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August 4 ,5 ,6 ,8 ,10 ,11 ,12 ,13 ,15
August 4
On the way
Gunter Raschen- our first camper-came from St. Petersburg to Irkutsk 4 a.m. Though he is 61 and has kept the flight awake, he managed to meet other campers at the airport. The last guests arrived about 8 a.m.
This elderly German lives in Bavaria, but rarely stays home choosing travel's fuss instead of a comfort. Although he soon got bored with simple travelling; he tries to be useful. He liked very much the idea to work at Greenpeace camp in such an unusual place as the Olkhon Island.
Today the major group of our camp has arrived to the airport and the railroad terminal. The train was late as usual. Anyway the preparations are over and our buses are bound for the Olkhon.
To say that everyone was exhausted after several days in the train or a sleepless night in the plane is to say nothing. However a stay at Bayanday village (Ust-Ordynsky National District) cheered the group up. The roadside cafes offer Buryat cuisine with its national dish– "pozy" which looks like Russian pelmeni but 4 times larger and not cooked but steamed. Unskilled lovers of the national cuisine poured the delicious juice over themselves but were absolutely delighted.
Passed over the mountains our buses have gotten out into real steppes. We are surrounded with flat hills dissected with angular rocks; infrequent "flat" ponds; grayish-green short grass. Ground squirrels from time to time cross the rocky road which needs some repair. Buzzards- diurnal birds of prey -hover about along the road.
Not far from a settlement with a strange name MRS we have found a quay for the ferry that crosses the Olkhon Gates strait. The strait connects the proper Baikal with Maloe More -the lake's part between the mainland and the Olkhon.
Olkhon Island ferry
Summertime is a tourist season on Olkhon- thousands and thousands visitors. The only way to get on the island is an old ferryboat Dorozhnik. The line to the only boat may amount up to 80 cars. As the locals are actually entitled to an out of turn passage, the place witnesses such collisions which poor old Shakespeare couldn't have imagined.
The setting: a group of enraged viragos no longer having any resemblance to women blocks off the way to a car. They grasp the car, open the doors, try to get the driver out. The guy breaks free and nearly running over the public drives into the ferry. Then he gets out of the car and happily smiling tries to set right the torn off sleeve. The viragos share the impressions: "Hey, just look at that! What a scumbag... Never mind, have you seen the sleeve? It's me, really. Now what a..."
A small car without a hood modestly tries to get forward aside from the line. A husky guy out of his mind from the heat and booze comes up to the car. He swears as devil, hooks a rope to the trunk and tries to tow that local aside. Lada-Niva 4x4 has set its bumper against the next car and vainly tries to push it out of the line. Jungles of savage emotions...
Though frankly, lots of the tourists use this sudden delay in a more appropriate manner- they take an excursion to the hill's summit full of rocky pyramids or arrange a picnic: some beer with omul-fish. People say that omul from Maloye Morye though small but is particularly delicious among other omul-fishes of the Baikal.
Having passed the ferry behind, our buses go deeper into the Olkhon steppes. We head for the main town of the island -Khuzhir. Greenpeace camp is set up right near the town.
The island met us with cloudy weather. What a strange luck! The place is famous for its sunny weather; it has more sunny days than the Black Sea resorts.
40 minutes later the buses passed the main street of Khuzhir and turned off the road to a forest. We are amazed! A beautiful pine forest turned into a regular dump. The only difference is that there are no garbage heaps, the local rubbish is spread all over the surface as far as we just can see.
Plastic and glass bottles, construction waste, scrap metal, old fishnets, cans, tires, food bags and cartons; on top of all we can see "placers" of aluminum beer cans-a symbol of new times. Baltika brewery is a definite leader here (though it's a doubtful ad for Petersburg's beer).
All in all, we have realized at once that we have a lot to do. The camp is comfortable; it is located on a high sandy shore. There are members' tents, a canteen tent, field sauna and (a very important aspect!) field WC. The ceremonial dinner was served in the atmosphere of weary tranquillity and a foretaste for the next day "onset against the dump".
August 5
First day: gaining experience
Cloudy weather is so good on the journey, but when it comes to work the drizzle gets on the nerves. We are lucky- there's no drizzling today!
Last night we were so exhausted that got to bed early and fell asleep right away. So to get up next morning at 7 a.m. was no big deal for us.
We got to work at 9 a.m. But first we had some training at the nearest "unauthorized" dump. We learned what, where and how to collect, how to separate different types of garbage. Nikolay, an expert of a recycling company, taught us several lessons of garbage combating. Then he went to Khuzhir to set up the press. We are going to press soft waste, for example plastic bottles, to use our trucks to their full capacity.
One group got on a bus and went to the northern part of the island. They are going to clean up the shore and eliminate the traces of wild (indeed, wild!) tourists. Bags with collected garbage are to be stored at the "base", then picked up by trucks and moved from the island.
Twenty people went to a dump next to our camp. They sort out the garbage, and put it into plastic bags. A special refuse truck is to pick up the bags and press them, thus more efficiently using its capacity. The first truck is to come here tomorrow. Up to the noon we managed to collect over a hundred bags, fifty of them will be moved for recycling.
Sergio Bafoni is an employee of Greenpeace Italy. He's a very calm, smiling nice guy. He's a historian by profession and can tell us lots interesting things about Russian history, though he specializes in other issues.
His impressions of the first days: "I like Russian people very much. I spent a lot of time walking in the streets of Irkutsk and watched the people there. That was very interesting. All the people whom I managed to talk to (in English, of course) were very friendly. Even those who didn't speak English sincerely tried to understand me and answer my question..."
August 6
Working hard
Our work is in full swing. The day is splendid. The weather is just what we need: the sun shines, no clouds and some fresh wind, so it's not very stuffy to work with the uniform on.
Today our serried team has increased: a group of about 30 schoolchildren joined us. The kids are from Zheleznogorsk- a town in Krasnoyarsk Territory with nuclear waste storage facilities and a nuclear recycling plant under construction. The guys are very nimble, they take an interest in all the ins and outs of garbage separate collecting, and differences between the recyclable and non-recyclable refuse.
Our dump is a real medley: tomb monuments, automotive horns, helmets, cattle sculls, toys... We used the most queer and funny things for the "dump's museum" -a picturesque grouping along the side of a passage. Today we are extremely enthusiastic: we have managed to separate and collect into the bags (plastic, glass, rags, etc) and heaps (scrap metal, construction waste) nearly the entire dump which at first a bit scared us with its magnitude. However the devil is not so terrible as he tries to look.
In the afternoon a truck came from Irkutsk. The truck has a special container and can press the garbage. It took us two hours to fill it to the full capacity. The truck can load 5 times a regular truck -over 42 cubic meters!
Today we loaded non-recyclable garbage; so far we have no facility to reprocess it. The garbage went away to a special storage site in Irkutsk. By the dusk the dump vanished; all we could see was almost a pristine forest. It surely can't be denied that it's a real pleasure to watch the deeds of one's own hands.
Collecting the garbage we have moved ahead 250 more meters today. It goes on very swimmingly. Such a pace cheers everyone up; in addition we’ve got a ball to straighten ourselves and loosen up during the breaks.
Our daily output is 300 bags. We load the bags into a truck provided by the forestry office and move them closer to the road. Besides the sorted out refuse we've collected piles of metal scrap- about 5 tons- lots of cardboard and other oversize garbage, which is to be moved out August 10 with a large dump truck; it's gonna be a mass action day.
Yesterday two groups- we've called them canvassers- set forth on a tour along the shore to persuade the tourists to keep the place clean. Most of the "instructed" agreed to join Greenpeace action August 10.
All right, tomorrow is a day off! It's much warmer now- one can stay in the water for a couple of minutes already.
This morning in Khuzhir village has begun not only with a cockcrow, but also with an energetic knocking at the door. Greenpeace volunteers invited the locals to join the island cleaning campaign.
The mass action went off just fine. All in all there came over 230 people: 50 tourists, 50 locals and summer residents, 75 guys from Barguzin tourist base and an environmental camp of Zheleznogorsk-town; 55- the campers and their guests.
Six groups set about targeting at their own goals. Everybody was just elated and eager for the tidy-out operation. Staying on the top of the hill (there we made tea for all the action participants) one can see the constricting ring of the cleaners. The groups move up contracting at one place- Burkhan Hill.
Shaman Valentine conducted a ceremony admitting the strangers to the sacred place of the island- the Burkhan. After the ceremony two Greenpeace activists mounted the hill and removed the garbage there. They collected two bags of refuse; that's too many taking into account rather small size of the rock. Even most hard-to-reach places were littered with bottles.
When the action was over we arranged a tea party with doughnuts and souvenirs presentation ceremony.
The action cleaned out eight kilometers of the shore near Khuzhir village, Burkhan hill and the rock, as well as the road to the village. The groups collected 407 bags.
A quarter of the collected garbage (plastics and iron) is fully recyclable; the rest will be removed from the national park to a special dump. A huge refuse truck failed to load all the collected garbage; we need some more transport.
We were not alone; we felt our strength. We could move mountains. But so far we have to remove hills of garbage!
Today we have loaded a full truck with metal scrap, though there's a lot of such scrap around. We keep on removing the forest dump. As we believe the dump's gonna take us some 2-3 days more (that's good news). A small group went to clean up the ferry entrance road. Lines of waiting cars are a regular thing; no wonder there's a lot of garbage there.
On August 9- the day off- we divided into two groups and headed for Khoboy cape. The first group sailed, the second chose UAZ off-road cars (because of the sandy soil and quicksand places people drive there UAZ only). The island amazes people with its numerous and various landscapes- steppes, mountains, forests...
Last day- August 10- was a very busy, but incredibly pleasant day. Over 230 people joined us in the cleaning campaign. Lots of kids took part in the action. The joint efforts removed garbage from the shore, around Khuzhir village, and even cleared up the driveways to the main dump of the village. The driveways were strewed with old wires and waste glass.
The village buzzes with news about the joint cleaning: might be things are really gonna change? There were many cleaning campaigns on the island but none of them actually solved the problem. We will certainly do it. We'll provide for a regular removal of garbage. Most of the locals and tourists support us and believe the Olkhon will be clean.
Peschanaya bay. We have cleaned up the beach, and collected and sorted out over a hundred bags of trash. The earlier collected garbage is to be moved for recycling; we have appointed four campers to deal with it. They are to find the packed bags, load them into a truck and move for sorting. Those types of trash, which can be pressed (for instance, plastics), are to be moved to Khuzhir; the village has a pressing machine.
Other campers drag the packed bags closer to the road, clean up old trash piles and sort them out right on the spot. We've got neither bulldozer, nor tractor, and have to do all the work with our own hands; that's an incredibly hard work.
Yesterday we loaded a full truck with metal scrap. The only "residual" is large metal elements: car bodies, engineering parts, etc. To remove these parts from the island we have to cut them into pieces, but the village's got no facilities for cutting metal. So far we decided to remove them to the village dump.
Today we are sorting out the collected trash and make it ready for loading. In the afternoon we expect another truck to come. Loading takes us a lot of time and efforts; but its result is clearly evident- no more trash bags. That's very satisfying.
We have just a thing or two to complete our mission. The final spurt- to load the last truck next morning. This time it's gonna be sorted and pressed plastics. An evening some bathing is gonna crown the work!
Today we have realized the work is nearly over. We've done almost everything scheduled. August 15 is to be our last day at the camp. We feel a bit sad...
Actually we scheduled a day-off for this day, but because of our "extremely intensive" operations, we've got a lot to sort out now. The work must be completed and accomplished. A group of 15 campers- Russians and Italians- worked till 3 p.m. making the site perfect. We processed some plastics with our pressing machine in Khuzhir; other plastic refuse was packed with the help of a garbage truck. At 3 p.m. the truck left for Angarsk-town. This plastic is to be recycled into water pipes and window frames.
At night, after a short tour to Lake Solenoe, we arranged a farewell party. In the morning we said our last goodbye to the camp, the island (though we'll surely come back here again), and headed for Irkutsk. There we are going to arrange an action with… however, we'll tell about it in due time. The action promises to be very interesting.
