Bronevich: I am an only woman who is the head of a federal territorial entity as governor. There have been recently two of us in Federal Council (or Board or Assembly?). Valentina Nikolaevna Pivnenko was a representative of Karelia legislative body; now she is a deputy of State Duma, the head of North and Far East Committee, our right hand and an executive who knows problems of Northerners well. There are no still women among heads of legislative bodies in Russia since she retired. This may characterize the situation in general. As for your question, I think that only strong and sensible men cannot create, perhaps not yet, but stabilize and maintain the situation in our country during crisis of all sides of life. It is our strong belief that only a man can rescue the old, women and children from hardships and troubles. The matter is if he does it the right way. That is why I think it is natural that people save women for better times. Kindness and charm can only reassure people, give them some hope; but the burden of daily work and that of arrears is carried by weak woman's shoulders, and neither ordi-nary people nor men-executives give any quarter or make allowance for me as a woman. To be a governor is a hard man's job and I feel not many women in this country can be in.

Bronevich: There were some advantages in personnel policy of the Soviet era. It was a state policy and personnel were literally "grown". It had especial importance for the so-called "nati-onal person-nel." Only best were selected, but it also had many disadvantages, which made parasitic attitude to duties and inertia flourish. It was an era of totalitarianism and stagnation, in one word. Of course, the last decade had a certain effect on the situation: the personnel are a burning question in life of the area and other troubles such as economic collapse and "reeling" social sphere flow from it. Last election showed that the aborigines would wait for their turn for a long time where money talks. As for the qualities, I am afraid of disappointing you, but a set of them is quite standard, thou the modern voter, to my mind, follows them just notionally. Fair words are often taken for granted. Sometimes I would like to prompt people: "Ask him the main thing-how is he going to do it?!" A candidate says, for example: "I'll pay your debts off!" Ask him: "How, what and whose money, what will it cost us, the voters?" Any answer will make it clear that nothing comes free. Our belief in touring candidates is amazing. They don't know simple things: what the population of this area is, including natives, how many settlements are, what North's bills are under consideration in State Duma and what is of first importance for us. If it's happened that we are in a plight now and we must act together, it is necessary for a governor, having a standard set of qualities, to meet high requirements. He must know and prove how to do a certain work in each certain case, when and what results it may produce. The time to blame reformers of the first wave or "green reformers" has passed, the main thing is how to improve the situation and how to stagger on. One can achieve the goal set and become a winner only knowing how!

Bronevich: I was born and grew in a multinational family. As for my ethnic roots, it should be noted that my mother-Raisa Alexandrovna-is a pure Itelwoman and, unfortunately, the only in her family. Her mother, my grandmother, died very young, and being a child she was left in her grandparents' care. They were bringing her up. She is a wonderful person-wise and very kind, jolly and optimistic, but she also knows the value of life. Having brought four of us up, she always gives a helping hand to her friends and relatives, and now she shares with them everything she has. Tadei Ivanovich, my father, is a "perpetual motion". He is an ordinary industrious worker who loves beautiful things everywhere: in the house, in the yard, in the greenhouse, in the kitchen garden. Everything must be beautiful. If you start any business, you should finish it and in a beautiful way! For that reason everybody had to work and work much and hard! I am grateful to my parents for instilling the idea of family bonds and responsibility for each other. Now being adults we are still together and are ready to support each one who may slip up.

My grandfather Vasili had brothers and sisters. Some of them were repressed. Their children were and are Tatiana Petrovna Lukashina, a famous person in Kamchatka, a teacher, a choreographer, and a narrator of folk tales who, to my sorrow, is gone. Ludmila Petrovna Brusentsova is the first professional lawyer-the retired district attorney. Dora Stepanovna Popova is a recognized teacher from Hailino. Other men alive are more or less known in the area and it binds us to many things.

I spent my childhood in the village Ust-Hairusovo, thou I was born and lived until five in Sopochnoe village of the same Tigilskii district. In the early 60s it was closed as it had no perspective. When I was leaving a comprehensive boarding school in Tigil I was dreaming of becoming an archeologist but under insistence of A. M. Alekseev (the principal and a teacher of History) I agreed to enter the faculty of Law at the Irkutsk State University. I never regret of it, as I know for sure that to help my countrymen is my true vocation.

My mother always told me not to be insulted to the word 'Koryak' as children used to call me in quarrels, but to be proud of it, although I understand she didn't take it easy too. When we grew up we accepted the way of life, the way of thinking and making deeds of a Itelman without coercion, in spite of the fact that one of us is a Ukrainian by passport. He did it "just to please Dad" as he explained it receiving the document.

At High School I began to realize that it was wrong when natives could not keep enough fish in store, and to exchange it for some necessity one should have done it undercover.

When I was a student, my mother and I were walking along the seashore once. Suddenly she saw a small king salmon with its eyes pecked out in a dry net not far from a frontier watchtower. She long to take it telling of a meal she could have cooked of it, but I pointed to the tower silently and we went on walking, the fish being in the net. I still can see it. That time I took a decision to become a lawyer to fight for justice of my countrymen. When I became a chairman of the Regional Executive Committee my principal provisions were: the preservation of fish and State hunting-farms' produce for the area residents; the development of hunting-farms that provide employment in traditional sectors of economy for aborigines; the housing in ethnic villages; the spread of national languages in the area and others.

I think many things were done in that direction during those years and in the early 90s, when I was away; but the period of 'political and economic reforms', as you called them, made the problems acute again. Under new circumstances they acquired another shade of "reforms": open poaching, profiteering of fish resources and fishery produce became common among people and aborigines too. The wholesale of our resources and their depreciation (and an exchange of caviar, the most valuable product that may give food and clothe if to husband it, for a bottle of vodka serves us a vivid example) are done just to launch business. At the same time, the rate of unemployment is 80 % in some ethnic villages. I mean Lesnaya village where the situation has been dramatically improving now.

Bronevich: When the area passed to me it looked like in a plight but the actual position of affairs was revealed when workdays began, and it was a tragedy for me. What struck me most was that people were absolutely inert and didn't believe in changes. First it refers to the aborigines affected by unemployment, drinking, despair, and parasitic attitude to life, in most cases. Economy was based upon nothing, there was no economy at all: hunting-farms and State farms-the principal and traditional branches of economics-were almost of no importance as farm-market branches. State farms were partly privatized (read ravaged), game-preserves went private to hunters, furs became an object of black-market and fishery turned into poaching. Officially unemployed participated in it, having no labor or social insurance, and the area budget received no relative taxes. About four of six canneries had formally been closed by that time. Having become private, they went bankrupt as they did not allocate any money for the budget, funds and did not pay wages, while directors were still utilizing resources. The same situation could be traced in all collective farms.

Only the social sphere was hanging in there: schools, hospitals, cultural institutions, and they faced a lot of problems too. Many recreation centers did not operate, we needed more specialists.

I suppose these two problems are actually closely connected, the problem of NORTH (or discrimination of aborigines who cannot be uprooted from northern territories, whoever might dream of it in the government; and who have always been living here as they are grass-ROOTS1 of this land and their roots are deep and strong), i.e. expansion of federal center, and that of QUOTAS (their redistribution for someone's benefit), i.e. expansion of former Fareast fish center. The growth or aggregation of any of these problems together or separately may have an immediate effect on life in the area, to be precise they may shorten life and first of all life of aborigines. If you agree with me, will you tell our readers in detail about a great dependence of the area on these two problems tied in a tight knot, perhaps Gordian knot?

 

---

Return back on the Magazin Site

---