Arctic Russia

putin, the arctic and russian geography

To demonstrate the connection between geographical sciences in Russia and state economic and development policies you need go no further than follow the extensive coverage given yesterday to the remarks made by Prime Minister Putin before the Russian Geographical Society.

Время-новости lauds Putin’s qualifications to act as the new Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the RGS (his PhD thesis on mining, his links to the gas industry and his love of nature) and notes that Russia will ‘actively defend’ its Arctic territory. 

Известия.rу contained some interesting observations about the pre-speech entertainment, ‘ фильм про Путина и природу: то Путин с тиграми, то с леопардами, то с белухами. Наконец, Путин – словно сошел с экрана – появился на сцене’ – i.e., a film about Putin and nature: Putin with a tiger, Putin with a leopard, with a white whale, then finally Putin himself appeared on the screen.  (What is interesting about this is the journalist’s tone: reverential, but ironically conveying a sense that we are being forced to laugh).

The 50 million rouble grant given by the state to the Society will, it is stated in газета.ru, assist Russia in its international struggle for the resources of the shelf.  Arkady Tishov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography at the RAS is also reported as having described Russian geographers diving to the bottom of the ocean as engaged in proving that the shelf belongs to Russia.

What puzzles me in the account from газета.ru is the use of the word ‘имиджевой’ to describe the society’s role in the process.  The Russian sentence goes, ‘ученые помогут государству в имиджевой борьбе за арктический шельф’, which can seemingly be translated as ‘the geographers will assist the state in its image during its struggle for the Arctic shelf’.  I think that this really means ‘presentation’, but the sense that the role of scientists is to find rationales for state activity remains.