A shamanic legend holds that when fish disappear from the mighty Amur River, so will the Nanai indigenous people disappear from Earth.
DZHARI, Russia — A shamanic legend holds that when fish disappear from the mighty Amur River, so will the Nanai indigenous people disappear from Earth.
The prophesy hangs heavily over the people of the Russian Far East village of Dzhari as they await the arrival of a toxic stew of potentially cancer-causing nitrobenzene and other poisons spewed into their river by a chemical plant explosion in China last month.
Russian authorities have reassured the population that nitrobenzene indicators in the Amur's waters do not exceed maximum acceptable levels. Yet the indicators in fish are 20 times higher and, according to the Institute of Water Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the level in fish is dozens of times above what could be considered safe.
"We must tell people the truth," said Vladimir Popov, the Khabarovsk regional government's first deputy chairman, who chairs the emergency response committee. "Nitrobenzene collects in fish and doesn't leave the organism."
Regional authorities have imposed a ban on fishing from the Amur for at least two years -- inspiring dread in local inhabitants.
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"We'll die if we stop eating fish," protested 56-year-old Boris Geiker, who eats fish for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Just steps from his wooden house, its frame hung with fish, hangs a freshly painted sign: "Fishing absolutely prohibited."
"For us, fish means even more than bread does" for Russians, Geiker said as he untangled his fishing tackle outside the house in -30 C (-22 F) weather.
The Nanai, who today number close to 11,000, call the Amur "our provider." More than half of the tens of thousands of native people of the Russian Far East live along the Amur, and all put fish at the center of their ethnic culture.
Larisa Beldy, a 51-year-old Nanai craftswoman, showed off a pair of boots made from fish skin. Her hand-embroidered robe was decorated with traditional Nanai drawings.
"Civilization has practically destroyed the Nanai language, and the toxic slick could destroy the culture and health of my people," she said mournfully as she cradled her 7-month-old grandson Grisha in her arms.
Pollution has already taken a heavy toll. Just 7 percent of girls and 9 percent of boys born to indigenous families are considered to be in good health, official statistics show. The insufficient flourine and iodine in the water and soil is accompanied by a surfeit of manganese, iron, polymetals and even radionucleides, which promote chronic diseases.
The native people's immunity is half the norm in Russia, according to research by biologist Nikolai Ryabinin, leader of the Amur Ecological Foundation.
"The small peoples are swiftly degenerating," Ryabinin said.
There are no jobs in Dzhari, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Khabarovsk. The single store in the village is empty. The 700 inhabitants are grouped in extended families who help each other survive, sharing government pensions and subsidies for children.
"We can hardly make ends meet," said Nikolai Beldy, 67, who was using an ax to chop up frozen fish for his year-old grandson Alexei and daughter Tatyana. "And what will we eat? There's nothing else (other than fish) here."
For now, he is not venturing out to fish for fear of running into government inspectors. But Beldy said the toxic slick will not stop him from fishing.
"The fish is even more dangerous for people than toxic water," said Lyubov Kondratyeva, a researcher at the institute.
Khabarovsk regional governor Viktor Ishayev has promised that the authorities will import fish from unpolluted regions of Russia for the indigenous peoples of the Far East.
Yet there is none to be seen so far in Dzhari, where the only visible, organized preparation for meeting the slick is the delivery of huge barrels of yellowish water, which the authorities claim is clean, to every home.
Stanislav Beldy, the village administration chief, said he is preparing for the worst.
"So it's really true we're going to disappear?" he asked. "The poison is already in the Amur, and we have yet to see the imported fish."
Source: Associated Press
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