Dumps in the forests (Olkhon Island)
Report from Baikal Camp 2002
by Jan Michael Ihl
The fresh and clean air of Baikal breezes around our noses. Some
people just make fire and prepare lunch in our camp above a sandy
beach of Olkhon Island, from where we can watch the western shore
of Lake Baikal. Our three teams, each consisting of about 12
people, are out to collect garbage: cans, plastic and beer bottles,
broken engines and debris from house construction - that's what we
find in the nearby forests and at the beaches around Huzir, the
only big village on Olkhon. The about 1200 people of Huzhir (of
about 1500 altogether on Olkhon) don't have any garbage collection
facilities and the only waste pressing machine is not working since
it lacks of money and will to repair it. Additionally tourists from
Russia and all over the world seem not to care about the sensitive
environment of Baikal and leave their trash on camp sites, beaches
and beside the roads. Thus our garbage collection activities are
sometimes frustrating and might appear useless when we stand in
front of meadows full of glass and cans. But the beautiful nature
of Baikal compensates for the 8 hours each day collecting
waste.
For a simple camp at least one luxury tries to remind us that
this is holidays for most of us: after work, in the evenings we can
enjoy a self-built Banya, a Russian sauna, which warms heart and
soul and the body, too, after swimming in the cold water of the
lake. Also we did already some excursions to learn about Olkhon and
Baikal. At the second day of the camp we hiked to the Shaman rock,
a holy place of the Buryat people, which settled on Olkhon 500-600
years ago.
At the 6th day we got a windy ride on a soviet-time truck to the
northern tip of the island - a gorgeous rocky cape from where one
can only assume the far north rim of the Baikal. Later we were
picked up by a boat in a small village's natural harbour and sailed
back and around that northern cape of the island and then into the
so-called 'small sea' between Olkhon and the mainland. Our captain
was a real Buryat, living in Huzhir, and a giant of man, dark
sun-burned skin and face and snow-white hairs. He told us a lot
about the living circumstances, the crew's work as fishermen and
when - in the middle of the lake - we met an other ship with an old
friend of him onboard he could not say 'no' to some glasses of
vodka together with his friend. Thus we had an adventurous boat
trip, reaching Huzhir at sunset.
Yesterday, the 10th of August, we had a small action
with local people, many kids, tourists and a local shaman. Together
we cleaned the Shaman rock from garbage and Yuri and myself climbed
on top of the rock to remove any bottles and cans from there.
Hopefully this action will move both local people and tourists
towards a more environmental-friendly treatment of Baikal and will
show the officials in Irkutsk that it's worth to keep the nature
clean.
Hi,
My name is Irene Mittrop, I'm from Hamburg, Germany, and I am a
participant in the Greenpeace Lake Baikal Work Camp 2002. We are
here to clean up trashed areas of the island and to improve the
situation on the island concerning trash handling by the
inhabitants, reached by negotiations with the local authorities,
press representants and educational activities for the inhabitants
of
Olkhon Island.
Here my first impressions after two days. Today is 5.8.2002, 3pm
local time Irkutsk. Here are about 45 people from Greenpeace Russia
(Moscow, Saint-Petersburg and Irkutsk), Italy, the Netherlands and
from Germany.
The participants booked their traveling on their own, so we
arrived all with different transportations. Most of us came to
Irkutsk by plane, but some even used the Transsib. The
transportation to the island of course only worked by car, which
means a powerful jeep. All together, the journey was very
exhausting for everybody because it was not only about switching
planes and airports but also because of traveling through several
time zones with significant time shift. Irkutsk time is 7h+
compared to Berlin time.
When we finally arrived at the camp site on Olhon Island we
realized that Volodja did a great job with the camp preparations.
It's a beautiful choice of location as we can see directly on the
waters of Lake Baikal, we are protected by Mediterranean looking
trees, and it was easy to prepare the tent setting because it is
all sand here which makes us sleep comfortably.
When everybody had been arrived we had our first camp meeting,
and all participants were divided in three working brigades,
depending on their language skills. As I do not speak any Russian,
I am together with the Dutch and Italians in brigade #3 (I am still
irritated by the military term 'brigade', and would have found it
more appropriate to let us be 'groups').
For the 1st day, for me that was it; I set my tent and went
immediately to sleep. Some of us did the same, some had a nice
evening at the camp fire, the ones having arrived by Transsib even
had the possibility to use the hand-craft-sauna.
The first working day revealed the bad trash situation this
island is in. Alongside of miles of the tracks through the woods
and even at the beachsites there is trash just being thrown there
without any consideration: glass, plastic, metal cans, motor spare
parts, clothes, plastic lamination material, roof covering
material, short: everything trashable we could find there. Equipped
with special team jackets, pants and working gloves (provided by
Greenpeace - thanx!) protecting our personal clothes from the dirt
we would be sitting in we started to collect the trash, already
separating it by recyclability of the material (glass bottles,
plastic bottles, cans, metal parts, and non-recyclable trash -which
unfortunately makes the biggest part of it). The groups' work
turned out very effective as we could clean in only one day a whole
passage of a long forest track which looked horrifying at the
beginning, as if it were impossible to clean up so much trash even
in weeks - team working is a great thing! The work itself is
enormously straneous as you are always declined with your back to
pick up single items, or sitting on the ground with your knees to
collect whole piles of shmudder. The sacks we use to put everything
in there get heavy in no time, and you always have to drag them
with you to put the trash in. For me as a plain office worker these
days will be a real challenge for my body!
We were all too happy when it was time for lunch, and as the
weather is fantastic today - worm, sunny, cloudless - some of us
took the opportunity to take a bath in the Lake Baikal. Even if
'taking a bath' is absolutely exaggerated because the weather shows
ca. 6 centigrades of temperature and lets every civilized muscle
freeze in ca. 5 seconds. The ones who didn't strain their bodies in
the cold took a sun bath or just took a little walk at the beach.
Altogether, it is really beautiful here, and the group members
together with all the participants are super-nice people,
interesting to talk to, it is a great atmosphere!