Beringia Days September 15-22, 2003

It’s taken months of planning for this adventure to the Russian Far East.  Chukotka is not an easy place to get to even with the border and tomorrow just a hundred miles away.  Bob Gerhard, Peter Richter and Katerina Wessels of the National Park Service have worked for over a year to get this together but even as we board the flight from Kotzebue to Nome we’re still not sure that it’s really going to happen.

The problem with a trip to Chukotka is not cultural or language. It is political history.  The Chukchee (meaning “rich in reindeer” in their language) were the only people not subjugated by the Cossack in their relentless march eastward, nearly as brutal as the American expansion west.  Ultimately, with Seward’s purchase of Alaska the two invaders met at the Bering Sea.  The border since then has always been tense, perhaps, not so much from the notion of American invasion but from Chukchi secession.  Bogoraz culminates his marvelous ethnography of the Chukchee with a telling political commentary from 1901, a quotation from a Reindeer Chukchee.  “The Americans are very good.  They come with steamers, and they have everything.  They sell cheap, and give without pay.  They bring rifles and ammunition…. You Russians are quite bad.  You sit down at home.  You do not know how to hunt.  You have nothing.  Your sale is heavy.  You would not give without pay even a tobacco-quid.  Therefore we do not love you, but love them.” 

The Chukchee were finally conquered or freed, depending on your point of view, in the Russian Civil War.  Collectivism in the ‘30’s didn’t help Chukchi opinion of their Russian Masters and it basically destroyed their culture and that of the Kerek, Koryak, and to a lesser extent maritime Eskimos of the Chukchi peninsula.  Bogoraz again foretold this, “…Russianization for this nomadic and primitive people would mean destruction and death.”  It did.

With the militarization of Alaska during and following World War II and American occupation of Germany, Japan, Korea and influence in Turkey, China, Iraq and Iran the Soviets felt surrounded by an openly hostile and aggressive U.S.  It hadn’t been many years since U.S. expeditionary forces had sided with the Whites in the Civil War and even fewer since folks like General Patton had called for a march to Moscow.  The Soviets attempted to match the Alaskan escalation soldier for soldier, jet for jet, bomb for bomb on the shared border, fearing hoards of “cowboys” would invade at anytime.  We, of course, were being taught that Bolsheviks would be on the beaches of San Diego should we let our guard down; the “Cold War” was on.  Chukotka and Alaska became giant bristling military bases and to a lesser extent, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., still are.  So today it is very troublesome for one to get permission and a visa to visit Chukotka, and by the way, equally difficult for them to get permission and a visa to visit Alaska.

The flight from Kotzebue to Nome is 25 minutes via 737.  Both have excellent airports thanks to the aforementioned military expansion. We met the NPS team from Anchorage and boarded our Bering Air charter to Anadyr’, Chukotka, Russia.  It’s a 2 and1/2 hour flight in the King Air 200 but we would land 24 hours later.  The International Dateline is one of those conceptual things I’ve yet to master, only more confounding to me is nautical time and astronomical time.  The pilot passed out earplugs and we were off.

This was not a sight-seeing or vacation tour but another step in the 200 million year evolution of “Beringia”.   Beringia is the name coined by William Orr in 1960 for a geographical area that extends from the Kolyma River of Eastern Siberia to the Mackenzie River of Canada and from the Aleutian Islands to the northern shelf of the Chukchi Sea, an immense area.  The commonality was first noted by a “westerner” in 1741.  Vitus Bering, on orders to map and claim “the east” for imperial Russia, before the Dutch or British beat them to it, set off on two Kamchatka Expeditions.  On the second he brought a young naturalist named  Georg Steller whose descriptions of botanical species still carry stelleri on birds, mammals, fish, and numerous trees, flowers, and shrubs.  Steller saw clearly that there was more similarity between the peoples, fauna, and flora of Alaska and far eastern Russia than differences and hypothesized that Russia and Alaska might at some point be very close together.  Bering never knew that had the fog lifted he would have seen America on his first expedition.  It was more than 150 years later that the American Museum of Natural History sponsored the Jesup North Pacific Expedition following the first Organic act of 1884.  Though the science was explicit and not focused on general themes of commonality, scientists like Bogoraz hypothesized on similarities.

The direct forefather of our “expedition” was a geologist named David Hopkins.  Hopkins true greatness lay in his ability to synthesize apparently disassociated data and especially disassociated people to form the great “land-bridge” theory for migration of people and animals across the off again on again Bering Straits.  He not only worked with Giddings and other scientists from many fields within the U.S. but asked for and got great science and cooperation from his Russian counterparts.  His impetus led to the historic agreement signed by Gorbachev and Bush in 1990 for scientific cooperation and for the future establishment of the Beringia International Heritage Park.  In 1991 the first Beringia Days conference was held.

We are on a mission!

Landing at Anadyr’ is not a simple matter.  A complex approach must be maintained presumably to avoid overflight of “sensitive” areas.  The airport itself is massive.  One can easily picture squadrons of MIGs and Badgers scrambled to ward off Yankee intruders or retaliate in event of nuclear war.  Though they can’t be seen today you feel as if they are still around hidden from prying eyes.

Here we see the first of the great contrasts.  The military nature of the airport is in ruins, literally crumbling and yet alongside a massive new terminal was being erected before our very eyes.  We noticed that they didn’t use much steel and wondered about earthquakes.  We also thought what impacts global warming might have on the permafrost base they were building on.

We deplaned and boarded a bus after showing the border guard captain our “papers” and followed his jeep to a crumbling building, behind us was another military vehicle with curtains making it difficult to see the two guards with assault rifles behind the secret police driver and his companion.

Three long flights with luggage up a crumbling stairway  awaited the lounge for pre-inspection.  Active cameras recorded us as we filled out tedious custom documents where every item we carried other than clothing and toiletries had to be listed and valued.  Next we went to the passport section where again we were quietly photographed and our documents meticulously scrutinized, then to customs where our bags were weighed and x-rayed.  Finally, to the internal waiting area where previous visitors had made beds of the metal mesh seating by lining them with cardboard.  And then the trip to the city!

Anadyr’ can only be reached by boat or helicopter.  The airport is across the very wide tidal Anadyr River.  Our van driver gave us a thrill on the gravel roads through the ghost towns of military bases, gulags, and industrial collectives as we headed to the barge to carry us across.  From afar we could see the city dominated by its central coal burning heat and electricity plant, long range early warning radar, and its busy port.

We were surprised to see all the vibrant colors intermixed with Stalinist gray concrete.  We had much to learn and were eager.

The Streets of Anadyr - Continuing this page with links to photos
(working but more to come)

The Conference - Beringia Days Photo Gallery and Commentary (working but more to come)

Chukchi Dancers Photo Gallery