Burned

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After reporting on my great trip to the far north, I’ll turn to one thing that I saw along the way.

As we left Murmansk and headed west, we came upon an area that had apparently recently been burned by a very large forest fire:

By way of contrast, here is a view of the land not too far from there:

Having recently been in Montenegro where there are forest fires in the summertime, this burned area was a familiar sight to me. I asked Yura when the forest fire had happened.

His reply astonished me. He said, “It has been burned, but not by fire.”

It took me a little while to grasp his meaning as he told me more. Pollutants from local mines and smelters cause acid rain to fall on the area, burning the land and killing the plants. It appeared to me that thousands of acres have been affected. Here some other views:

And here is a video I made as we drove along —

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUOPJqakmvc

Russia took control of this area in 1944, and all of this damage has been done since then. It will surely take decades to recover once the acid rain ends. I’ve heard that they’ve been installing scrubbers in the factories, so hopefully things are beginning to get better.

I’ll close by saying that even though the land appears burnt and forlorn, the hearts of the people I met there are full of light and love. We had great fellowship there, and I look forward to my next visit.

Dacha!

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Pastor Andrei Furmanov wrote this great article about Russian Dachas —

In the days when the USSR was still a country collective farms, which were the backbone of Russian agriculture, were unable to produce enough, and the money for importing food was sufficient to only buy grain. The result was an official policy was that citizens of then USSR were supposed to grow a lot themselves.

Dachas were formed as cooperatives supervised by trade unions and the by-laws of these cooperatives were strict enough. First of all, the land technically of course did not belong to the members of those cooperatives, all land was state federal property at those times. It was leased to trade unions and could not be sold. Another serious restriction was that the usage of this land had to be limited to growing things.

One simply could not make a lawn on his or her land and enjoy the grass. That would be illegal and immediately would result in kicking the person out from the dacha cooperative and replacing him with a more devoted “weekend farmer”. Not more than one dacha per family was allowed.

The typical size of land given by the state to a family varied from 4 to 12 “sotok”, 6 and 8 being the most common (not surprising, now a popular newspaper for dacha owners is titled “6 Sotok” and everyone perfectly understands what they mean by that). One “sotka” = 100 square meters, so typical dacha land area of 6 sotok is equal to 0.16 acres.

Statistic says that now more than 30% of Russian families have dachas. And traditionally most of the dachas were distributed by the trade union organizations at the major industrial enterprises. Therefore in many cities the figures are even higher. Majority of dacha owners were workers, according to the party policy.

We are not saying that other social groups were not allowed to have dachas. It’s just important to realize that having a dacha was not a sign of belonging to elite class, and almost every family could easily get it if at least one family member had been working for 5 or 10 years at the same factory or plant.

But we have given you enough dry facts… Let us add some emotions to that long technical introduction to the concept of dacha – one of the key concepts of Russian life in both Soviet and post-Soviet times. Continue reading →

Into the North

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murmansk 043 In the North
North of the Arctic Circle, near Murmansk

I’ve just returned from visiting Stoneworks missionary Yura Belonozhkin and see the work he’s doing up north. I met some wonderful people and saw an amazing part of the world.

vladimir marijana 003 300x168 In the NorthVladimir and Mariana Cizmanski were visiting from Montenegro. I met them in Estonia and introduced them to our friends and ministry partners there. It is always gratifying when our Stoneworks partners to meet one another. My wife Olga and I had a good time showing them St. Pete.

While Marijana stayed in St. Petersburg with Olga, Vladimir and I headed north. The first day, we drove 1300 km (800 miles) to Zelenoborskiy, where Yura met us at a Christian drug rehab center.

zelenoborsky rehab 300x211 In the NorthYura and I spoke at a men’s meeting at the rehab center. It’s a great group of people, and several local churches support the center. Yura has led men’s meetings there and has very good relationships with the leadership. Over the next few days, as we visited other churches, we continued to meet men and women who are either in the rehab center or lived there before.

On the second day, we drove north to Olenegorsk to attend a prayer conference. Several local churches participated. I was asked to speak at the afternoon session, and I did a teaching on intercessory prayer. Peter Makarchuk is the bishop of several churches in that area, and he made us feel very welcome. He and Yura have a good relationship.

olenogorsk 007 In the North
Speaking at a prayer conference in Olenegorsk, Russia.

We spent that night with Yura’s friends from that church; there we saw some Russian ingenuity. The next morning, Sunday, Vladimir was asked to preach the sermon, and he gave a sermon on self-denial that was warmly received. We then drove north to Murmansk. Continue reading →

Montenegro Comes to Russia

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Vladimir and Marijana Cizmanski are visiting us from Montenegro. They arrived a few days ago; it’s a dream come true for them to visit us and see our life in Russia. Here’s proof that our good friends from the South have made the long journey —

Vladimir and I are now visiting Yura Belonozhkin in the Murmansk area. I spoke at a men’s meeting at a rehab center in Zelnoborsky, a prayer conference in Olenogorsk, and today Vladimir will speak at a church this morning and I’ll speak at a church in Murmansk tonight. Tomorrow we start towards Vadso, Norway to visit ministry partners there; on the way we’ll attend a men’s meeting in Russia.

Here is Yura and his wife Masha. They are great people, and we’re very happy to support them in their ministry.

 

Classic

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I was at the train station in Luga and need to use the restroom. I closed the door behind me so I could have some privacy, and this is what I saw:

Yes, the window was open to a sidewalk. So much for privacy! I laughed out loud. But really, what are they thinking?!

To the North!

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As part of my role as Executive Director of Stoneworks International, I am planning to visit Yura Belonozhkin next month and see the work he’s doing in the far north, particularly his men’s ministry. Vladimir and Marijana Cizmanski will visit us from Montenegro in September, and Vladimir will join me on this trip. It gives me joy for my friends and co-workers in various countries to meet one another.

The route will take us from St. Petersburg to as far north as Vadso, Norway. Vadso is about 420 km (260 miles) north of the Arctic Circle. It will be great to visit our ministry partners and see Karelia, part of the Kola Peninsula and Lapland at that time of year.

I hope to speak at a conference in Olenogorsk, attend church in Murmansk and visit several ministry sites all along the way, with Vadso being our last ministry stop before heading south. We’ll stay in Rovaniemi, Finland, which is on the Arctic Circle (Santa Claus has a house there!). We’ll all spend a couple of days in Finland before going to Estonia to pick up Vladimir and Marijana’s car so they can head home. This should be fulfilling and fun in many ways.

Here is a map for reference (it’s not completely accurate but gives an idea of the route):