…это больше не 42, как утверждает «Автостопом по галактике». 350 намного важнее и актуальнее для нашей планеты сегодня. Почему? Узнайте на www.350.org (на русском!).

So, I'm in Stockholm now! The reason is that I was selected a participant in a big and exciting project, ‘Challenge Europe’, focused on the European youth and climate change. Why? Well, you guess it: I'm very passionate about climate change.

I see my participation in this project as a precious opportunity to accomplish my life's highest goal: to contribute to helping human world come into harmony with the world of nature, by becoming careful and compassionate stewards for all ecosystems on the planet, including the human society itself. I hope that together in ‘Challenge Europe’ we will agree on solutions that will facilitate this vision. I'm convinced that the challenge that lies ahead of us is not about technology only, not only about money. The issue of climate change is systemic and all-encompassing. At the same time, there’s lack of ethics in the current debate and lack of political action. That’s why the solutions should be accordingly structural and system-wide, taking ethical dimension into account and building up public support for radical change of policies through political means. And so, to facilitate solutions that we are going to choose, we should stop talking only among ourselves and start talking to the rest of society. This is what I hope 'Challenge Europe' will be about. Because if we fail in communicating the necessary changes to the public and to politicians, fail to penetrate and influence mainstream institutions, we might lose a unique opportunity to save this planet as we know it.

I believe that climate change should be approached from a holistic perspective. We shouldn't strive to reduce carbon emissions at all costs: at the cost of biodiversity, at the cost of planet's ecosystems, at the cost of healthcare or human well-being and happiness in general. Quite the opposite: we can see the threat of climate disruption as a great chance to fix many things that are wrong with our society! Things that have been causing and aggravating many of the societal and environmental problems until now. Climate change comes at the cross-section of issues like indigenous people’s and women's rights, peace and conflict, global justice and intergenerational solidarity, starvation and water scarcity, energy poverty and many others. Let us not forget about these issues while we are trying to solve climate change. This urgent challenge should become our great opportunity to hurry up the transition towards a sustainable harmonic world.

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

Hanna Hallin, the president of LSU, said in her welcome speech at the conference opening that we can be "provocative and constructive" over the course of this weekend. Well, let be me a bit provocative in my coverage of the first sessions of the conference and I'll hope that the organisers won't get angry with me (especially since I'm borrowing their laptop to type this post).

And so in this critically provocative spirit, I want to point out to some moments in the otherwise very interesting and (sometimes) inspiring keynote presentations, that I personally found myself in disagreement with. Like, for example, when Hanna herself said "climate catastrophes are fair, because they hit everyone equally and don't discriminate on basis on race, religion, or country". Well, let me (and the chairman of the IPCC, Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, who also made this point in his speech on a videolink from New Delhi) disagree with that. It is a known fact that the current state of climate politics is full of inequalities of different kinds and suffers from lack of ethics. See, the today's situation is mostly the developed countries' responsibility, but those who will suffer the most from the consequences are actually those who are least able to deal with them. That is to say "poor countries" and poor people in "rich countries". Not very fair, is it?

Then Stefan Henningsson, WWF's strategy analyst, repeated the point of the Sweden's Environmental Minister Andreas Carlgren that this country's emissions have decreased by 9 per cent compared with 1990 levels and that Sweden successfully managed to decouple economic growth and the greenhouse gases emissions. Inside, I was protesting, but fortunately there was another speaker (namely, Carl Mossfeldt of Tällberg Advisors) who pointed out to a clear fact that Sweden's emissions didn't decrease (as one might believe when looking at the domestic production processes, and not counting in international sea and air traffic) but were displaced to the developing countries. When one analyses increased consumption in Sweden, taking imports into accounts, it becomes apparent that the emissions have actually grown by almost a third from 1990 levels. I think it's important to know not to make false claims about non-existent "success stories".

The deputy mayor of the city of Örebro, Gabriella Blomgren, a young leader herself, however passionate and determined to make a difference, made a funny comment about how she always try to carry her laptop with her instead of using paper notes. To help climate, of course. Well, maybe she didn't consider all the electricity produced to power her laptop (even though in Sweden half of it comes from hydro and roughly another half – from nukes). And that paper can be a good stock of carbon, especially if it's recycled paper and the one that is going to be recycled again when discarded. It's nice to see Gabriela's passion, but it's good to be on the right track and have your facts straight.

Then, after the opening ceremony we had a keynote presentation by Dr. R. K. Pachauri, the chairman of the IPCC and the man who shared Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore last year. I have to say that I really liked his presentation! By the way, by having him on video link instead of in person, the organisers saved 697 kg of CO₂ emissions, but Dr. Pauchari himself was mostly happy for his back that didn't have to suffer from another long-distance flight. He said that he has to fly so much around the world, that he got a sore back and a scalp infection (because of which he had to wear a hat during his presentation). Well, let's wish that more organisers of similar events will utilise opportunities of video conferences, instead of contributing to increasing air traffic, right?

Among some interesting facts that he mentioned was how consumption of meat contributes greatly to climate change and how he himself is a devoted vegetarian. He said that advising to eat much less meat might not be a very popular idea in many countries around the world, but that alone will make the planet – and ourselves! – a lot healthier. That really pleased me (kudos to Dr. Pauchari!) and made me wonder (for the hundredth time, probably) why environmental or climate conferences like this one are not completely meat-free (there was chicken served at lunch and bacon during coffee break, but the vegetarian alternative – let's give the organisers a due credit – was great, including even very tasty soy tsai and some crazy green beans that I never ate before, but – oops, I digress here!) Something to think about in the future, I guess… We'll see what will be served at the buffet dinner with the Mayor of Örebro two hours later tonight.

One important thing that Dr. Pauchari said was that the window of opportunity to take necessary actions on climate might be as narrow as only 7 years from now. The radical measures must include:

• Putting price on climate, through taxation and carbon trade


• Enforcing regulation for energy efficiency (especially in buildings)


• And enacting major changes in lifestyles and patterns of behaviour

And so he was talking a lot about technologies (the need for technology transfer from developed to developing countries) and about changing lifestyles, but nothing about the role of population size and population growth. So decided to seize an opportunity and ask the question that my organisation back home (Hållbart universitet in Lund) has commissioned me to raise (thanks, Elias!). Dr. Pauchari agreed that the population growth is an important issue, but even more important are consumption levels, that are currently out of check and totally unsustainable (there are not enough planets to satisfy it). Speaking of measures of population control he pointed that while some "draconian measures" might work under less democratic regimes, in genuine democracies the only way must be through: education of young girls, raising status of women and giving more rights to women in general and over decisions over reproduction in particular, and encouraging young families to have fewer kids. Thus, a strong emphasis on education.

Then he was talking about initiative for "One Billion Lights" – to provide 1,6 bln people currently living without access to electricity and other modern forms of energy with affordable and sustainable (solar + CFL) lighting solutions. Again I felt funny when he spoke about CFLs (aka energy-saving light bulbs) for Sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia, while right there, in the big conference hall where we were sitting, I counted 432 (I'm a freak, I know) old incandescent light bulbs in five huge lamps over our heads plus couple of tens incandescent light bulbs in smaller lamps. I wonder who runs the congression centre, whether it's municipality of Örebro or some private entity, but didn't those guys figure out that they could save lots of money and CO₂ emissions by replacing those light bulbs? I wondered if any other "leaders of tomorrow" in that hall noticed those light bulbs of yesterday and if any of them were feeling as strongly about that as I did. (update: my cool roommate Gustav have later confirmed that he was)

Well, enough of criticism for today, and let me assure you that informative, exciting and inspiring things that happened at the conference's first day have greatly outweighed those moments that I described. Kudos to the organisers and participants!

I hope to be able to tell you more about the first and the following days later, like for example about the very energising and pretty radical presentation of Carl Mossfeldt, that totally blown me away. So, keep checking this blog for more updates from me and other bloggers.

Sincerely yours,
Oleg, live from Örebro :-)

Отличная вышла в «Акции» статья про российскую нефть: «Русская нефтяная идея».

Заодно можете и мои заметки прочитать: про транспорт, про компьютер каждому ребёнку.

Starting last Monday (June 25) I work at the Traffic and Environment Unit of the Roads and Traffic Office of the Technical Services Administration of the City of Lund (uff, what a vertical structure, haha!).

Me and my friend, classmate, flatmate and a fellow esperantist Camille are planning the first pilot university course on Mobility Management. Swedish government financed this project through its climate investment programme (KLIMP). The course is directed to our fellow classmates at LUMES and so me and Camille will directly experience consequences of our work ourselves, in the autumn semester. So we better make it right, otherwise everybody will hate us!

Having said this about enormous responsibility that I feel, I just love this job! Modern office in the city center (50 meters from the railway station), extremely nice and friendly colleagues, sincerely devoted to the issue of urban transport sustainability, some of our friends also working in the same unit part-time (counting vehicles on the roads, making calls to new residents of Lund, doing their internships, etc), and – of course! – my boss, Anders Söderberg, who is the nicest!! He really puts a lot of efforts to make sure that me and Camille feel welcome and comfortable here, and that all conditions are provided for our productive work. He's extremely friendly and supportive, it's a great pleasure to work with him. We also have the most interesting conversations with him about Swedish culture and politics during breakfast or lunch time. I had a chance to work with him before, at the ECOMM 2007 conference this spring, so I knew it was going to be nice. Besides, he was a chairman of Hållbart universitet, a student environment organisation at the Lund University, that I'm a board member of now… It's nice to feel such inter-generational continuity! ;-) Oh, and because it's a small world, some years ago he was applying for a job at Greenpeace Nordic and having an interview with Martina Krüger, who was my supervisor for an internship project I was doing at Greenpeace the past two weeks (a study on electricity producers in Sweden).

Well, now I better get back to my interesting project! I'll keep you updated, if you keep reading my notes on Facebook! ;-)

Каковы шансы того, что четырёхзначный пин-код к новой карточке VISA, выпущенной шведским банком, окажется тем же самым, что и пин-код к старой VISA, выпущенной ещё два года назад в России? (так что можно не напрягаться, чтобы запомнить новый код, ура!)

Каковы шансы того, что четырёхзначный код доступа к интернет-сервисам шведского банка будет состоять из четырёх одинаковых цифр (притом моих любимых).

Какими бы мизерными эти шансы не были, и то, и другое со мной приключилось. :-)

Среди прочего ещё и потому, что можно забесплатно поехать на знаменитый Фестиваль Роскильде в Дании, цена билета на который обычно исчисляется сотнями евро. В этом году перед сотнями тысяч зрителей там будут выступать Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Björk, The Arctic Monkeys, Muse, The Arcade Fire, The Killers, My Chemical Romance… И я там буду среди друзей-эсперантистов! КРУУУУУТООО!!!!!!!

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It's great to be esperantist!..

Besides all the other reasons also because one can go to the famous Roskilde Festival in Denmark absolutely for free (usually the ticket costs couple of euros). This year Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Björk, The Arctic Monkeys, Muse, The Arcade Fire, The Killers, My Chemical Romance and others will perform live in front of hundreds thousand spectators… And I'll be there with my esperantist friends! COOOOOOOL!!!!!!!

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Estas bonege esti esperantisto!..

Krom ĉiuj aliaj kialoj ankaŭ ĉar oni povas tuta senpage iri al la fama Roskilde-festivalo en Danio (kutime bileto kostas centojn da eŭroj). Ĉi-jare tie muzikos Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, Björk, The Arctic Monkeys, Muse, The Arcade Fire, The Killers, My Chemical Romance kaj aliaj – antaŭ centoj da miloj da spektantoj… Kaj mi estos tie kun miaj amikoj-esperantistoj! MOOOJOOOOSEEEE!!!!!

Hey everyone,

I’m still busy as hell, studing two parallel courses (“Environmental Pollution and Human Health” in English and “Global Environmental Justice” in Swedish), co-organizing The Earth Day 2007 in Lund, building the event’s website and doing lots of other stuff (hosting my family from Russia for a week-long stay, going to the Green Students’ Annual Conference in Uppsala the next weekend, teaching Esperanto and trying to find time to continue to do some work for lernu! and so on)… E-mail correspondence and blogging are abandoned, as you might have noticed…

Still, I’m very happy and full of enthusiasm! ;-) With the brightest blessings,

– Oleg

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Saluton ĉiuj,

Mi daŭre estas freneze okupita, studante ĉe du paralelaj kursoj (“Media polucio kaj homa sano” en la angla kaj “Tutmonda media justeco” en la sveda), kunorganizante Tagon de Tero 2007 en Lund, kreante paĝaron de la aranĝo kaj farante multegajn aliajn aferojn (gastigante mian familion el Rusio dum unu-semajna restado, irante al Jarkunveno de la Verdaj Studentoj en Upsalo la sekvan semajnfinon, instruante Esperanton kaj penante trovi tempon por daŭrigi laboreti por lernu! kaj tiel plu)… Retpoŝta korespondado kaj blogado estas forlasitaj, kiel vi jam povis rimarki…

Tamen, mi estas tre feliĉa kaj plena je entuziasmo! ;-) Kun la plej helaj benoj,

– Oleg

Всем привет, мы возвращаемся к блогописанию после новогодних праздников, путешествий, новоселий и экзаменов!

Как и было запланировано, Новый год я встречал в Германии. Мой краткий отчёт (на международном языке) об этом мероприятии можно найти здесь. А историю нацистской цитадели (на английском и эсперанто), в которой проходили наши новогодние торжества, можно почитать здесь. А здесь — фотки с мероприятия!

Вернуться в Швецию вообще и в Лунд в частности оказалось на удивление приятно! Я сам поразился, насколько эта страна и этот город успели стать такими родными мне. Кстати, возвращение совпало с новосельем — прямо с вокзала (мой велосипед терпеливо дожидался меня всю неделю на парковке через дорогу) я поехал в новую квартиру, которую мы (я и двое моих одноклассников из Японии и Китая) арендовали буквально за день до моего отъезда. В большой четырёхкомнатной квартире оказалось намного уютней и по-домашнему, чем в предыдущей моей комнате. А кроме четырёх комнат (трёх спален и гостиной) у нас ещё есть огромная кухня с четырьмя окнами во всю стену, выходящими на солнечную сторону, так что в кухне весь день светло и уютно и я провожу там почти всё время, благо что интернет у нас беспроводный. Вот и сейчас я сижу за кухонным столом, набирая эту запись и кушая оливки. :-) Так как в день приезда Лунд встречал меня солнечной и морозной погодой, то я решил немного прогуляться по району. Он оказался чудесным: полностью безмашинным (причём официально — на каждом информационном щите с картой местности с гордостью указано: безмашинный район), так что родители могут не переживать, что их ребёнок, выйдя поиграть во двор, попадёт под машину (то же самое насчёт домашних животных — кошки гуляют здесь без опаски). А ещё каждый двор — это комбинация сквера с деревцами и кустиками и детской игровой площадки с горками, качелями, каруселями… Вообще весь район — это такая лесопарковая зона. Сегодня, начав тренировки к грядущему в мае полумарафону (21 км) в Готенбурге, я обнаружил в нашем районе три специальных маршрута для бега: красный (3 км), жёлтый (5 км) и зелёный (10 км), можете посмотреть сами на карте (1,9 Мб). Фонарные столбы вдоль дорожек помечены соответствующими цветовыми знаками, так что следовать выбранному курсу легко, а сам маршрут проходит по такой полудеревенской-полулесной местности, красотища!.. Что ещё у нас здесь есть хорошего? А, вот: оба моих любимых экологических-этических супермаркета (Coop Konsum и ICA) находятся в двух минутах ходьбы от дома, причём расположены бок о бок друг с другом, в одном архитектурном комплексе. А раньше приходилось крутить педали минут 8—12 чтобы добраться хотя бы до одного из них. Университет теперь тоже стал ближе в два раза — 8 минут на велосипеде вместо 15 минут от старого места жительства. И ещё один восторженный факт о районе: здесь перерабатывают и органические отходы тоже, делают компост. Так что теперь старательно компостируем всю образующуюся в процессе приготовления пищи органику и относим в специальное помещение во дворе (по виду компост-агрегаты напоминают какие-то фантастические биореакторы).

Спрашиваете, почему я не удосужился написать в блог раньше? Дело в том, что к сегодняшнему (пятницы) утру мы должны были сдать экзаменационное эссе к курсу “Sustainability Science”. На момент моего возвращения из Германии моё эссе в каком-то виде существовало только в моей голове, но не в памяти моего компьютера. Поэтому все пасмурные и тотально дождливые дни (кроме дня возвращения и вот сегодняшнего) я предавался домоседству и писал работу, посвящённую транспортным проблемам Москвы. Основная тема: автомобиль — враг людей и общества, из-за засилья машин жизнь в городе превращается в кромешный ад. Долой авто, да здравствуют общественный транспорт и велосипеды! ;-) Кажется, даже до московских чиновников эти нехитрые постулаты устойчивого городского развития начинают доходить понемногу… А вот ещё одна отличная статья на ту же тему: «Москвичи изменяют автомобилям».

Итак, вчера вечером эссе было дописано, вычитано и закачано на университетский сайт. Сегодняшний праздник свободы был освещён зимним солнышком и раскачан сильными порывами ветра — идеальная погода для пробежек. :-) Появившееся свободное время было использовано также для распаковки рюкзака после Германии, уборки и украшения моей комнаты (повесил на стену прекрасный флаг Тибета, а на дверь — предвыборный плакат Зелёной партии Швеции). Занятия в университете возобновятся только во вторник, в тот же день начнётся мой новый курс в KOMVUX — «Шведский как второй язык».

Из других радостных новостей — Apple (которая теперь «просто Apple», а не Apple Computer, как все 30 лет до сих пор) наконец-то выпустила iPhone!!! Дружно бьёмся в экстазе. :-) Ещё немного, и покоримся этому другому (после автомобилей и телевиденья) мировому злу — мобильным телефонам. Особенно если это не просто телефон, а ещё и iPod и интернет-коммуникатор в одном устройстве, а на корпусе у него — надкусанное яблочко… Вчера полтора часа смотрел на компьютере запись трансляции выступления Стива Джобса (да святится имя его!) на Macworld. Стив зажигал, как и всегда!

А ещё вчера (опять же, Стив напомнил!) скачал целиком двойной альбом “Stadium Arcadium” Red Hot Chilly Peppers, теперь вот слушаю, радуюсь. :-)

И вот мой новогодний подарок для всех читателей блога: две песни группы «Потерянное поколение» (La Perdita Generacio) моего друга Томаса Нильссона с нового, только что вышедшего в свет альбома Eksenlime (здесь моя рецензия на него):

• Мы все обожаем Америку / Ĉiuj ni ŝategas Usonon: 3 Мб
• Каждый момент — путешествие / Ĉiu momento estas vojaĝo: 6 Мб

Наслаждайтесь прекрасной музыкой! (которая прекрасней вдвойне, если знаешь, о чём идёт речь в этих песнях… ;-))

Уже целую неделю мы на каникулах: последний день занятий в этом году был 15 декабря. Эти семь дней я отсыпался, ходил в гости, гулял, встречался с друзьями, немного работал, много читал… Всё это (кроме сна) я успешно совмещал с едой, конечно же (но и во сне она снилась!).

А сегодня последний день моего пребывания в моей «квартирке», в которой я жил с середины августа. Завтра перевожу вещи в четырёхкомнатную квартиру, которую мы будем совместно снимать ещё с двумя моими одноклассниками. Полдня сегодня ушло на упаковывание вещей и отдраивание всех поверхностей. Оставлю квартирку сияющей чистотой — на радость новым жильцам и к удовлетворению инспекции. Но по-настоящему въедем в новое жильё мы только в начале января, после возвращения из Германии. Уже завтра начинается моё большое каникулярное путешествие: 24 декабря — празднование Рождества с одноклассниками и друзьями в Лунде, 25—26 декабря — прогулки по Копенгагену в компании давних и замечательных моих друзей-эсперантистов, 27 декабря—3 января — празднование Нового года в Германии на большой молодёжной международной эсперанто-тусовке (той самой, что в средневековом замке), 4 января — снова в Лунде, новоселье!

Регулярного доступа к Сети у меня не будет, так что блог закрывается на каникулы и откроется снова в январе, с возобновлением занятий в университете… Всем счастливого Нового года!

The second chunk of the mega-post which began here

(The English translation has been provided by my sister, Elena Izyumenko, to whom I’m very grateful!)

The last post ended with me full of doubts about the politics in general and the green politics in particular. But, of course, knowing some people like Tomas Nilsson and others that I’ve met at the Green Party here, and seeing the way how Miljöpartiet actually works — all that gave me a new hope and a cause for more optimistic view on green politics. And the last drop of antidote against the cynicism was that Saturday’s course and especially the Lotta Hedström's presentation. I finally sort of separated in my mind what had happened with the ‘Union of Russian Greens’ in Russia and what is going on here in Sweden in Miljöpartiet…

But let’s get back now to the Lotta’s presentation. She was talking about the present day’s ‘triple solidarity’ which lies at the foundation of all Swedish Green party’s work:

• Solidarity with all the people around the world,
• Solidarity with future generations,
• Solidarity with non-human nature (animals, plants, ecosystems, landscapes).

The main ‘global’ issues for the Green party in this context are: Peace, Food, Environment, Solidarity (especially in the context of human rights; by the way, Lotta is sure too, that the explosions of buildings in Russia was accomplished by the domestic security service, fulfilling the government’s order to create a cause for a new war in Chechnya), Power (here such concepts as geopolitics, terrorism, globalization all become involved and intermixed) and, of course, the Struggle Against Poverty. Well, I won’t choke up your mind with politics any longer (especially because I’ll be back with this topics a couple of paragraphs below), unless if you are really interested in this topic — in this case you may write to my private address or in the comments to this post — we’ll discuss it together! ;-)

After the meeting (I was like bursting with inspiration!) me and Tomas hurried to visit the local esperantist Kalle.

On Sunday on the way to Småland Nation (five hours of vegan cooking orgy and a non-stop eating, there will be a post in my blog about this some time in the future) Tomas was telling me about his own vision of the green ideology (he is an author and co-author of a number of books on this topic, the last of which will soon be published by the Miljöpartiet’s office in Gothenburg). Exciting!

On Monday evening there was a long-expected meeting of the Green Students (or Gröna Studenter in Swedish), very similar to the Saturday’s course, but three times shorter and exclusively for the youth. Twenty four persons attented! I also contributed to his high number: my classmates made up almost a half of the participants. Ulf spoke again in the first part with the similar story (but this time in English) about the history of the party and its youth wing Grön Ungdom and the Green Students (the latter being a more recent development). He skilfully added his personal history with Miljöpartiet to the general narration. Then I was given an opportunity to tell about the emergence (it happened only a couple of months ago, when I had come to the Green party here and had been one of the participants of this process) and activities of the Green Students in Lund.

The second part of our meeting was guided by Karolina Algotsson from Malmö. She introduced green ideology a bit differently than Tomas. It would be interesting to discuss it with both of them (Tomas left Lund one day before, on Sunday), but I quite liked her vision too. I especially liked ideological link between ecology, diversity, decentralization, collectivism/solidarity, individualism and queer. And, of course, an overarching importance of such concepts as life quality, wellbeing, happiness… ‘This is what it’s all about!’, the final lines from this short video came to my mind. Early and eco-anarchists (including my favorite thinkers of this intellectual movement Peter Kropotkin and Murray Bookchin) were mentioned by Karolina among the main sources of green ideas!

To be continued…

Эта запись доступна также на русском

By chance I discovered that Google Earth/Maps now features satellite of my home region in a much higher resolution than it used to before. So I decided to blogpost a virtual tour to the places of my childhood and adolescence. Welcome aboard this magical mystery tour, everyone! ;-)

On this photo we see the area from very high (20 km) above. We may see Tsimlyansk in the north, it’s where I was born. It’s quite old (soon to become 350 years old) Cossacks’ settlement and quite small one for today’s standards: with population of 15 thousand people it’s the smallest town in Rostov region. In the south, 20 km from Tsimlyansk, we see Volgodonsk (pop. 171 thousand). It’s just 50 years old, a juvenile age for a city. There I spent my childhood and adolescence, studied at school and university. It’s situated in the middle between Rostov-on-Don and Volgograd (the capital cities of two neighboring regions, or provinces). A big river in the center of the picture is Don, one of the longest and most famous rivers in the south of European Russia. The ‘sea’ on the right is the Tsimlyansk Reservoir, it was created artificially which led to flooding of many hectares of productive land and to forced relocation of thousand of people from their historic territory. All that to build the Tsimlyansk Hydro Power Plant. Now people swim and fish there, but lately the reservoir brings more problems than benefits: eutrophication (easily seen on the photo), blue-green algae releasing stinky and greenhouse methane… All these are the consequences of the rapid industrialization of the Soviet era. Towns are surrounded by a pattern of fields, it’s an agricultural region, thanks to the mild climate and productive soil.

The next photo (it’s a bird view!) shows us one of the Tsimlyansk districts (on its southern edge) where the house stands, which once belonged to my grandparents from the mother’s side. To that house I was delivered after I was born. The red square without label on the photo is that house. There’s a bazaar nearby, and a church to the south. It wasn’t there where I was a kid, instead of it we had a grocery store. That’s why I don’t remember it.

This plane view features virtually entire Volgodonsk: its split into the ‘old town’ (historic part, where the construction of the new settlement began) and the ‘new city’, the later and more modern part. The gulf divides them, and the bridge over it connects them. On the top of the photo you can see two channels: one for navigation (the one which connects the rivers Volga and Don and gave the city its name) and one for irrigation. In the northern part of the city you can clearly see the harbor. The city is quite green when it comes to the number of trees, especially its ‘old’ part.

A bird view again. Here we see a disctrict in the ‘old town’ (the bridge over the gulf at the photo’s bottom is the same as the one at the middle-bottom of the previous photo). The district bears the name ‘South-Western’. You can see the both kindergartens that I attended as a child. I was going to the northern one just for a couple of days, and then I got ill. Another one, in the south-east, I attended for much longer time. There’s a school close to my house (of course, the entire house doesn’t belong to my family alone, it’s a big five-stories high block of flats). The school was originally named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (her story inspired Kim Stanley Robinson to name one of his Mars trilogy’s characters after her). Now it’s just Municipal gymnasium no. 5. Quite prestigious secondary school in town. Or it used to be, I don’t know how it is now. It has a swimming pool standing just by its side (and having a school of the same type at its other side, it used to serve as a poll station sometimes, and sometimes we would vote at our school too). I was going to the swimming pool with my father, sister and a friend. And then there’s a stadium between the school, my house, and the swimming pool. I used to run, cycle, climb, roll, play football, and fight there… I jogged there last time this last summer. Five tall sixteen-stories high ‘towers’ are quite new buildings. They were built after I went to school. We had a waste covered with high weeds there before, and we played there as kids.

A close-up of our courtyard, a bird view again. Our house is clearly visible, and the next house, where my grandparents now live (the same ones whose old house in Tsimlyansk we were observing on one of the previous photos). In the court there’re trees, football field, sandbox, parking lot…

Here they are, the places of my childhood. It’s funny to look at them from such a high altitude, just like an angel from the sky. :-)