Problems of industrial development of the Arctic regions of Yakutia in the scientific discourse of the 1980s - early 1990s.

Suleimanov Aleksandr Albertovich PhD in History Senior Researcher, Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences 677000, Russia, respublika Sakha (yakutiya), g. Yakutsk, ul. Petrovskogo, 1 alexas1306@mail.ru

The Arctic zone of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) includes 13 districts (uluses), which occupy a gigantic area exceeding 1600 thousand km2. The region is united by a harsh climate, even by the standards of Yakutia, a specific state of transport infrastructure, forcing the use of a special supply mechanism – northern delivery, and, of course, significant reserves of various minerals stored in its bowels. In addition, the Arctic regions of Yakutia are the place of traditional residence of the indigenous ethnic communities of the North – representatives of a unique circumpolar civilization: Dolgans, Chukchis, Evenks, Evens, Yukaghirs and Yakuts, as well as Russian Arctic old-timers. The combination of these factors, it seems, allows us to consider the Arctic regions of Yakutia as a special region with significant specificity, which requires the special attention of scientists.

         The appeal to various aspects of the century-old experience accumulated in our country in the development of high latitudes is actualized by the steady growth of the importance of Arctic territories and water areas for the future of the Russian Federation. It seems that right now, when the issues of reindustrialization of the Russian Arctic and the development of new approaches to its development are on the agenda, a scrupulous study of the experience available in this regard, previously made strategic miscalculations is one of the important tasks that the work of historians can and should contribute to solving. 

         Another reason for the need to address the issues to which this article is devoted is the current historiographical situation. The issues of the dynamics of scientific approaches to the industrial development of the Arctic regions of Yakutia in the 1980s - early 1990s were considered only in some articles of the author of the presented work and only through the prism of their correlation with the studies of indigenous peoples of the North ^{[11; 12]}. In fact, the analysis of the transformation of scientific discourse in relation to the practices of industrial development in these works was given extremely limited attention.

It seems necessary to begin a direct analysis of the stated problems with the research of the employees of the Economics Department of the Yakut branch of the Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, dedicated to the economic justification of the development of the tin industry in Yakutia. As part of the contractual work commissioned by the Deputy GOK in 1983, a scientific report "Scientific scheme for the prospective development and placement of the tin mining industry in the Yakut ASSR" was prepared under the leadership of the head. E.G. Egorov's Industrial Production Efficiency Sector and with the participation of his colleagues in the Economics Department: K.A. Popov, A.N. Skrybykin, N.A. Petrov, E.I. Efremov, V.T. Tsarev, N.S. Kopysov, E.K. Tsoi, B.V. Belinsky, A.A. Kugaevsky, O.N. Zharikova, V.G. Lesnoy, K.I. Grigoriev, V.N. Zakharova, V.I. Vlasov, as well as A.D. Alekseev, a leading engineer of the Institute of Physical and Technical Problems of the North of the JF SB of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In the paper, its authors presented a description of the prospects for the development of tin mining in Yakutia, taking into account the available mineral resources and the possibilities of integrated economic development of the territory of the republic.

It should be noted that the author of the introduction to the report, E.G. Egorov, made a characteristic remark that the strengthening of economic developments to improve the efficiency of tin mining enterprises is hindered by "excessive closeness of materials, in which it is impossible to conduct systematic scientific economic research and organize discussion of issues involving a wide range of specialists" ^{[5, L. 4-5]}. In this regard, it is significant that the Ministry of Non-Ferrous Metallurgy gave permission to work with the materials of its subordinate institutions only to K.A. Popov. Such secrecy was also one of the characteristic features of the period of Russian history considered in the presented study.

The documentary basis for the development of the topic was the materials of the institutes "Tsniiolovo", "Gipronikel", "Dalstroyproekt", VNII-1, the Yakut branch of the SB of the USSR Academy of Sciences, etc. ^{[5, L. 4]} The main attention in the report was paid to assessing the possibilities and ways of a comprehensive solution to the problem of the creation and development of the tin industry. In this regard, the main directions, rates and scales of tin mining in Yakutia and, above all, in its Arctic regions were analyzed.

K.A. Popov identified a set of measures necessary for the effective development of the tin mining industry in Yakutia. In particular, the researcher noted the need to accelerate the pace of construction of the first and second stages of the Deputy GOK, forcing in this regard the pace of creation of industrial and social infrastructure, as well as the rhythmic development of new deposits. Among the latter, K.A. Popov named the development of marine tin placers in the area of Vankina Bay – it was in the 1980s that interest in the Arctic shelf increased significantly, but due to the socio-economic crisis, it sounded with renewed vigor already in this century. In addition, the forecast prepared by the researcher for the development of mining operations at the Deputy GOK for the period up to 2000 assumed the improvement of the technical arsenal of miners: a specialized machine park adapted to the conditions of the Arctic, the creation of a reliable fuel and energy base, including the Nizhne-Adychanskaya HPP, and later the NPP ^{[5, L. 5-125]}.

At the same time, K.A. Popov's colleagues named above gave a detailed assessment of the state of construction production and its material and technical base, calculated the prospective needs of the tin mining industry in its products and developed appropriate recommendations. Similar work was also carried out in relation to the assessment of the state of transport links in the region and the potential for their development by the end of the twentieth century. An important point of the report was the development of the optimal territorial organization of the integrated development of the Ust-Yansky district ^{[4, L. 5-175]}.

Two years later, employees of the Economics Department of the JF SB of the USSR Academy of Sciences conducted another study within the framework of a contractual topic with the Deputy GOK. The head of the research A.D. Kirillin, as well as V.K. Popova, V.G. Emelyanov, A.A. Kugaevsky, O.N. Zharikov, V.N. Zakharov, G.A. Vikhrova, V.V. Vasilyeva, K.I. Grigoriev, R.P. Tikhonova, M.T. Kosygina and E.S. Pavlova were engaged in the collection and analysis of materials for the development of economic substantiation of the need for the construction of the Ust-Kuiga – Deputatsky oil product pipeline. This oil product pipeline was designed to meet the potential needs of the Deputy GOK for petroleum products, which at that time were delivered according to a complex scheme: through the port of Osetrovo on the Lena, then followed down the river to the Yansky Bay and through it up the Yana to the Nizhne-Yanskaya and Ust-Kuyginskaya oil depots, then by motor transport along the winter road to the Deputy. The construction of the pipeline was supposed to exclude the last link from this chain and make the GOK under construction less dependent on seasonality.

In this regard, the economists got acquainted with the work of the existing oil product pipeline in the Magadan region, collected materials at the GIPROtruboprovod Institute (Moscow) and the SibGIPROneftetrans Institute (Omsk). The researchers assessed the current and potential needs of the Deputy GOK for petroleum products, the state of the transport infrastructure, and performed a comparative analysis of the cost of possible options for supplying them to this industrial hub. In addition, the researchers carried out calculations of the most optimal scale and terms of use of the planned oil pipeline, recognized by experts as the "most economically efficient" method of delivery ^{[3, L. 43]}, and also recommended optimal, in their opinion, pipeline parameters (length, pipe diameter, wall thickness, number and location of pumping stations, territories locations) ^{[3, l. 4-64]}.

At the turn of the 1980s - 1990s, well–known socio-political and socio-economic transformations took place in our country, which directly affected the direction of scientific research. In fact, fulfilling a public order ^[1], researchers, among other things, began to pay an important place to the analysis of the socio-environmental consequences of industrial activity.

Against this background, preparatory work was underway in the Magadan region for the construction of the Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP on the Kolyma River – in 1989, the construction of the station was approved by the order of the Ministry of Energy of the USSR, in 1991, the laying of a highway to the village of Ust-Srednekan began, and the following year a temporary concrete plant was commissioned. The situation was complicated by the fact that the main "beneficiaries" from the launch of the new HPP were industrial enterprises of the Magadan region and the Oymyakon district of Yakutia, while potentially the most severe environmental and socio-economic consequences fell on the population of the Upper, Middle and Lower Kolyma districts located downstream of the river. The current situation was discussed in June and September 1990 during meetings of representatives of the public of the named Kolyma districts of Yakutia with the management of Kolymagesstroy, employees of the environmental authorities of the Yamal–Nenets Autonomous District and the Magadan Region, as well as developers of the station construction project - specialists of the Institute "Lengidroproekt". At these meetings, public figures expressed their negative attitude to the construction of hydroelectric power plants. A similar position was voiced at the rallies held in May 1991 in Srednekolymsk, Zyryanka and Nelemnoye ^{[2, pp. 105-106]}.

In such conditions, the scientific study of the problems of correlating the interests of industrial enterprises and the local population became increasingly relevant. In this regard, within the walls of the Yakut Institute of Language, Literature and History of the SB Academy of Sciences of the USSR, research was organized under the theme "Ethnoecology of the North in the conditions of hydraulic engineering on the Kolyma River".

The purpose of the research by T.S. Ivanova (head), S.I. Boyakova and L.M. Danilova was to determine the potential impact of the commissioning of the Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP on the livelihoods and traditional way of life of the indigenous population of the Kolyma districts of Yakutia, as well as to clarify the attitude of the local population to this problem ^{[10, L. 34]}.

In August 1991, the researchers visited the settlements of Verkhne-, Sredne- and Nizhnekolymsky districts: Zyryanka, Nelemnoye, Srednekolymsk, Berezovka, Sylgy-Ytar, Chersky, Andryushkino and Kolymskoye. Movements between them were carried out mainly by airplanes and motorboats ^[7].

A total of 917 questionnaires were collected during the expedition. According to the results of their processing, the researchers found that more than 80% of respondents had a negative attitude to the construction of the Ust-Srednekanskaya HPP. They associated their concerns with a potential threat to the sources of traditional farming and the whole way of life – a reduction in the populations of commercial species of animals and fish, a change in the annual regime of the Kolyma and its tributaries, in general, causing irreparable damage to the local ecosystem ^{[2, pp. 107-108]}. Despite this, the construction of the hydroelectric power plant, which is still ongoing, began in the same 1991.

A rather characteristic episode, testifying to a serious revision in relations with subsoil users and, more broadly, a significant shift in the direction of scientific discourse concerning the industrial development of Polar Yakutia, was a study carried out in 1991 by employees of the Institute of Economics for the Integrated Development of Natural Resources of the North of the JF SB of the USSR Academy of Sciences (IECOPRS JF SB of the USSR Academy of Sciences), established on the basis of the Department of Economics K.A. Popov and O.G. Ptitsyna and aimed at determining the amount of fees paid to the budget of the Yakut-Sakha SSR by representatives of the tin mining (Deputy GOK) and antimony (Sarylakh and Sentachan complexes) industries of the republic in 1992.

The calculation was made on the basis of the current and prospective production indicators analyzed by the authors of the named actors of industrial development, which, taking into account the socio-economic processes taking place in the country, were rationally evaluated by researchers skeptically ^{[6, L. 3-51]}. It is significant that in the introduction to the work, probably, as a justification for the need for such calculations, it was pointed to "random selective development of the richest areas of source mining raw materials without any ecological and socio-economic forecast", "random movement of technical and transport vehicles on ice-saturated soils", which led to the "destruction of the soil and vegetation cover", "the ever-increasing process of intensive littering with rocks, dumps ..., technical and social landfills", annual deforestation for the needs of mining enterprises "without carrying out appropriate reforestation works", as well as "the actual lack of equality" between representatives of aboriginal ethnic groups and "other part of the population" employed "mainly in the tin industry". In the process of industrial development, according to the authors of the document, "indigenous people engaged in reindeer husbandry, fishing and hunting" were pushed "to more remote, worse in climatic and road-transport areas" ^{[6, l. 1-2]}.   

Another illustrative work on which it seems necessary to dwell is the scientific report "Socio-demographic problems of the population of the Arctic mining zone", prepared in December 1992 by E.N. Fedorova. The co-authors of the work, who considered the issues of employment, were T.V. Mostakhova and V.M. Afanasyeva (IECOPRS SB RAS) ^{[9, L. 1-3]}.

The purpose of the research conducted in the conditions of the beginning of the acute socio-economic crisis was to analyze the current state of affairs and assess the prospects for the development of the Arctic settlements of Yakutia, the "core" of whose existence was mining. E.N. Fedorova chose the villages of Batagai (Verkhoyansky district), Vlasovo, Deputatsky and Kular (Ust-Yansky district) to conduct research. The named settlements, in her opinion, "most adequately represented" the class of "mono–industrial" - the basis of their existence was the development of tin and gold deposits located near or even on the territory of settlements (in fact, they were created for this purpose) ^{[9, L. 2]}.

The materials for writing the report were the results of field research conducted by the authors of the report, primary sources of the republican Registry Office archive, data from the Yakut Statistical Office, materials of the population censuses of 1970 and 1989, as well as scientific literature ^{[9, L. 2-3]}.

In Batagai, 262 people were covered by the sociological survey, in the Deputy – 450. Another 156 respondents were interviewed in Kular and 75 in Vlasovo. The survey, in particular, made it possible to identify such positions as: level of education, marital status, average monthly family income, social status and occupation, duration of residence in the village, previous place of residence (including the question of whether there is living space there – here the scientist apparently "probed the ground" for the possibility of a relatively painless and quick departure), migration attitudes and localization of the proposed new place of residence, reasons for possible departure, the impact of the mining industry on the ecology of the area ^{[9, l. 107-129]}. 

Studies have shown that, for example, in Batagai, more than 42% of respondents have lived for over 11 years. 48% of respondents moved to the village from urban areas located outside Yakutia, and only 20% of them retained real estate there. 15% of respondents were going to leave Batagai in the near future, another 36% were ready to do so over time ^{[9, l. 109-113]}. It should be noted here that the survey results are sufficiently accurate – if, according to the All-Union Population Census in 1989, 8385 people lived in Batagai, then in 2002 only 4589. Regarding the impact of mining on the state of the environment, 45% noted an "indisputable" deterioration of the environmental situation. At the same time, half of the respondents admitted that "irreparable damage has been done to the rivers and lakes near the village." 40% also pointed to the negative impact of industrial pollution on human health. According to 63% of respondents, the situation could be corrected by equipping mining enterprises with modern treatment facilities; 8% turned out to be pessimists – in their opinion, it was too late to take any environmental measures ^{[9, l. 109-114]}.    

The analysis of changes in the dynamics of the population and its settlement in the period 1970-1989 was carried out, the levels of fertility and mortality were determined, the intensity of migration and the movement of labor were considered, the social aspect of the ecological situation in the survey sites was presented ^{[9, l. 12-129]}.

According to the results of the research, E.N. Fedorova noted the need to revise the "general principles of development and functioning of northern mining settlements" ^{[9, l. 130]} in connection with cardinal changes in the socio-economic situation in the country. In modern conditions, in her opinion, the city-forming enterprises had to take on all the costs of construction and life of settlements. At the same time, research was required to determine the "prospective economic efficiency" of each of these settlements and subsequent conclusions in the possibilities of "survival" of the main enterprise, the parameters of the population and the level of its income. The author proposed to differentiate approaches to the development of "mono-industrial" cities  Yakutia. In some cases, in her opinion, a reorientation of the economic profile of the settlements was required, in others – a reduction in a number of auxiliary industries ^{[9, l. 130-131]}.

E.N. Fedorova absolutely accurately determined that if Deputatsky and Batagai are preserved due to the presence of a significant "urban service sphere" in them – because these settlements were also administrative centers, then the exclusively industrial, completely dependent on gold mining, the villages of Kular and Vlasovo in the event of the closure of the mines, "will inevitably disappear" ^{[9, l. 131-133]}. The forecast came true very soon. In 1994, JSC "Kularzoloto" was liquidated, and in 1998, in accordance with the decree of the Government of the RS (Ya), the already deserted village of Kular was excluded "from the accounting data of the administrative-territorial division." Vlasovo was also "withdrawn" from the map of Yakutia by the same decree ^[8].

Thus, during the period under review, including under the influence of socio-political and socio-economic changes in the life of our country, there was actually a profound shift in the paradigm and problems of research on the industrial development of the Arctic regions of Yakutia. For most of the 1980s, industry was viewed through the prism of its contribution to the positive development of the region. In this regard, practical work focused on improving the efficiency of industrial enterprises prevailed. At the turn of the late 1980s - early 1990s, the focus of research shifted to assessing the negative consequences of forced industrial development of the Arctic regions of Yakutia during the Soviet period. In addition, it is important to note the emergence of new issues in research related to the cessation of development in the changed realities of a significant part of mineral deposits and the liquidation of a number of industrial settlements in this regard.