A MINING TOWN TO BECOME AN ECOTOURIST ATTRACTION

The Spitsbergen Archipelago lies in the North Arctic. Although it is not a part of Russia, it has two Russian mining towns: Barentsburgh and Piramida, both on the main island. They fall under the 1920 Spitsbergen Convention. The problems of these small towns (pop. 1,100 each) resemble those elsewhere in the Russian Arctic. Their structure and maintenance hark back to the Soviet Union’s political and economical system. There is a lack of subsidies, deliveries is difficult and insecure. Salaries are often delayed. The administration's first problem is to help people survive. Thus our plan may be interesting for this conference focusing of Russian Arctic.

To get to the Russian towns on Spitsbergen is as problematic as getting to many other places in Russia, at least in comparison with the main Norwegian town of Longyearbyen, where the Archipelago’s only real airport is situated. There are no roads on the Archipelago. Internal travel requires boats in summer and snowmobiles in spring. Wildly expensive helicopters are the only year-round transport: they help to maintain communication between Barentsburg and Piramida and Longyearbyen airport - and the continent.

My company, Spitsbergen Tours, collaborated with the Russian town of Piramida for a couple of years. We were the main conveyors of tourists to the Piramida hotel in 1997-1998. Other tour operators used it mainly for one-day excursions. The closure of the coalmine and the following gradient evacuation of the town were unpleasant surprises for us. They prompted Spitsbergen Tours and the Russian company Arctikugol, the administrator of the town, to start a joint project called Piramida. The aim of the project is to preserve the town at least in part and to breathe new life into the regional economy without subsidizing. Doubtless it is an ambitious project – especially when you consider that other Arctic towns in the world receive serious support.

The conditions for the project’s realization:

In Piramida we are starting with an evacuated mining town with a former population of 1,100 and a vast functioning infrastructure: for example kilometres of isolated and heat-insulated tubes for fresh water, sewage and heating systems. This is an expensive system and will have to be cut to fit the new, far smaller community. Also a serious work is needed to make town attractive to people from around the world. The project has been funded, since it started in the summer of 1998, by Russia in cooperation with the archipelago’s Norwegian administration.

The nature surrounding Piramida is breathtaking because of the Arctic mountain landscape, the gorgeous fjord, and the impressive views of glaciers. Piramida is interesting for geologists because of the sediments and the fossils from the Devon, Carbon and Permian periods, including some of the oldest fossil trees in the world. The bird and plant life will appeal to biologists. This territory is one of the best for a short excursion from the town. It is possible to take different routes, easy or hard. Nature-oriented types of tourism can be developed in a remote place such as Piramida more easily than in other parts of Spitsbergen which are well developed and noisy because of car and snowmobile motors. Piramida is attractive for serious Arctic nature experts but it will never be overcrowded. Longyearbyen, which has an airport and developed infrastructure is a better place for a quick, skin-deep acquaintance with the Arctic.

Today's Piramida is a "ghost town" that is completely abandoned in winter, its windows all boarded up. The town would not make a good base for a small group of tourists. Nobody wants to live in an empty yet expensive town. A small permanent population is what Piramida needs. Piramida will never attract crowds but people who like small unusual settlements with fantastic nature would be well advised to visit.

Insufficient subsidizing will be an important problem in the future. Whatever happens, Piramida must be self-supporting to survive. At the same time, without subsidizing it will never become a typical western arctic town. Energy consumption and transport expenses are the key positions to be minimized. This is a wide field for people interested in energy conservation, litter utilization and transport management.

I have collaborated in the past with WWF and other nature conservation organizations. The Piramida project requires nature conservation. Piramida also needs tourism and local people ready to participate in this project (water conservation and energy saving, reclaiming of and care for nature) with all their creative potential and zest. Without these people the project will fail. Life in the Arctic is so expensive because of transport and energy cost and the traditional consumer mentality that causes people to throw a lot of things out.

The standard Western way of organizing Arctic towns will not fit the Piramida project. We must organize an ecologically and economically effective way of life. Piramida may become a big dumpsite or an ecologically viable community.

The Concept

Based on the collaboration of Arkticugol and Spitsbergen Tours, the Piramida project has two key elements: residents and tourism.

Residents, the local community, are desperately needed to breathe new life into the town. Thus we invite active people to join us. They must look not only for work but for a way of life. We are looking for people who love nature and solitude and want to meet extraordinary people from all over the world. We can offer them the experience of living in the Arctic as long as they like and attuning themselves to the local community, of bringing their own projects and creativity to this small community with high ecological and social values. But this is also a place where you always have a chance to be alone.

Residents must be able to support themselves. They are the key to the future life of the settlement. Rents must be kept low (a small warm apartment costs about $325 a month) so as to encourage the maximum number of volunteers to try themselves in the Arctic. We need about 20 technical experts and 50-80 residents from all continents to form this small international community and develop it. Piramida still belongs to Arktikugol but is supposed to be given broad autonomy.

Collaboration in the field of energy supply, biocompost production, bioenergy, and Arctic technologies for windows are the foundation of the Concept. Small groups could also base themselves here while doing scientific research.

Speaking of tourism I should mention that a global concept for its development is now under construction by Arktikugol and Spitsbergen Tours. It will be oriented toward ecotourism and nature study. The Arctic wilderness and beautiful intact nature should be preserved because they are Piramida greatest merit. The following statements characterize our intentions:

Motor transport should be kept to a minimum. Its use will be limited to communication with the outer world. Private cars should not be used in the town. Piramida will be a snowmobile-free zone except for traffic between the towns. Using helicopters for communication with Longyearbyen and Barentsburgh is a necessity today, but helicopters may be gradually replaced by motorboats with armoured hulls for cutting through ice. An airstrip for small airplanes will probably be built because they require less fuel than helicopters.

The infrastructure should be rearranged to fit the needs of tourism. Instead of destroying the old coal-mining infrastructure, it can be rebuilt. There are a lot of old roads and pipelines that could make easy and interesting excursion routes to the underground glacier or to the top of Mount Piramida. Using these old roads will obviate the need to build new ones and do less damage to the environment.

Residents would have an opportunity to take our training courses for guides. They will be interesting for visitors because of their experience of living in ecologically oriented communities, their competence in social theory and practice, and their international background. Residents add to the local colour of the town by selling hand-made things as souvenirs of Piramida or by opening an art gallery café. Furthermore the international character of the society will help to overcome the language barrier between locals and tourists. And this will prompt interested tourists to stay longer.

This pluralistic international society is appealing in itself. It affords us the chance to act inside the town and provide a new approach to the tourism business without direct recreation pressure on the nature.

Tour operators bringing guests that will support the profile of the Piramida project are welcome. The central elements of the tourist infrastructure (hotel, restaurant) will remain part of the Piramida project.

Both tourism and residents are crucial to this project’s success. There will be no tourism without residents and permanent life in the town and there will be no residents without tourism. To start the project we need investment in the marketing. This is possible only on the basis of long-term agreements between the Arktikugol and Spitsbergen with articulate conditions. Without such agreements it is impossible to launch such a complicated marketing campaign for an expensive project from which the other people will benefit. In my opinion, the lack of long-term clear agreement and guarantees of compensation for start-up investments is the main obstacle to joint Russian-Western tourism projects. This situation may exist because the Russian side cannot provide such guarantees, or because it underestimates the seriousness of these guarantees and the Western side’s expenses. Or maybe neither side adequately understands the position of the other.

Tourists today have wide choice of places to go. Serious marketing is required to find those comparably few people who prefer the Artic cold to a tropical sun. Then we have to convince them to go to the Russian Arctic as opposed to the well developed and beautiful Greenland, Canadian or Alaskan Arctic.

The Piramida project is still at the very beginning and this conference is it's first public presentation. It is not easy because of the differences in the business traditions of Russia and the Western. For example, in Russia business is founded of the private attitudes of the partners and trust. Western partners prefer detailed and clear contracts with long-term guarantees.

We have these aspects in our project, too. Sometimes I like it, though I realize that Western firms that do not deal with their Russian partners on such terms. We need a little bit of idealism. The Piramida project will not suit everybody – only those who like the idea. But in speaking with people about it, I've heard a lot of good things about our project even before it gets off the ground. WWF is a very natural and desirable partner for us and I hope that we achieve the goals we announced at the conference.