence of forty-two secret cities, now known as closed cities, has been disclosed to the public, while there are rumours that at least another fifteen or more have not yet been revealed. Until 1992 these closed cities didn't exist on any maps. There were no road signs to or from them and their names didn't appear on train timetables. To gain access people were subject to document checks and were required to obtain special permission from the KGB. Closed cities were often protected by a perimeter fence, barbed wire and security checkpoints. Although they looked like giant prison camps, the residents, of which there were normally more than fifty thousand per city, were able to come and go, as long as they didn't give any reference to where they had come from. Their very homes were deemed ‘classified information'. K26 was established in 1950 for the production of plutonium. Also known as ‘Atom Town' and the ‘Iron City', much of K26 was built underground at huge expense to protect it from nuclear attack. Defence complexes including nuclear fuel production reactors, bomb production and radioactive waste removal plants were built within caverns inside the granite mountain on the northern edge of the city. This was an ideal place as compared with most other types of rock, granite has been known to contain a higher amount of naturally occurring radioactive elements such as radium, uranium and thorium, which meant any foreign technology with the ability to detect radioactive particles would overlook this site.

Throughout my late night investigation into K26, I was confused by many of the articles I read including a BBC article from 1998 which came complete with a map of Russia with a little radiation sign over Krasnoyarsk; this is because some articles referred to Krasnoyarsk, when in fact they were discussing facilities at K26 and K45. Occasionally articles mentioned Krasnoyarsk when they were referring to the entire region rather than the city. This inaccurate information led to me working myself into a state the following day; I decided to conduct my own tests. I emailed many of my friends in the UK who I knew to have careers in science or who worked for a university and could therefore approach someone who knew about radiation and nuclear contamination. I also needed a Geiger counter. Boris, who has hunted all over Siberia has a Geiger counter that he uses to ensure the ground he hunts on, the berries he picks and the deer he catches aren't radioactive. After a quick word with Nastya, Boris came over to our flat the morning following my night of research. With his help, we tested all the food in the fridge, the water, every room of the apartment and nearly every household object. It turned out that the most radioactive item was the laptop I had brought with me from the UK. Panic over. However, Boris did explain to me through Nastya that while most things in Krasnoyarsk were safe, there were items sold in shops that were contaminated with radiation from K26, as well as areas in Krasnoyarsk south of the river that while not entirely radioactive, were contaminated through pollution from the metal factories. From that day on, we were very careful about what we bought in the supermarkets, questioning the origin of each product. Some shop staff were surprised and even smirked when we told them we didn't want chicken from cities known to be radioactive. They were either totally unaware such food contamination existed or were amused by our concern, because they believed the notion of radioactive chicken was far-fetched.

While I continued researching the nuclear industry in Russia, I was horrified to learn of several disasters that are little known to the West, some of which resulted in contamination and nuclear fallout similar in scale to that of the Chernobyl disaster. The Mayak nuclear complex located near the city of Chelyabinsk has been described as ‘the most polluted place on Earth'. Besides many accounts of ‘death and disease' and the evacuation of nearly twenty villages as a result of nuclear waste being dumped into the Techa River nearby, a hushed up explosion of a nuclear waste storage tank in 1957 released radiation equal to ‘more than half the amount of radioactive waste released by the accident in Chernobyl'. Similar reports of pollution can also be read about other nuclear facilities such as Tomsk-7. With scant information being released from what the Soviets called ‘closed reports' and the results of the most detailed investigations deemed ‘classified', I could see why some media outlets were often confused about which city was which. Over a period of weeks I managed to piece together likely facts after cross-referencing many reports found because of lengthy online searches. These documents included reports on nuclear and environmental disasters not only in Russia but elsewhere in the world, including the UK and the now famous Fukushima. What became apparent was the culture of secrecy and cover-ups wasn't unique to Russian or Soviet culture, but was and is widespread throughout the rest of the world; I concluded my investigation with the knowledge that every country has its dirty secrets that none of us will ever fully realise and that I would be better off not trawling the internet when I should be sleeping.

Dachnik

When I lived in Pentyrch back in 2003, I did all of my drinking in the Lewis Arms at the top of the hill. I preferred it to the Kings Arms at the bottom, because I didn't like walking back up to the top of the village after a skinful, and the Lewis Arms had a round pool table that was shit to play on but tons of fun when pissed. One evening, about 10.30 p.m., two blokes walked in with uncommon accents. They were from North Wales. They sat on the stools closest to the bar on the front side of the building and ordered two pints. Jeff, being your normal curious landlord asked them where they were from and what their business was in Pentyrch. I don't remember where they said they came from, what mattered is that after only one pint they went on to call us English. This is due to the irrational view shared by only a handful of Welsh people that those from the north are somehow Welshier than folk from the south. After that the conversation became quite heated and the two travellers departed without finishing their drinks. This kind of banter also exists in Russia, except it's more of an east/west thing. Russians in the west of the Urals are seen as Euro-Russians while those in the east are seen simply as Russian or Siberian-Russian. Siberians, unlike their Western cousins, tend to hold themselves in higher regard because they live through more extreme weather conditions and a far harsher economic climate; and most of the bears and other man-eating beasts are in Siberia. It's less developed than the west, particularly Moscow, so it's seen as Old Russia, the original land with the original people. Siberians are also credited with winning the Battle of Stalingrad, which of course is the battle that turned the tide of World War II. When choosing men to go and fight on the front line it is claimed the Soviet Marshal Chuikov said to the new soldiers: ‘Step forward if you are from Siberia. To defend Stalingrad I need men who know how to put all they can into a fight; others get back to positions behind Volga.' Chuikov later went on to say ‘Siberians were the soul of the Stalingrad battle.' Siberians are famously strong, and they understand that Moscow is nothing without them; they live in the main body of Russia, and consequently they sit on top of Russia's vast mineral reserves. They are a stoic people, with all the strength and cunning of the bears they live alongside. Before I came to Russia, I could only have spoken to you of Moscow, because that's the only city I'd heard much about; my knowledge of the land beyond the Urals was shameful. What I know now is that Siberia is also Russia and Moscow; Putin and the Kremlin are powerless without its support.

What I love most about living in Siberia is that we are reminded that we are not in charge; nature is the ruling power. There are a host of bears, wild dogs and cats that are large, ferocious and love to eat meat and yet Siberians live alongside these creatures. Humans are not the dominant force, like everything else we are part of the food chain; lower your guard for long enough in Siberia and something will come along with its big teeth and paws and remind you of this fact. As a result there exists a greater respect for other creatures; humans live in the towns and cities, but the taiga is shared with all manner of birds and beasts. They have their playground and we have ours. In my view this co-existence with man-eating beasts gives Siberians a greater sense of humility. When I was a boy, growing up in the West, I was taught that man is the greatest, most evolved species on Earth; that all other beasts big or small are subservient to his power. Now I know otherwise.

During each of my previous visits to Russia, Boris had asked me if I would like to accompany him to his hut in the mountains to learn how to hunt. I declined every time because I'm not brave enough. This was fine with Boris and Nataliya Petrovna, but they insisted that I still had to learn at least some of their ways over the summer. I was, after all, a new addition to the family, another mouth to feed, and so needed to contribute something. Marina and Boris took it upon themselves to teach me how to grow vegetables; firstly by showing me how to plough the land and remove any weeds; and secondly how to plant each vegetable and water each one differently. In reality Boris and Marina did most of the work throughout the summer, with only occasional help from me, because Nastya and I only visited the dacha for short periods in between Nastya's work shifts; however all the squash were entirely my effort. By the end of July we had quite a large crop of nearly everything required to take the family right through to winter. When we were at our apartment Boris often drove over with bags of vegetables to save us from having to lug them home on the bus, and he usually included a few extras, like milk or bread, just to keep us going. The fridge in our apartment was stuffed with various homegrown goods, while various other root vegetables were placed in our family's underground storage box to keep them cool and safe. Many Siberians have one of these storage boxes. They can be seen all over the city. What look like little wooden platforms with padlocks on just a few inches from the ground in between apartment blocks are in fact people's vegetable stores. They are actually steel boxes that go several feet underground and are the perfect way to keep vegetables because they keep vegetables cool and fresh all year.

Outside our apartment there is an old chest of drawers that has long been abandoned. Inside there is a variety of junk, including old calendars. When Boris visited he normally had a rummage around in the chest to see if there was anything of value. He took one of the calendars home as the paper was quite thick and could be used to wrap food in his hunting kit. Nastya told me that Boris once salvaged a pile of left over material and animal fur from the rubbish dump outside his apartment, which pleased Nataliya Petrovna no end. Boris didn't care; he washed the material several times and after a period of weeks had fashioned himself a very smart fur waistcoat. At the dacha I watched as he took an old square piece of wood that I thought was junk, and made a new seat for the boat he uses to go hunting. He spent hours every evening with the wood on his lap, carving away with his chisels until he had a seat with intricate carving that looked professionally made. It just goes to show that one Western man's rubbish is another Siberian man's hunting accessory.

When I wasn't learning the art of growing veg or ploughing the land in summer, Nastya and I would walk through the forest in between rows of old dachas to get to one of the nearby lakes. Sometimes we would go for a swim but more often than not we would just sit and watch the world go by. Seeing the perfectly sculpted bodies of the young men in the lake made me too self-conscious to get my kit off and reveal my well-fed poet's physique. To get to our favourite lake we walked along a path that led halfway to Pugachevo train station. This route was littered with giant concrete blocks with old twisted steel spikes protruding at all angles. No one could explain why they were there. I assumed they were once protection or housing for the many rusting fuel tanks found littering Pugachevo. These beasts are ex-cargo railway wagons, roughly 50 ft long and at least 20 ft high; I assumed that before Pugachevo was a dacha territory it must have had another purpose, unless those tanks were used for water before the wells were dug and the piping laid from the lakes to the dachas.