A Sustained Transition (Part II): Place, Personality, and Progress

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina opens with “All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” This beautiful opening, once mulled over and mulched through by a stable of intellectuals and thinkers, birthed the “Anna Karenina Principle,” which dictates that a deficiency in any one of a number of factors results in failure, while success requires that every possible deficiency has been avoided. That is, while the avoidance of failure is not sufficient for a successful condition, it is necessary. This does not deal with personal or metaphysical concepts of success, but rather individual iterations of success. In plain language, a successful outcome requires an absence of failure, as explained below. 

My favorite example of this principle is in examining why so few species have been domesticated. Six groups of reasons have been advanced, and for a species to be domesticated, all six must be satisfied. Garbage-disposal type eaters have a diet that allows fluctuations in feed;  a quick growth rate allows for slaughter or servitude; complicated mating rituals requiring privacy or protracted time will rule out a species from the day-to-day speed of human transaction; hale beasts cannot also have a hard-headed temperament; an animal that is prone to fighting or flighting with vigor will prove difficult to control; and a herd-mentality makes for a good herd—independence goes against the grain. 

As stated in Part I of this series, the current literature about a green transition fails to consider how we keep fossil fuel communities alive. “Just transitions” protect individuals from the loss of their livelihood. “Environmental justice” protects places from the intrusion of pollution and other environmental costs. But there is no meaningful discussion about how to protect the communities, once the fossil fuel aspect is removed. Just transitions could easily incentivize a worker to leave their community to find work elsewhere. Environmental justice could easily incentivize urban siting of renewable industry and infrastructure. While this reduces pollution in rural areas, it could also remove much-needed economic infrastructure in these areas. 

Furthermore, a fossil fuel town is not comprised of barracks of derrickhands. It is a community with retail workers, teachers, retirees, and so on. The concept of just transitions is insufficient in that while it compensates workers, it does not compensate the community that will also be affected by the loss of these jobs. It is one thing to ask a person to give up their livelihood. It is another to ask them to give up their life. 

I don’t mean a true death, but the death of a person’s routine, community, friendships, proximity to family, and even their home. This transition is arguably not “just” if it simply compensates workers and does nothing to preserve the community in which they live. 

Therein lies the Anna Karenina principle, as applied to the green transition:  failing to incorporate a plan to maintain these communities represents a deficiency that is simply unacceptable to rural people. Even if people are willing to accept new jobs, they aren’t as willing to accept lives that are altogether new. 

The rural concept of “place” is not wholly urban, but land use and a strong relationship between existing buildings and the landscape can be helpful in discussions surrounding what it means to be rural. Furthermore, Paul Cloke advocates, in his handbook of rural studies, that “scholars are continuing to recognize and study community as both an important social scale of analysis and a cultural unit in the discourses and social relations that shape people’s experiences.” 

This is echoed by a brilliant quip I heard earlier in the semester, that “you aren’t from a town until your great-great-grandfather is buried there.”

 On the other side of the coin is the notion of work. In academic circles, two groups of “low-status whites” are separated by the idea of work—generally speaking, “the settled working class” work consistently while the “hard living” do not. Staying on the right side of the ledger is paramount to staying in the good graces of the community. If you’re not working, you’re draining a bit of that that little we have. Back in my bartending days, I had a friend laid off. I asked him if he was pursuing welfare and he said, “No. Not only am I taking welfare, I will have had taken welfare. I don’t want that following me around. You think a wife wants a husband who has scraped by on somebody else’s dime when they still have poverty? It'm struggling, but I'm not poor.” 

I think, in some way, the social safety net is thought about as something that you grab as your falling, not as your stumbling. If you’re still vertical, your compatriots expect you to grab it and deny it, as you stay upright. The safety net is for those who have fallen, not those who are falling; and they should be the one who lands ok. If enough of us stretch out the net, landing on it is going to feel like concrete instead of cool water. 

Past transition attempts have been insufficient in mono-economic communities. For the sake of simplicity, here is what I will give as the definition: Mono-economies refer to economic systems that rely heavily on the production and export of a single crop or resource, limiting economic diversity and often leading to vulnerability. These economies are typically characterized by their dependence on external markets for a single commodity, which can create significant risks when market prices fluctuate. It is best to think of a fossil fuel economy, and other extractive communities, as a subset of a mono-economy. Detroit was the car manufacturing capital of the world, and when this industry collapsed so did the economy of the surrounding area. IBM Endicott employed the majority of the Endicott, New York in producing computers, and the decline of the manufacturing economy took its toll quickly and ruthlessly on the area, as the company transferred these operations to larger U.S. cities and overseas. 

Much in the same way, an economy predicated primarily on fossil fuel extraction will leave itself open to collapse if that resource collapses. While there are numerous examples, the “boomtown” model represents the stark dangers of a mono-economy, where a massive influx of workers to extract a natural resource of an area can lead to the wholesale collapse of a town when such extraction is no longer feasible, Analyzing these examples together reveals the same patterns of transitional insecurity. Pardon my French, but how do you pull piglets off a sour tit? I think in our calculations of what to do, we miss that there are fathers on the foot of beds, stinking of coal and oil and gas, and telling their sons that they have the same opportunity to keep the family afloat if they just start working in these industries. 

I will be as brief as I can here, because if you really want to get a masterful analysis of these policies, you should read Ann Eisenberg’s Just Transitions article. Within it, she analyzes four federal transitional policies— (1) The Trade Act of 1974, (2) The President’s Northwest Forest Plan, (3) The Tobacco Transition Payment Program, and (4) the POWER initiative. There were common problems with all of these programs, but there are four that I want to highlight. 

First, the Trade Act did not meaningfully combat the increased competition for displaced workers, resulting in nearly forty percent of those workers unable to find new jobs within one to two years after job loss.  Second, the President’s Northwest Plan did not create any meaningful jobs—it paid out money to individuals but did little to “provide long-term economic growth and security” for former timber counties. 

Third, the Tobacco Transition Payment Program paid out compensation to those engaged in the trade but ended up compensating large tobacco corporations (the same ones that invested aggressively in science-denial) far more than they did individual farmers. Fourth, the POWER initiative, though focused on direct payments to workers affected by the coal and power industry, has failed to make its way out of congress.  Even when there is a way to compensate workers, other warring interests can prevent that compensation. 

Further complicating this relationship is a deep shame inherent in some rural communities associated with engaging in social safety nets like welfare. This is described in depth in Arlie Hochschild’s “Stolen Pride” as well as J.D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy.”  There is also Jennifer Sherman’s book, Those Who Work, Those Who Don’t. In these highly proud communities, it is not enough to tell a breadwinner that “those who work, just can’t anymore.” By providing a payment, you are injecting much-needed money into a family unit. But that is a spitball of gauze aimed nicely into a mortal wound. A lot of these people consider work their worth, and a government payout is not only insufficient, but can even be insulting.

So, a transitionary process that merely pays out money to individuals (especially any payment plan which has to be sought out instead of merely given) will not be sufficient. 

Finally, there is also the problem of “fiscal spin,” wherein communities that hemorrhage people are stuck in a tailspin. As people leave, there are less taxes to support local infrastructure and improvement. With less taxes, these projects are abandoned or delayed. As these projects are abandoned or delayed, the quality of life in the area deteriorates. As the quality of life deteriorates, more people leave. As more people leave, the cycle continues. Similarly, when jobs evaporate, so too can labor unions. As labor unions evaporate, so too does their connection to the Democratic party. Furthermore, governmental regulations can disallow local governments from retaining revenue from new wind and solar projects, while exempting oil and natural gas revenue, thus incentivizing both profits and dependency. 

People cling to what they have and viciously defend what they once had. Thus, any just transition has to incorporate employment but also livelihood. How do you approach this problem fairly when the green transition is not only taking away jobs, but the primary jobs associated with a community? All this rigmarole dictates the following simple premise: the green transition must compensate communities as much as it aims to compensate individuals.

The toll of the Russian invasion on Ukraine's rural and agricultural sector

Ukrainian farmer stealing Russian tank, an image that appeared
in many memes during the early days of the Russian invasion

I've been thinking about this topic since the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine:  how will the war's impact be different in rural places than in urban ones?  I was drawn to the topic in the first instance because of reports of the Russian occupation of rural areas north of Kyiv and references to the challenges of urban warfare for an invading force. The suggestion was that the density of population in cities was a greater challenge to an invading force because someone came pop out from behind the walls of an apartment building at any time and attack the invading force.  Indeed, this is what happened early in the Chechen war, when residents of Grozny stopped the Russian columns en route to the presidential palace in 1994.

Back to Ukraine:  also from the early days of the invasion, there have been the videos--and memes--highlighting Ukrainian farmers hauling off Russian tanks with their tractors.  Social media led us to believe that the Ukrainian "peasants" were getting the best of the Russian invaders--or at least giving them a run for their money.  Here's another example of that: 

Meme from early in Russian invasion of Ukraine.  
Caption is, "It's not much, but it's honest work," referring to theft of Russian tank

Other reports after the first weeks of the war told us the Russian columns dispersed from the roads going into Kyiv and scattered into the countryside, under cover of forests and such.  

Then, more recently, came the post-occupation reports of war crimes out of Bucha and other Kyiv exurbs, previously rural places but more recently satellite exurban communities for the nation's capital.  

Now, today, the New York Times has published a story under the headline, "'Everything was Destroyed':  War Hits Ukraine's Farms.  This important story is reported by Emma Bubola, Valeriya Safronova and Maria Varenikova.  An excerpt follows, with a focus on the bad news and no hint of farmers prevailing over Russian forces:  

“My farm has turned to ruins,” said Grigoriy Tkachenko, a farmer in the village of Lukashivka, near the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. “There is almost nothing left.”

* * * 

The farm — his cattle, warehouses and machinery — was the product of his life’s work. After working in collective farms when Ukraine was under Soviet rule, Mr. Tkachenko bought about 15 acres of land and seven cows in 2005. Over the years, he expanded his operation to 3,700 acres and 170 cows, also producing corn, wheat, sunflowers and potatoes.

“What we built over decades,” he said, “they destroyed it over just a few days.”

Farmland covers 70 percent of the country and agricultural products were Ukraine’s top export, making up nearly 10 percent of its gross domestic product. Ukraine was one of the world’s main exporters of corn and wheat and the biggest exporter of sunflower oil.

The country now has 13 million tons of соrn and 3.8 million tons of wheat that it cannot export using its usual routes, primarily by sea, the deputy agriculture minister, Taras Vysotsky, said last week.

The story is well worth a read in its entirety--a sobering antidote to those heartening farmer memes from the first few weeks after the Russian invasion.  

Among other things, reports (like that by the New York Times) of the mining of Ukrainian fields is reminder of Anthony Marra writing of this phenomenon is The Tsar and Love and Techno, an excellent book with threads about the Russian war on Chechnya. The mines haunted--and terrorized--rural populations in Chechnya decades later.  

Post script:  NPR ran this story about the war's impact on Ukraine's farms and farmers on May 6, 2022.

Post script:  NYTimes story by Carlotta Gall on June 4, 2022, out of the Siversk District in eastern Ukraine.  This one features a farmer who keeps farming, in part for his animals, but also to feed his village.  There's a compelling quote reflecting rural lack of anonymity--and community: 

Mr. Chaplik is a fraying connection to the world for his increasingly isolated village, which he asked not be named so it would not suffer retribution from Russian troops. At considerable risk to himself, he provides vital supplies and information, and keeps producing food as best he can.

Many other farmers have left the area but he said he could not. “I can’t leave the people,” he said. “If I leave, I will not be able to return to the village, I will not be able to look people in the eye.”

But as the war has crept closer, he has had to shrink his business while trying to keep the farm producing and workers fed and paid. With utilities cut off, he runs the milk machines on generators, but can only operate his refrigerators for 12 hours a day.

Can rurality help hide money-laundering?

Using businesses in rural America for money laundering is a central premise of the Netflix series "Ozarks," and it's also the gist of this Politico story about the recent shenanigans of a Ukrainian oligarch in a small Illinois town.  The story is headlined, "A Ukrainian Oligarch Bought a Midwestern Factory and Let it Rot. What Was Really Going On?"

Here's an excerpt from the latter, which is definitely not fiction:  

Recently, wealthy elites have begun looking for other places to park their funds, places they think authorities won’t look. Places that offer all the financial secrecy these elites need, but that few would associate with lives of luxury. As a result, shadowy and sometimes ill-gotten wealth has started pouring not just into yachts and vacation homes, but also into blue-collar towns in the U.S. whose economic struggles make them eager to accept the cash.

One of these small towns appears to have been Harvard, Ill., a depressed factory community that allegedly became part of a sprawling network used by Ukrainian banking tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky to launder hundreds of millions of dollars earned from a Ponzi scheme. Kolomoisky, who was recently hit with U.S. sanctions for “significant corruption” in Ukraine, is separately accused by the Justice Department and Ukrainian investigators of using a constellation of shell companies and offshore bank accounts to move millions in misappropriated funds out of Ukraine and into a series of real-estate investments in the American Midwest. (Kolomoisky denies wrongdoing, claiming he made the investments with his own money.)

My article on how rural spatiality conceals crime is here.  

Florida breach signals why state and local cybersecurity infrastructure matters

Many infrastructure and national security experts, and most likely your organization’s IT department, have long warned about growing cybersecurity risks (see the New York Times reporter David Sanger’s 2018 book and Brookings podcast). Last December, cyber experts discovered the SolarWinds operation, uncovering a massive, sophisticated hack by Russian spies that targeted the U.S. federal government and affected 18,000 computer networks. Shortly after, President Biden committed to making cybersecurity a top priority.

Generally, only the more sensational cyber breaches implicating national security, like SolarWinds, or those resulting in expensive losses, make headlines. Other infrastructure breaches do not always capture the same attention, which is one reason the story surrounding the breach of a water treatment plant in Oldsmar, Florida is so noteworthy. This event shows the significant risks associated with weak state and local cyber infrastructure and suggests Washington shouldn’t be the only level of government concerned about cybersecurity. 

On February 9, hackers remotely accessed a major water treatment plant in Oldsmar, FL and manipulated the level of sodium hydroxide — “you’re basically talking about lye” — to unsafe levels that would have seriously sickened residents. Fortunately, an employee realized in the nick of time that an external force was controlling his computer, and no one was harmed. 

Oldsmar, a town of 15,000 and a suburb of Tampa, is not a rural area according to the USDA. However, this incident shines light on threats posed by weak cybersecurity infrastructures across geographies, including in rural areas. As the New York Times reported: 

“[Smaller systems] are the targets we worry about,” said Eric Chien, a security researcher at Symantec. “This is a small municipality that is likely small-budgeted and under-resourced, which purposely set up remote access so employees and outside contractors can remote in.”

Cybersecurity experts like to divide the world into two categories: those who have been hacked, and those who have been hacked but don’t know it. 

This is a fascinating feature of cyber-attacks. Hackers do not always target the deepest pockets. Malware technology enables hackers to go indiscriminately after a wide swath of devices at once via phishing or ransomware, enabling hackers to get smaller amounts of money from lots of different sources. Some ways hackers make a profit include holding data at ransom, selling huge quantities of personal identifiable information for tiny amounts on the dark web, or adding an innocuous line item on a credit card statement. 

Hackers frequently target weak security systems like small businesses, local governments, or independent medical providers and clinics. For example, in 2019, 23 town governments in Texas were hit by a coordinated hack. Also that year, non-metro Archuleta County in southwest Colorado was hacked and a $300k ransom was demanded. This kept the network down for weeks with a various costs. The county purchased more laptops and technical equipment, personnel spent weeks manually inputting records, and law enforcement operations were reduced. 

Additionally, some experts say that the pandemic has led to increased attacks because of our national reliance on digital infrastructure. Covid has underscored cybersecurity gaps in the education system. A December 2020 FBI report notes a significant increase in attacks on schools. 

In August and September, 57% of ransomware incidents reported . . . involved K-12 schools, compared to 28% of all reported ransomware incidents from January through July.

These examples (hacks on schools, water systems, and medical centers) are not specific to rural communities, but they do show that cybersecurity is very much a rural threat too. Authorities have not identified the culprit of the Oldsmar breach yet. Frankly, it sounds a little alarmist to think that a foreign adversary might be hacking a water system, but maybe not. Regardless of who the hacker is, however, incidents like the one in Florida give more credence to the warnings of cybersecurity Cassandras.

As previously discussed on this blog and in Prof. Lisa Pruitt's op-ed, increasing access to broadband should be an immediate priority for American policymakers. Accessing the internet implicates cybersecurity interests because users, whether they be individuals, local governments, or public utilities, rely on secure access. As policymakers consider proposals to expand broadband, breaches like the one in Florida or Archuleta County suggest it is not worth skimping on cybersecurity measures.

Literary Ruralism (Part XXVI): The Tsar of Love and Techno

This post is going to seem to some folks like a stretch as far as rural goes.  However, a passage from Anthony Marra's The Tsar of Love and Techno (2015) struck me as rural in the sense of reminding me of rural attachment to place, even as the place declines and opportunity is lost. 

The "place" in Marra's book is a Siberian town north of the Arctic circle, Kirovsk, where nickel was mined and, as a consequence, pollution has been rife and its effects have accumulated over the years.  Yet, after several generations there, the descendants of those shipped there because they were disloyal to Stalin (or perceived to be), people are reluctant to leave.  Marra writes via the voice of a 30-something woman whose grandparents were exiled to Kirovsk by Stalin: 

The layoffs began shortly after the first war in Chechnya ended.  Automated machines mined nickel with greater efficiency than our husbands.  Pensions vanished in the fluctuations of foreign stock exchanges.  Even those who kept their jobs struggled.  With the collapsing ruble, the payments of wages and pensions delayed for months, no one could afford the imported products that replaced familiar Soviet brands.  We considered moving to a milder climate but couldn't manage relocation costs.  Besides, our children were the fourth generation to call the Arctic home.  This meant something even if we didn't know quite what. 

For rural folks (including physicians), things are tough all over (including in Russia)

The New York Times reported out of Russia a few days ago that physicians in rural areas (even those in the western part of the country; we're not talking Siberia) are striking for better wages.  The dateline is Okulovka, in the Novgorod region between St. Petersburg and Moscow, and the story is headlined "In Russia's Provinces, the Doctor Is In (the Streets)."  Andrew Kramer's story, however, is not only about health care professionals, it is about the enormous divide between the haves and have nots in Russia, the latter often languishing in the "the provinces."  As Kramer expresses it, Okulovka "might just as well come from a different century," and the photos certainly give that impression.  About a third of the residences have no indoor plumbing, and the life expectancy there is among the very lowest in Russia.  (A prior post out of this region is here).   

Here's an excerpt from Kramer's story that focuses on state of health care, in particular doctors' salaries. It discusses the situation of Dr. Korovin, a general and colorectal surgeon: 

One issue gaining traction in particular is the impoverishment of doctors in rural Russia. After a medical procedure, it is more often the doctor than the patient who winds up with sticker shock — not because the payments are so outrageous, but because they are so small. 

Dr. Korovin, who is paid about $8,670 a year and extra for after-hours operations, recently treated a man with a stab wound to his lower abdomen.

* * * 

For that hour-and-a-half, after-hours operation, the hospital, which is funded by Russia’s state-run insurance program, paid Dr. Korovin 500 rubles, or $7.70.

It's thus not surprising that physicians and nurses are pressing for "local authorities fulfill a decree signed by Mr. Putin that doctors be paid twice the average salary of the region where they work."  In the Novgorod area, that would be about $11,448, about a third more than Korovin now earns.  Compare that to the average salary for a physician in the U.S., which is $313,000.  Indeed, where hospitals are able to keep their doors open, jobs in healthcare are critical to sustaining rural economies. 

Interestingly, Dr. Korovin says he voted for Putin, "we all voted for Putin."  That brings me to this terrific line from Kramer's story:

But the brush fires of provincial discontent highlight the disconnect between Russia’s chest-thumping rise abroad and its stagnating economy at home.

As in the earlier Russia story about which I posted nearly six years ago, there seems to be a big disconnect between the local and the national in Russian politics.  Putin is attractive as a strongman on the national stage, which may help him escape backlash over failures of lower scales of government. 

My Rural Travelogue (Part XVII): Northern Norway

Road signs near Kirkenes, Norway, June, 2014

Vardo Cultural Center

I spent several days last week on the "coastal express" MS Trollfjord, traveling from Kirkenes to Bergen, Norway.  The flight from Oslo to Kirkenes was nearly two hours long, which highlighted for me just how far north and east Kirkenes is.  Indeed, Kirkenes is just a few miles from the Russian border, north of Finland and in Norway's Finnmark county, which effectively cuts Sweden and Finland off from the Arctic Ocean.  Kirkenes has a population of 3,444, and it's nothing to look at, I have to admit, having been destroyed--like all else in these far northern reaches of Norway--by the retreating Germans near the end of World War II.  Like neighboring Vadso and Vardo (also stops on the Hurtigruten journey we took), Kirkenes is nearly as far east as St. Petersburg and Istanbul.  Also like these towns and many others we saw in Finnmark county, Kirkenes boasts a single church. This is presumably the Evangelical Lutheran church, effectively the national church of Norway.  As with other churches we saw on our journey, it was quite spartan, built after the war.  The loveliest such church we saw was in Tromso, the so-called Arctic Cathedral.  

Kirkenes church

Churches and such aside, what I really want to talk about is the transit and other infrastructure in this remote and very sparsely populated part of the world.  First, we stayed several miles out of Kirkenes, a few hundred yards from the Russian border at Storskog.  (More precisely, we were at Sollia Gjestegaard, a husky farm with a lodge, cabins, and restaurant on a lovely lake on the Pasvikelva River, which also forms the border between Russia and Norway).  En route between Storskog and Kirkenes, we saw several places that are probably considered villages by the Norwegian government, but which appeared to be little more than wide spots in the road.  Just a couple of houses were visible as we drove through each.  One of these villages was Elvenes, shown in the photo I took along the E-105.  (According to a wikipedia photo, Elvenes actually has a few dozen houses. Also according to wikipedia, it was home to a Russian prisoner of war camp during World War II, and 600 Norwegian teachers were sent there as slave labor during the war).  What was striking from a rural development and infrastructure standpoint was that there were bus stops and street lights along this route, and a bike path next to the road beside much of it, too.

As noted above, Kirkenes and the region have an airport served by Oslo and a few other Norwegian cities--our flights on SAS booked a number of months in advance for just $120, about half of which was for taxes.  Other tiny places along our journey also had airports, and once we were flying out of Norway from Bergen, I noticed the large number of flights going to remote towns where we had recently been, like Bronnoysund, population 4625. It is very hard to imagine such a comprehensive transit infrastructure in such a sparsely populated region of the United States.  (As for other types of public infrastructure, I note that Kirkenes had quite a large library in the center of town.  Every town had a cultural center, and the one at Vardo is pictured above).

Inn near Honningsvag, moved here from Lillehammer
Olympics

One reason for some of this transportation infrastructure throughout sparsely populated parts of Norway is tourism, both domestic and international.  In the winter seeing the northern lights and going out on a sledge pulled by huskies is the thing.  As for us, we were there for the midnight sun--on the longest day of the year, when the light level seemed more dictated by cloud cover or lack thereof than by time of day.  Apparently there are lots of reindeer in the area, but we didn't see any in this part of Finnmark (we did see them elsewhere, on the island of Mageroya, in the area of Northern Cape and Honningsvag).

Street lights and bike path between Storskog/Russian
Border and Kirkenes, near Elvenes, Norway

The farther south we journeyed, the less "rural" the country looked, though single homes and small clusters of home are visible up and down the coast.  It's hard to know how many of them are summer homes, but all appeared well kept.  While our guide on Mageroya mentioned the area's population loss (in addition to the fact that children on the island have 13 years of education available there and must leave only for university studies), I'm thinking that the massive investment in transportation infrastructure--which in turn facilitates summer tourism--keeps many communities alive, if not thriving.  Other than tourism, fishing remains king all along the coast, and the Norwegian government still seems to assume it needs people to populate these villages--not merely to have workers fly in and fly out (as in Australia's remote mining regions) to work for a few weeks at a time.  Otherwise, it surely would not be so generous in support of infrastructure for these remote locales.

(I am reminded of this story in the New York Times from a few weeks ago--about Barentsburg, Norway.  Barentsburg is on Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago north of this part of Norway, in the Barents Sea.  The economy there is mining based and many workers are transplanted from the Ukraine.  On Svalbard, too, however, a tourism economy is growing.  Indeed, Hurtigruten, who operated our "coastal express" also run tours there).

When I planned this trip to Norway, I wasn't thinking of it as an opportunity to see a rural place, but it certainly was.  Indeed, I'm now thinking that Norway, and other parts of Scandinavia, may feature the most rural parts of Europe.  And the experience has me thinking in new ways about how governments can support rural and remote communities.

Arrivals room at Kirkenes Airport

Bus stop in Elevenes, near Kirkenes, Norway

On the Russia left behind

The New York Times today presents journalist Ellen Barry's journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, largely along the M10 motorway.  The headline is "The Russia Left Behind: a journey through the heartland on the slow road to ruin."  This excerpt focuses on a rural area, a village called Pochinok, a few miles west of the M10 between Valdai and Torzhok:

Beyond Valdai, where collective farms once extended for miles in all directions, heading off the highway for more than a few miles is like leaving the known world.

* * * 

Between the great cities are hundreds of disappearing settlements: towns becoming villages, villages becoming forest. The Soviets cut off support for them during efficiency drives in the 1960s and ’70s, which categorized villages as “promising” or “unpromising.” 

But the death of a village is a slow process. A geographer, Tatiana Nefyodova, calls them “black holes,” and estimates that they make up 70 to 80 percent of Russia’s northwest, where Moscow and St. Petersburg act as giant vacuum cleaners, sucking people and capital from the rest of the country.

Barry interviews 42-year-old Nina Kolesnikova who lives with her husband and two young sons in Pochinok.  Kolesnikova says that at times they live as if on an island because the road connecting them to the M10 is not maintained year round.  When asked why she does not leave, Barry writes: 

she gave an answer that would resonate with any Russian: The air is clean. They gather berries and mushrooms in the summer. They produce their own cottage cheese and sour cream. “Everything is ours,” she said.

Barry's description of her visit to Torzhok touches on the way in which responsibility for the deterioration of small-town Russia gets attributed to the failings of local government, thereby letting the national government off the hook for the decline.

Rural Montana ranch seeks to be respite for adoptees

Read Kirk Johnson's story from today's New York Times. The dateline is Eureka, Montana, population 1,017, close to the Canadian border in Lincoln County, population 18,837. Johnson's story features Joyce Sterkel's ranch, where hundreds of adopted children, mostly from Russia, have come to "perhaps find healing grace with the horses and cows and rolling fields."

Here's an excerpt that criticizes Sterkel's approach to dealing with these troubled children, challenging the power of this natural setting to deal with profound physiological and psychological problems facing many of these children:

Ranch for Kids now has 30 children, ages 5 to 17, some of whom stay for a month or two, some for years. Critics say the ranch, and places like it that focus on experience as therapy — exposure to nature, animals and rules of ranch life — are islands of unreality that do not fundamentally address a child’s problems.