|
Excerpt
from the Karelian
newspaper Oma Mua ("Own Country") May 5, 1997
Robbery
by Finnish logging companies and corruption in Russian administration
By Pauli
Leontjeff.
"If
the Lespromhos (a regional state company, which sells wood, one in
each region) of Kalevala is totally depressed, Jyskyjarvi Lespromhos
is still barely above surface", tells Nikolai Kalinin, the director
of Jyskyjarvi Lespromhos. "This relative wellfare is maintained
only by great effort."
Tractors
and trucks are worn out, you can not get spare parts and one has to
make up various arrangements and tricks to keep things going. One
example is very complicated exchange trade. We get tractors by this
way: A Petrozavodsk company 'Valentina' supplies Onega tractor factory
with steel, Onega supplies us with tractors and we pay Valentina by
giving them wood. There are several more complicated arrangements.
TENS
OF NEW, EXPENSIVE PRIVATE CARS...
On the
roads of Borovoi and on the front yard of Lespromhos office one can
see tens of new, expensive privat cars. Who are the owners of those
cars? Are they businesmen from mentioned companies?
"Just
a few are, but most of them are strictly our enemies." How so?
"It
is a mild expression. Cutting tickets have been given in Petrozavodsk
for about 30 enterprises. Viktor Stepanov and former Karellesprom
director N. Sankin deal them out quite eagerly. In no time total foreigners
take the roads we have made, and go and cut those forests, we have
spared for bad days in future. Most of these enterprises are not Karelian."
"First
we were delighted to hear that annual cuttings were cut down from
800 thousand cubic meters to 300-400 thousand cubic meters. Official
cuttings were still 800 thousand cubic meters, that was on the papers.
Petrozavodsk told us then, that since we can not cut what is required,
we have to let others to cut. In fact, these estimates were made to
rob the forests. Green Movement succeeded to establish moratorium
areas. There are quite a lot of those areas in Jyskyjarvi area, too.
We just feel, that they are secretly cut in front of our eyes, and
we are made responsible for it."
"ANOTHER
10 YEARS OF THIS KIND OF ROBBERY, AND WE WILL BE LEFT TOTALLY UNEMPLOYED"
"Finland
declared, that they will not buy wood from moratorium areas, but there
is not a mark on each log, which would tell, where it is cut from."
"Forests
are now declared to belong to Russian Federation. Now there is a straight
threat, that we're left totally without any forests. On the maps it
is visible, that only one fourth of the territory is green, covered
with forest, and a big part of it can not be cut."
"Another
10 years of this kind of robbery, and we can say, that Borovoi, Jyskyjarvi
and New Jyskyjarvi (villages of the community) will be left totally
unemployed."
|