Black Sea Flotsam 

In the last eighty years Sevastopol has been developed exclusively as a naval base. Thus, it is not surprising that its every resident one way or another has a relationship with the navy.

Currently, the Ukrainian Naval Forces and Russian Black Sea Navy together have far fewer men than the united Black Sea Navy had before perestroika. Over the last few years, the well-paid and prestigious profession of naval officer has turned into a totally ordinary one, both in terms of income and social status.

This has had an immediate impact on the whole Sevastopol infrastructure. For the city's culture, trade, transport, and restaurant industry were all oriented to serving the military. Without the officers' money they were used to in the past, those facilities are destined to lead a miserable existence.

The reductions in both navies has brought to a virtual standstill not only coded military plants, but also Sevastopol major civil enterprises, including the Ordzhonikidze Maritime Plant, Vitrylo and Muson Plants, the Balaklava Ship Yard, etc., which had been basically designed to serve the military industrial complex. Unemployment rates continue to rise: compared to last year, the number of the unemployed is up 1.8 times, with defense sector workers accounting for 45%. According to Krymprofinform (Crimean Employment Information Agency), hidden unemployment at shipbuilding enterprises is 21% of the work force officially employed in the sector.

Future prospects are far from bright. It is now clear to everyone that in ten or fifteen years the Russian Black Sea Navy will leave Sevastopol. As far as Ukraine's Naval Forces are concerned, their own research center predicts that "if the situation in regard to designing and construction of combat ships is not radically changed, the Ukrainian Naval Forces after 2005 will virtually cease to exist and will be reduced to an ordinary group of miscellaneous and worn-out vessels." Thus, given the real state of the country's economy, Sevastopol residents cannot rely on the navy as their traditional breadwinner.

Developing Sevastopol as a commercial port is blocked, again, by the presence of the military base. Currently, only two wharves in the Sevastopol harbor are suitable for receiving passengers and freight. All others are taken up by the Russian and Ukrainian fleets. Given the reduction in combat ships, many wharves are not used. Other city harbors are in a similar condition, except Kamyshova, which accommodates a maritime fishing port.

Incidentally, if the city budget could retain at least half the payment Ukraine will receive for renting Black Sea wharves to the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the issue of Sevastopol's slow death would be solved. According to data presented by the Municipal Land Resources Department, each land unit rented by Russia in Sevastopol is valued on the average $145 per square meter. Some parts of the city center, like the Minna Stinka wharf, are valued at $1,500 per square meter. But the local authorities, to say nothing of ordinary Sevastopol residents, will most likely never see this money.

The development of Sevastopol using revenues from tourism is an absolutely unrealizable dream, despite the fact that the city has a rich history, and boasts the Khersones Historical and Archeological Resort, as well as unique museums, which offer some hopes for a flow of tourists. This dream is unrealizable not only because the city lacks first rate hotels and not only because the city's water supply (that is only cold water supplied three hours in the morning and in the evening according to schedule) is a surprise even to the rather tempered inhabitants, to say nothing of tender foreigners. But also because no one will enjoy gazing at the dead, contaminated harbors covered by a rainbow-colored oil film, let alone to swim there.

As reported by the South Seas Biology Institute, there are over 20,000 tons of oil products accumulated at the bottom of Sevastopol harbors. Thus, even if strict monitoring was imposed (which is next to impossible) to prevent any new contamination by combat and civil ships, as well as by city sewage, there would still be substantial amount of oil in the sea. The harbors' self-cleaning process will take many decades to be completed.

Sevastopol will have a chance to survive its current crisis only if our young state shall have the capacity to maintain at a decent level such an expensive toy as its combat fleet. Or if some genius will find a way to combine in one place incompatible things - a naval base, commercial port, international tourist center, etc. Over two hundred years ago, in the late eighteenth century, the fleet made of the Tartar village of Akhtiar a great city. Today, in late twentieth century, Sevastopol could again return to being a village.

By Liudmyla PIVEN,
 Crimea News Agency, special to The Day