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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Black Sea Flotsam 

29 December, 1998 - 00:00

Sevastopol Cannot Do Without -

Or With - the Fleet

No way out of closed circle in sight


Those who live outside Sevastopol think that the main problem of this
city is the simultaneous basing of two fleets there - the Russian and the
Ukrainian ones. In fact, the main city's problem is the fleet itself, regardless
of what state it belongs to.

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

 

 

 

 

 

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