Russian islanders voice anger at foreign energy majors

0 Comments | AFP, October, 2006

NOGLIKI, Russia (AFP) — The only thing that the rich oil and gas reserves just off the sandy shores of Russia's Sakhalin Island have done for Tatyana Kuklik is spoil her fish. "The fish isn't the same. It smells of oil," said Kuklik, as she cut roe from Siberian salmon on Plastun Spit -- an expanse of far eastern wilderness lined with ramshackle wooden fishermen's huts along the water's edge.

Kuklik is a Nivkh, an ethnic group numbering some 2,000 people that has lived off fishing for hundreds of years on the edge of the tundra on this remote island seven time zones east of Moscow. Complaints by the Nivkh that massive energy projects are threatening their traditional way of life are part of wider and growing discontent against foreign oil majors among the population of...