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Title: Sky blue stream Author: Antti Rautiainen Date: December 3, 2006 Language: en Topics: Russia, oil Source: Retrieved on 3rd November 2021 from https://anttirautiainen.livejournal.com/14019.html Notes: An article about struggle against Blue Stream gas pipeline in Black Sea rim. Written for SchNews yearbook 2002.
Black sea rim is one of the main arenas of geo-political intrigue in the
world. Battle for the control of the transfer routes of the natural
resources has been one of the reasons behind all of the bloody conflicts
of the troubled area during the 90’s — five wars of the Balkans, civil
war of Turkey, two wars of Chechenya, civil war of Georgia, two wars of
Abkhaziya, war of the mountainous Karabah and wars of Southern Ossetia
and Dagestan.
NATO would hardly have been as eager to bomb Yugoslavia, if there were
other oil transfer alternatives to snarled up Bospor strait than
building a pipeline through Balkans. Also Russia maybe would not have
been as uncompromising in regards to Chechnya, if originally most
important transfer route of the Baku oil did not went through this small
piece of land. USA, Russia and Iran have all taken their sides in every
power struggle of the Caucasian countries, where power has seldom during
the last 15 years been passed from hands to another without blood
spilling.
Construction of a huge gas pipeline to 2150 meter depth in a seismically
very active area would sound like madness in any other region of the
world. “Blue Stream”-pipeline, in construction from
Nadym-Pur-Tazovsko-region of Russia to Ankara of Turkey, is however
reality of the geo-political game in the Black Sea region. Pipeline is a
common project of Russian government and gas monopoly Gazprom, policies
of whom are often difficult to differentiate. Gazprom owns access rights
to a larger amount of natural resources than any other transnational
corporation on the planet. Practical construction work in the 390
kilometre part below the sea level is done by Saipem, branch of Italian
transitional ENI. Saipem-7000, a huge artificial island, builds two
parallel pipelines in the deepest parts of the sea, so supply will be
guaranteed even if an earthquake happened to blast other pipe (corporate
version of the precautionary principle!).
Russia and Gazprom believe that transferring gas through any of the
Black Sea rim is politically so much more risky that taking huge risks
will pay back. Ukraine has announced, that with an investment of around
700 million USD to development of Ukrainian network, Russia would reach
same transfer capacity which it reaches in the first phrase of Blue
Stream with some five times bigger investment. Plan is to transfer some
2 billion cubic metres through Blue Stream in the end of the year 2002,
and up to 16 billion in 2007. Original deadline of the project was in
the end of year 2000, but Gazprom has passed it several times announcing
different reasons — it is clear that fitting the financial and
infrastructure requirements of the projects has been a huge task for the
company, and project might have been in edge of financial catastrophe a
couple of times since company has to pay billions of fines to Turkish
state if it fails to meet the deadlines. The final deadline of the
project is October 2002.
In the beginning of the 80’s, an Earthquake which destroyed completely
an undersea cable took place in marine area of Indokopas some 30
kilometres North-west from the Blue Stream Speciality of Black Sea is
almost completely dead zone below 150–200 meters, with high
concentration of hydrogene sulphide. According to testimony of Russian
state committee of environmental specialists, there is a completely
possible scenario where an gas leak in enormous pressure would with
hydrogene sulphide cause an enormous explosion, which would destroy much
of the sensitive marine ecosystem and cause an avalanche.
During the summer of 2001, inhabitants of the city of Smolensk blockaded
twice the main road, through which Gazprom trucks which participate to
construction work ride each 3 or 5 minutes, seriously disturbing life in
the city. Local activists from Socio-Ecological Union and Autonomous
Action participated to second of these actions 4^(th) of August, and
were beaten up by the police. Police attempted to charge arrested for
disobeying the police orders to disperse, and they tortured Andrei
Rudomaha, who has been very active participator of the campaign in the
police station. Arrested went to a hunger strike, and due to wide
pressure they were released without charges.
6^(th)-15^(th) of August grassroots activists, mostly from Rainbow
hippie-network and Autonomous Action organised “a Caravan of peace for a
clean Black Sea”. March was launched in the beginning point of the
undersea part of Blue Stream in Cherkesskoy Schel, and was finished to
terminal which is the endpoint of CPC (Caspian Pipeline Consortium) oil
pipeline in Yuzhnoe Ozereyka. CPC pipeline was a target of active
campaigning in the middle of the nineties, and was also targeted with a
Rainbow Keepers protest camp, but in summer of 2001 when the
construction work was already almost finished, the resistance had mostly
given up well.
Caravan was organised with a subsistence budget, and faced many
adventures — food was about to finish, about everyone of the
participators got sick after having drank from a polluted river, and
some of the participators were beaten up by gopniks (violent unpolitical
youth subculture known with the same name in the whole East Europe) on
the way. In the end, only 70 most hard boiled were left from the
original 120 participators. However hippies were not disappointed for
these setbacks, and immediately announced that a new Caravan will take
place the next year!
On September 20 in a bay connected to Drovyanaya Schel tract, 4
activists from Socio-Ecological Union of Western Caucasus, Autonomous
Action and Rainbow Keepers movement blocked pipe placing ship Castoro
Otto, which started placing pipes for Blue Stream pipeline on September
18^(th). The boat belongs to Italian company Saipem, however it goes
under Liberian flag.
At the dawn, at 6 AM, activists Yury Tertichny, Roman Levchenko, Natalia
Yakovleva and Artem Shlenov started to swim to the ship, which was
located in about 600–700 meters from the shore. Every activist carried
on his back a package with food and spare clothes because they were
going to hold a blockade for a few days. Strong wind forced one of the
activists, Roman Levchenko, to turn back, to the shore, where he was
arrested by border guards. The rest made it to the boat, where the work
has already started and the workers spotted them. Nonetheless, the
activists managed to lock themselves to gangways right on the middle of
working area, using chains and locks.
The spot for pipes releasing contented of two gangways going from the
boat to the sea and a pipe hanged between the gangways with a net under
the pipe. Behind these, at the deck was a place for welding the pipes
before placing them to the sea. Natalia Yakovlava staid locked all the
time, Artem Shlenov and Yury Tertichny have chosen another tactics: they
were locking and unlocking themselves, moving on the gangways, the pipe
and the net. They managed to place a big banner with a text “No Blue
Stream!” on it.
The activists were shouting “Saipem go home!”, “Ya basta!”, “Saipem
killed Black Sea!” etc. Foreign workers tried to stop the activists, but
succeeded only when a reinforcement of Russian border guards arrived.
First Natalia was arrested: the chains she used to lock herself with,
were cut using a huge cutters. Then 6 men managed to tear away Artem
from the net. Arrest of Yury was the most difficult one as he escaped
form the workers and climbed up, but in some time he was arrested as
well. The blockade lasted for 1.5 hours.
The activists were transported to the shore and than, together with
arrested earlier Roman Levchenko, transported to Archipo-Osipovsky
border patrol station. It took a day to decide what to do with the
activists. Initially the border guards intended to incriminate them
illegal border crossing (in Russia it can be prosecuted by up to 2 years
in prison). However the attention of media and NGOs to the problem and
to the arrest of activists, it was decided not to complicate life of the
border patrol station and guys were released without pressing charges on
them. That was the only possible reasonable decision, since the Blue
Stream-project itself has broke plenty of laws about Environmental
impact assessment, public hearings and sanitary protections zones of the
health resort, which is located in Gelendzhik.