TITLE : ENVIRONMENTAL NATIONALISM AND 'S CONSERVATIO N MOVEMENT : IDEALS OF NATURE AND THE NATIONAL PARK S

AUTHOR : RACHEL MAY, Macalester Colleg e

THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FO R EURASIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN RESEARC H

TITLE VIII PROGRA M

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The Government of the District of Columbia has certified an amendment of th e Articles of Incorporation of the National Council for Soviet and East Europea n Research changing the name of the Corporation to THE NATIONAL COUNCIL FO R EURASIANANDEAST EUROPEAN RESEARCH, effective on June 9, 1997. Grants, contracts and all other legal engagements of and with the Corporation made under its former name are unaffected and remain in force unless/until modified in writin g by the parties thereto .

PROJECT INFORMATION : 1

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PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR : Rachel Ma y

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DATE : August 25, 1997

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1 The work leading to this report was supported in part by contract or grant funds provided by th e National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, made available by the U . S. Department of Stat e under Title VIII (the Soviet-Eastern European Research and Training Act of 1983, as amended). The analysi s and interpretations contained in the report are those of the author(s) . ENVIRONMENTAL NATIONALISM AND RUSSIA'S CONSERVATION MOVEMEN T Ideals of Nature and the National Parks

Rachel Ma y

EXECUTIVE SUMMAR Y In the Soviet era, nature preserves () and national parks were created by government decree and intended for limited scientific and educational purposes . Now Russia n conservationists recognize the need to build a broader base of popular, political, and financial support for the preserves and parks. Each site now has its own department of instructional activity , which works with school groups, local and governmental organizations, and the press, and which produces literature, signage for nature trails, nature museums and films . Two organizations i n Moscow are dedicated to promoting the parks and training park personnel in propaganda techniques . They have borrowed methods from U .S. and Canadian park organizations, including the successfu l "March for Parks" and a push for American-style interpretive tours and handbooks . However, the origins and locations of the parks and preserves, their administrative traditions , their lack of infrastructure, and many cultural factors create special barriers to raising publi c awareness and support, and in many ways the American model is inapplicable to Russian realities . The 93 nature preserves, which are meant to protect endangered species or pristine ecosystems, are generally off-limits to all but a few researchers; ordinary Russians can take pride in them only in the abstract. The national park idea, by contrast, arose in the 1980s to establish recreational sites , supposedly on the U . S . model . Nevertheless, in law and in practice the 32 parks give precedence t o scientific research and education and only promote limited, organized visits, primarily by schoo l groups . Park personnel speak disdainfully of those who would visit "merely to enjoy the scenery . " And in most cases such visits are nearly impossible, since access to the parks is very difficult, trail s are poorly maintained, often nothing but a modest sign and a list of forbidden activities identifies the site as a national park . Park administrators' reluctance to welcome the public, and public apathy toward the parks , have cultural explanations . In the Soviet Union all land was publicly owned, and Russians still tak e for granted that they can use woodlands and wetlands for their own purposes : gathering mushrooms , berries, and firewood, picking flowers, fishing, hunting, lighting campfires. They are not accustomed to staying on paths or "taking only pictures ." In fact, there is a general culture o f resistance to rules and regulations of any kind. These factors also restrict public desire to visit th e parks, as Russians may prefer to spend time "in nature" in unrestricted woodlands . In addition , many Russian parks are less attractive tourist destinations than American ones because they wer e chosen for other reasons than scenic beauty or grassroots support . Some were former tsarist-er a

1 hunting preserves or areas so remote that their ecosystems and traditional cultures were untouched , and therefore they were good candidates for further preservation . My research was based on a premise that Russian environmentalism differed from its America n counterpart by being more closely tied to nationalist sentiment, to a particular fondness for "Russia n nature" and a desire to preserve ancient symbols of Russian culture, rather than to a passion for wil d nature that transcends human civilizations . I hypothesized that this would limit the usefulness i n Russia of American models of park conservation and promotion . Russian conservationists strongl y refuted this argument, saying that they detect in American park literature a powerful undercurrent o f nationalism, and that they are trying precisely to raise national pride in Russian nature to America n levels . Historically, America's parks did grow out of a nationalist effort to assert superiority ove r Europe, but what Russians see as nationalist in current rhetoric lies in phrases like "This land is your land" and "The parks belong to the people of the United States ." These are less assertions of nationa l superiority than invocations of civic pride and responsibility, which are still essentially alien concept s in Russia, and so will not lend themselves as the basis for a new national symbolism . In addition, th e fact that Yellowstone, Yosemite, or the Grand Canyon have lodged themselves in the America n national psyche is partly due to an artistic tradition of painting and especially landscape photograph y devoted to natural landmarks . American landscape photographers speak of a uniquely inspirin g aspect of the national parks in the fact that they are public lands in which the photographe r "participates," or "re-creates." Since the idea of "public lands" is not particularly inspiring t o Russians, and since they feel the value of "participation" weakly at best, and since landscap e photography is by no means the national art form in Russia that it is in America, it will not be a n easy matter to produce equivalently memorable images of Russia's parks . Though they claim to be emulating American models, the proponents of Russia's parks an d preserves in fact have chosen a different type of rhetoric which acknowledges, if only tacitly, th e close connection for Russians between environmental protection and conservation of cultura l traditions . Park propaganda uses recognizable cultural imagery : citations from Russian poetry , references to fairy tales and legends, traditional woodcarving on signposts and visitor centers . Nature museums in the parks devote considerable attention to human culture in the area . Efforts to promote the parks as a national symbol include invocations of the "native land," the "Russian soul," and "th e pride of Russia ." One promising venture is an eco-ethnographic project to collect nature lore an d legends from local elders living near protected areas, in order to pass on to future generation s traditions that might help to protect vulnerable species or engender a sense of reverence for nature . Russian conservationists have developed a vocabulary for promoting the parks that combine s North American models with appeals to Russian traditions and local and cultural allegiances . International organizations should not be put off by the seemingly nationalist rhetoric in park

2 promotional materials, as this may be the best way to ensure popular support and the long-ter m health of the park system . Introduction The topic of my proposal, concerning the ways in which Russia's system of nature preserve s and national parks reflects and draws strength from cultural attitudes toward nature, turns out to be a preoccupation of many Russian conservationists today . Park administrators and rangers have awakened rather suddenly to the idea that they must promote and defend their parks among the loca l population, and some are also concerned with attracting ecotourists from outside the region . Two Moscow-based organizations are largely concerned with raising the profile of the parks, and severa l recent publications have been dedicated to questions of environmental education and propaganda . During a five-week trip to the Moscow region and Siberia I was able to collect a substantial amoun t of information on the topic from published materials (both scholarly and promotional), fiel d observations, and interviews . The results of my research confirm that a sensitivity to Russian cultural values and the appeal to national pride are likely to be pivotal in ensuring the future robustness o f the park system .

1 . Promoting Russia's National Parks and Preserves . Russia's protected natural areas are truly a unique resource of worldwide significance . Comprised of 93 nature preserves (zapovedniks, of which 17 have the status of biosphere reserves) , 32 national parks, and a large number of protected areas or sanctuaries () and natura l monuments (pamiatniki prirody), they include representative samples of each of Russia's biotopi c zones, habitats of many endangered species, and unique geological formations and scenic areas . Except for scientific researchers, the zapovedniks are largely off-limits to humans, which means they have preserved a degree of wildness unknown in the United States or most other parts of the globe . The national parks are meant to be more open to outsiders, although here, too, the emphasis ha s been on nature study rather than just tourism . (I was able to visit a portion of the Stolb y , near Krasnoyarsk, because it was established to protect a set of granite outcropping s which are not as vulnerable as endangered species, and so it is managed more like a national par k than a zapovednik . There is a tourist trail through its most scenic sector, and a great many peopl e come each summer to see the great Stolby, or pillars, and often to try their skill at scaling them .) The sanctuaries generally place fewer limitations on human activities, or restrict them at certai n times of year (nesting season, for example) . Given the new economic realities in Russia, park administrators and conservationists ar e recognizing the need to invite more public awareness and support for the parks . Government funding is unpredictable at best, commercial pressures to develop the lands and exploit their resources ar e increasing, and impoverished local populations are voicing their displeasure over being denied acces s

3 to the lands for hunting, fishing, and gathering mushrooms, berries, or firewood . At the same time , there is little public awareness of the parks as a recreational or ecological resource . With regard t o the zapovedniks this is probably inevitable, since they are mostly closed to average citizens, but th e national parks, too, have a very low public profile . Most Muscovites I spoke to did not even kno w that one end of a large national park . Losinii Ostrov, was situated within the city limits . Some of m y acquaintances commented that the word park in Russian suggests an artificially landscaped area, an d the phrase "national park" or "national nature park," as it sometimes appears, is therefore not immediately understandable . The standard Russian dictionary definition of park is "a large garden . a grove with tree-lined paths, flower beds, and artificial ponds, etc ." And in fact I found that when I would say I was studying the Russian national parks, most people responded either wit h bewilderment or by saying, "Yes, we have a great many parks -- Gorky Park, Izmailovskii Park . . ., " naming their favorite urban parks . Efforts to promote the parks more broadly are well underway . Each site now has its own department of instructional activity, which works with school groups, local and governmenta l organizations, and the press . and which produces literature, signs for nature trails, nature museums and films. For now, the staff seems primarily to focus on work with school children and universit y students, though they also organize holiday festivals in the parks and write articles for newspaper s and magazines . Two organizations in Moscow are working to reach a broader public with the message about the parks . These are the Biodiversity Conservation Center (BCC), which is an arm o f the Socio-Ecological Union, and the Environmental Education Center "Zapovedniks," which wa s founded by the World Wide Fund for Nature (World Wildlife Fund, WWF) . One important initiative in the last two years has been the BCC's "March for Parks" (Marsh parkov), coordinated with the U .S . National Parks and Conservation Association's annual spring event of the same name . The "Marches" coincide with Earth Day and include two or three days o f games, volunteer projects, and educational activities for children and adults . In only two years thes e events have mobilized supporters in various regions of the country, have gained much-neede d attention in the press, and have led to the recruitment of scores of "ecological advance troops " (ekologicheskie desanty) who volunteer their time for park cleanup and maintenance . Other activitie s organized by these two centers include workshops and seminars for park/preserve employees o n education and promotion of the parks . They also produce literature of various kinds, includin g information bulletins in Russian and English, books on environmental education, and brochures . Irma Chebakova of the BCC recently published a handbook, (1996, i n Russian, but due to appear in an English translation soon) . The "Zapovedniks" Center has just issue d a glossy map and description of the park/preserve system . Another important source of literature o n park propaganda is Vladimir Boreiko of the Kiev Eco-Cultural Center in Ukraine, who works closel y with Evgenii Simonov at the Russian State Committee on Environmental Protection and the BCC .

4 Among Boreiko's many publications are a guide to working with the press on environmental issues , a bibliography of propaganda for environmental protection . and The Road to the Zapovednik (1996) , a primer on environmental promotion and education in nature preserves .

2 . Barriers to Public Support for the Parks and Preserves . For all their activity, those who would raise the public profile of the Russian parks an d preserves face many obstacles . National parks and protected areas inevitably pose a dilemma about how to balance the twin goals of nature preservation and human recreation . John Muir, who s o revered the solitude of mountains and feared human interference with their wildness, nevertheles s tirelessly worked to promote Yosemite and Yellowstone as tourist destinations, knowing that was the only way to raise the popular support needed to maintain them as parks .' He might have been les s vehement on this score had he foreseen the impact of private automobiles on tourism to the parks . but the pragmatist in him still would have weighed the potential propaganda value of those tourists . A. Accessibility . My experience with Russian park officials is that they may pay lip service t o the value of tourism, but they continue to resist it, both philosophically and practically . Park personnel are almost all trained as scientists or foresters . They insist on principle that visitors to the park should come for educational reasons, not "merely to enjoy the scenery," as one remarked t o me . And they make little effort to make the parks accessible to visitors . To get to Losinii Ostrov , within the Moscow city limits, one must take a commuter train from the Yaroslavl Station, then a bus or trolley or a long walk to paths into the park, which are rather obscurely marked, if at all . I was cautioned not to even try to visit several other parks north and south of Moscow, which requir e combinations of train and bus and ferry rides that are so badly coordinated that you must either wai t overnight to make a connection or contact a park official to pick you up at the station. It is even difficult and confusing to get to the park on the west shore of -- arguably Russia's mos t famous natural asset, and the system's best-financed park . A rather obscure bus from the smal l Irkutsk bus station takes you to the lakeshore village of Listvianka, where a persistent seeker ca n find a building claiming to be a ranger station (but closed when I arrived), but no apparent paths int o the hills overlooking the lake or other amenities one might expect to find in a national park . This insistence on obscurity is not restricted to park personnel themselves, but seems to exten d to those who ostensibly are promoting the park system in general . Chebakova's long-awaited 1996 guide to the park system features a few attractive pictures, outline maps of each park, an d encapsulated descriptions under the headings "Climate," "Geology and Relief," "Water," "Soil, " "Flora," Fauna," "Historical and Cultural Landmarks," "Functional Zones," "Scientific Research, "

'See John Muir, "The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West," in his Our National Parks (San Francisco : Sierra Club, 1991), 1-27 .

5 and "Tourism." It is probably no coincidence that tourism comes last, and under this heading sh e lists numbers of visitors per year and types of group activities that take place there . Nowhere doe s she describe how to get to the park, what facilities are available to travelers, or any of the othe r typical information in our national park literature . I did not get a chance to ask her why she ha d omitted this information, but others who had been close to the process of putting out the guideboo k commented that it was surely not intentional, she was simply following a traditional format for suc h descriptions and had probably not even thought about the matter. Which, I would argue, speaks to a fundamental difference in attitude between promoters of American parks and their counterparts i n Russia . The difference is even codified in the respective missions of the parks . The U .S . Congres s declared Yellowstone in 1872 a "Public Park or pleasuring ground for the benefit and enjoyment o f the people ." The National Park Service Organic Act of 1916 charges the Service to "promote and regulate the use of the .. . national parks," to "conserve the scenery" and "provide for the enjoyment" of the historic objects and wildlife they contain .' Most propaganda about the Russia n national parks compares them in purpose to the U.S . parks. For example, the map and brochur e from the "Zapovedniks" Center reads . "The main difference between national parks and zapovednik s is that national parks are managed specifically for recreation without damaging the territory's natura l dynamics ; the ultimate goal is to acquaint people with the beauties and sights of nature directly , through recreation. The writer V. Peskov called these parks 'museums under open sky' .... " However, such rhetoric flies in the face of the way the parks themselves are managed and thei r stated purpose under the law . The 1995 Federal Law of the Russian Federation on Speciall y Protected Natural Territories reads, "The national parks are institutions for nature preservation , environmental education, and scientific research, whose territories include sites of special ecological , historical, and aesthetic value and which are intended to be used for purposes of nature preservation , education, science, and culture, and for regulated tourism," (Chebakova 192) . The Russian goals ar e clearly noble ones, taking into account more the ecological protection of the lands than their potentia l as tourist attractions . However, any effort to adopt North American models of public awareness o r pride in the parks is unlikely to succeed, if the goals of the respective park systems continue to diffe r so fundamentally . Russians aptly pointed out to me such popular phrases as "This Land is You r Land" as examples of American's national identification with our natural resources ; it could also be the motto of the U .S . National Park Service, which explicitly manages the parks for the people . The Russian park system seems to be managed, however nobly, for the parks and in spite of the people , an attitude that will always be a barrier to instilling a popular sense of identification with the parks .

3http://www.nps.gov/legacy/mission/html .

6 B. Visibility . One of the keys to the success of the U .S. national Parks has been the ric h artistic and photographic tradition that has provided the country with memorable images of the park s (and, in some cases, inspired the creation of parks) . Albert Bierstadt's and Thomas Moran's hug e paintings and Ansel Adams' stark black-and-white scenes of Yosemite and Yellowstone . as well a s colorful aerial shots of the Grand Canyon fix these places in the minds even of those who have neve r been there . Spectacular calendars, large-format albums of photographs, posters and glossy magazine s from the Sierra Club and National Parks and Conservation Association, among other groups, ensure that when we hear the phrase "national park," all sorts of beautiful images come to mind . Russian conservationists would love to produce similar publications for their parks, but the y face daunting barriers . The one they all mention first, of course, is money, as high-qualit y photographs are expensive to reproduce . But apart from financial barriers, the Russian park syste m presents other difficulties to the visual propagandist . One is that the parks were not necessarily chosen for their scenic beauty ; some sites were chosen simply because they had long been protecte d already . Losinii Ostrov was a royal hunting preserve ; Vodlozerskii Park (northeast of Lake Onega ) "has been known for a long time as an unsullied area (zapovednvi krai), where archaic beliefs , customs, and folkloric traditions have been preserved" (Chebakova 67) . Of both parks, Chebakova writes that their geographical relief is "weakly expressed." Images of these parks, while they may b e lovely, are difficult to distinguish from ordinary Russian woods and wetlands . Moreover, no effort has been made in most parks to minimize the physical impact of visitor s to the most scenic areas of the parks . In Stolby Zapovednik the path to the most popula r outcroppings is so deeply scarred by erosion that it has become a favorite image in exposes o f environmental deterioration in the area . My guide pointed this out and then said, "But that i s inevitable, if people want to come here ." American parks have a tradition of landscaping and trai l maintenance that minimizes these effects while accommodating far greater numbers of visitors . Another possible barrier is that artistic rendering of natural landmarks is not part of th e Russian tradition . Landscape painters, such as Levitan, Shishkin, Savrasov and Kuindzhi in th e nineteenth century, tended to focus on ordinary scenes - a rural road, a grove of trees, birches catching the light - and not on recognizable natural landmarks of the sort that would make specifi c parks identifiable . Landscape photography, which has been closely identified in America with th e national parks, is not a significant part of the Russian artistic tradition . Two major books on Russian photography, one covering the mid-19th to early-20th centuries, the other covering 1917-1940, hav e exactly three photographs between them, out of probably six hundred altogether, that focus o n natural subjects alone, and another dozen that focus on rural scenes .' Contemporary photographer s

4N . N . Rakhminov, ed., Russkaia fotografiia: seredina XIX - nachalo XX veka (Moscow: Planeta, 1996); A . Vartanov, et al., eds., Antologiia sovetskoj fotografii (Moscow : Planeta, 1986) .

7 are showing more interest in the natural world, but they do not have a rich tradition on which t o draw . C . Cultural factors . The park administrators' ambivalence toward inviting more visitors i s understandable in light of two important aspects of contemporary Russian culture : the attitude toward woods and wetlands as primarily a storehouse for culinary delicacies, and the underdeveloped sense of civic responsibility . It is a truism in Russia today that the fact that the land was historically al l publicly owned meant that everyone felt justified in using it to his or her own ends . Russians hav e long taken for granted that they can collect berries, mushrooms, flowers or firewood wherever the y find them . The Soviet system also spawned a general cynicism and disrespect for law and authority , so that most Russians still view regulations as there to be broken, and breaking them as a badge o f honorable resistance against a corrupt system . Park administrators are justifiably afraid that people will regard in this light even regulations designed to protect vulnerable species or natural beauty . The evidence of abuses is abundant . One preoccupation of the staff of Zhuravlinaia Rodina, a cran e sanctuary north of Moscow, is to prevent overharvesting or early harvesting by local residents of th e cranberries that attract the cranes to the area . In many parks there have been dramatic declines in populations of decorative flowering plants . I myself witnessed countless violations of common sens e conservation practices in the parks and preserves . At Stolby Zapovednik, in the areas of wors t erosion, people who ostensibly cared deeply about the park routinely made their own paths throug h the surrounding woods, made detours to urinate in the woods near streams, and bypassed the step s constructed in steep areas to tramp on muddy paths, thus increasing the erosion problems . Once I stopped in a Siberian wood to photograph a wild pink lily, the only one I saw in two weeks o f travels . When I caught up with my companions they said I should have picked it to show them and to take home ; educated and sympathetic to conservation goals as they were, they were oblivious t o the rudiments of responsible enjoyment of nature. Such problems are surely not unique to Russia , but they are embedded in the culture there in ways that make them particularly threatening .

3 . National Parks and National Pride . My proposal contained the claim that environmentalism and nationalism are more strongl y linked in Russia than in the United States, and that therefore Russian conservationists must tailor their propaganda differently in seeking popular support for the parks . Three Russian conservationist s I interviewed strongly disagreed with the underlying assumption, though they did not dispute th e need to appeal to Russian national pride . All had traveled to American national parks, where they had been impressed precisely by the nationalism in the rhetoric of the rangers and in the literature . One showed me the opening of This Land is Your Land: A Guide to North America's Endangered Ecosystems, which refers to "the magnificent sweep of this continent," 'the incredible richness of thi s

8 land's natural resources," and "the spirit of We the People ."5 Another mentioned that the 199 7 Strategic Report for the U .S . National Park Service refers to "patriotism" as the first duty of par k rangers . All three argued that the appeal to national pride was, in fact, one of the aspects of Nort h American conservationism that they were trying consciously to adopt in Russia . Indeed, this is th e thrust of a 1995 article by Vladimir Boreiko. The article is entitled, "Zapovedniks as the nation' s pride and a national symbol . " 6 In it, Boreiko cites with envy a Canadian poll that placed Canada' s national parks third in importance as a national symbol, behind only the flag and the nationa l anthem. (He infers that similar polls in the U .S., Germany, Sweden, "and other civilized Wester n societies" would reveal similar values, but I doubt that this is the case .) Though Russia and Ukraine also have extraordinary and invaluable nature preserves, Boreiko argues, they have primarily serve d scientific ends and not found the broad public acknowledgment or support they deserve . While he does not call for mass tourism to the zapovedniks (whose great virtue lies in the fact that they hav e largely been closed to human interventions for most of this century), he writes, "But the nationa l parks can become a true "Mecca" for tourists . This is all the more urgent because for many years t o come the poor, unfortunate remnants of the great Soviet empire .. .will scarcely find any other sources of pride than these miraculously preserved tracts of wild land" (31, emphasis added) . He insists that the arena of nature preservation must open to include not only "zoologists, botanists, and foresters, " but also "economists, religious leaders, artists, journalists, psychologists, and politicians ." Though the article appeared in a small, specialized publication, I heard some rumors that the idea ha s reached high levels . More than one informant intimated to me that Yeltsin and his administration are actively seeking national symbols that could serve to unite the country without invoking political o r ethnic divisions; "Russian nature," and particularly the unique system of protected lands, are amon g the ideas they are reportedly considering . In my own survey of literature about U .S. national parks, I see little of the overt appeal t o national pride that is evident to the Russian conservationists . I have been unable to confirm the clai m that park rangers pledge their first duty to "patriotism," though a conversation with a knowledgeabl e ranger at the Park Service Agency branch in Omaha suggested that at most this is part of the oath o f office taken by every government employee, and has no direct relation to Park Service work. Most brochures put out by the National Park Service contain a variation on this statement: "Bandelier National Monument is a unit of the National Park System, which consists of more than 360 park s

'John Naar and Alex Naar, This Land is Your Land (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), ix . 6 "Zapovedniki kak gordost' natsii I natsional'nyi simvol," in Ekologicheskoe prosveshchenie I rabota s naseleniem v gosudarstvennykh prirodnykh zapovednikakh I natsional'nykh parkakh (Moscow : World Bank, et al ., 1995), 27-31 .

9 representing important examples of our country's natural and cultural heritage ."' Other than tha t brief appeal to a sense of the national importance of the park (which generally appears toward th e end of the brochure, under the unprepossessing heading "Administration"), the publications concer n themselves with maps and pictures of the area, local history, and advice to visitors about how an d when to get there, facilities and regulations . The history portions are remarkably non jingoistic , offering information, for example, about ill-treatment of native Americans or historical abuses of th e environment alongside descriptions of the lives of white settlers or soldiers in the West . Efforts at propaganda in the brochures and handbooks have mostly to do with protecting the natural resource s of the park. The Bandelier brochure reads, "With today's challenges, preservation of the monumen t is a job for more than just the park staff; visitors, too, can contribute by respecting regulations and taking time to learn about the culture and natural resources ." If there is an assumption of nationa l pride in these brochures, it lies in the fact that the authors can take for granted that Americans wil l understand the value of visiting and preserving such sites . The appeal to ordinary citizens to take part in preserving and even building the park system i s ubiquitous in the U .S . Park Service literature . A large portion of a flier on Petroglyph Nationa l Monument treats this theme : The people of Albuquerque care about the open spaces and wide vistas of the city's Wes t Mesa. When vandals destroyed petroglyphs and development threatened the escarpment itself , citizens worked to establish Indian Petroglyph State Park, Volcano City Park, and finally , Petroglyph National Monument .. . . Starting a new park is not easy, especially at the edge of a growing city ... . The park belongs to the people of the United States, and we need you r comments and participation . ' This appeal to citizens and citizenship is the sort of thing that Russians read as overt nationalism i n our park literature, whereas to me it seems more to be an invocation of personal responsibility . And yet the very notion that "the people of Albuquerque" and "the people of the United States" shoul d take responsibility for "their" park does presuppose a sort of park-centered patriotism and pride tha t must be the envy of Russian conservationists . Citizenship is a murky concept to most Russian s today . The idea that participation and responsibility are duties and privileges of citizenship still eludes all but a very few .

'Division of Publications, National Park Service, "Bandelier : Official Map and Guide," (Washington: U.S. Dept . of the Interior/U .S . Government Printing Office, 1996 .) Other NPS publications I consulted include : "Agate Fossi l Beds" (1980); "Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area," (Map, 1989) ; "Carl Sandburg Home : Official Nationa l Park Handbook," (1982) ; "Golden Gate National Recreation Area," (1980) ; "Grand Teton: Official National Park Handbook," (1984) ; "Yosemite: Official National Park Handbook," (1990) . 'National Park Service/City of Albuquerque/State of New Mexico, "Petroglyph National Monument" (Washington : U.S . Government Printing Office, 1991) . 1 0 In a subtle way, the appeal to citizenship in American park literature is closely linked to th e popular success of visual images of the parks . As the book American Photographers and the Nationa l Parks (1981) makes clear, the art and craft of photography developed contemporaneously with th e American park system, photographs were used as arguments for creating some parks and as agent s of assuring the democratic availability of the parks' beauties even to those who could not visi t them .' Ansel Adams felt that the parks, by the very fact that they were open to all, offered a special opportunity for "experiencing" and "re-creating" nature (133) . And David Bohn, who produced a book of photographs on Glacier Bay, wrote, "If you enter a national park area and kno w it is owned by everyone, therefore by no one, the result can be a feeling of participation . .. . I can walk into Katmai and become Katmai . .. . I am trying, through my photography, to give back mor e than I take away" (137) . Thus, it is the combination of spectacular scenery with the democratic idea l underlying the parks that has inspired this art form . Since Russians are not sensitized in the sam e way to the democratic quality of public land, they would need to find a different source o f inspiration for a park-oriented art form .

4. Russian Cultural imagery and Park Propaganda . In place of "citizenship" as a motivating ideal, Russians have a profound attachment to the Russian land and to "Russian nature." One park educator told me it was a "genetic" trait in Russian s to have a strong feeling for the motherland (rodina) and to worship it (or her) . As a result, any appeal to national pride in Russian park literature needs to use familiar symbols of Russia, rathe r than the more elusive concepts of citizenship or responsibility . For example, songs, poems, and paintings idealize the birch tree, and the bear is a worldwide symbol of Russia . Every Russian is familiar with traditional vestiges of pagan animism, such as folk beliefs in wood and water spirits, i n lakes as the "eyes of Mother nature" (and Baikal as the "blue eye of Siberia") . The need to appeal to Russian cultural symbols in drumming up support for the parks an d preserves has certainly not eluded the creators of park propaganda . Brochures, nature museums, an d signboards in the parks are full of references to local legends, to love of the motherland, and t o revered poets and artists . In Losinii Ostrov National Park, a sign posted at the beginning of a nature trail in the most frequently-visited part of the park reads , Nature is a great asset of the country , It adorns our motherland , Nature is a storehouse of health and strength ,

'Robert Cahn, "Evolving Together: Photography and the National Park Idea," in Robert Calm and Robert Gle n Ketchum, American Photographers and the National Parks (New York and Washington : Viking Press and the National Park Foundation, 1981), 124-6 .

1 1 We must protect and preserve it . Throughout the park . signposts, benches. playground equipment and other constructions utiliz e traditional carved wooden figures from fairy tales and legends ; the children's education center i s elaborately decorated with traditional wood carving and gleaming samovars . The most popular events in the park are celebrations of Maslenitsa (the traditional Shrovetide pancake feast) and the Ne w Year, with Father Frost . The director of education for the park, who has visited U .S. national parks , said that it was more important in the Russian parks to emphasize cultural history ; therefore they have put valuable resources, for example, into restoring an old wooden peasant house on the par k grounds . My local guide to Stolby Zapovednik regaled me from the start of our hike with legends abou t the different rock formations, many of them based in Russian traditions . The first major outcroppin g you see on the entrance road is the "Devil's Thumb," actually two protruding columns of unequa l size spaced somewhat apart. The guide explained the outcropping's name as follows : The witch Baba Yaga, jilted by the Devil, decided to take revenge . She imprisoned hi m underground and went away, only to return some days later . Surprised to find him still alive , she asked what he wanted. He couldn't speak, but raised his thumb and little finger in th e typical Russian gesture for wanting a stiff drink, and that is what we see in the outcropping . Thus the rocks themselves are connected to both Russian fairy tales and popular drinking culture . Efforts to invoke "high" Russian culture are also present . There is a kiosk at the entrance to th e park, selling literature related to the park, including a booklet with a cycle of sentimental poem s dedicated to each major outcropping. A sign along the main path bears a quotation from Tchaikovsk y about the need to protect nature for our descendants . And the preserve itself is the source of muc h local lore, focusing on the "stolbisty," veteran rock-climbers who built themselves huts in the remot e regions of the preserve early in this century and refused to give them up when challenged by th e government preservationists, thus becoming symbols of personal freedom and resistance to th e regime . Finally, a website for this nature preserve cites Russian artist V . I . Surikov's famous comment : "I've seen the Alps of Switzerland and Italy, but nowhere have I seen such beauty as this , our Siberian beauty! " 1 0 This latter effort to assert national supremacy is particularly interesting as expressing no t specifically Russian but Siberian nationalist sentiment. It came up again at Pribaikal'skii National Park, on the west shore of Lake Baikal, where the lake was identified alternately as "the pearl o f Russia" and "the pearl of Siberia." On the whole, however, the rhetoric in the Baikal park was th e least inclined to nationalism, whether regional or ethnic . There seemed to be more of a sense o f Baikal as a treasure of world-wide significance, and signs and literature make the effort to be

10http: //www . sable. krasnoyarsk . su/cg : -bin/lat/Koi8/Stolby/st0l . html .

1 2 all-inclusive . A sign by the Listvianka ranger station cautions visitors that " everything in the world i s interconnected" and enjoins us to "treat everything on earth as if it were our brother" and to "protec t this Earth for our children with all our might, soul and heart . " The Crane Museum is the main tourist attraction in Zhuravlinaia Rodina . Housed in the family home of revered local poet Sergei Klychkov, the Crane Museum occupies the ground floo r and the Klychkov Museum is upstairs . The Crane Museum has three components : two separat e exhibition spaces and a tea room for educational groups, once again decorated in traditional Russia n style. The main exhibition space is devoted to cranes and their local habitat : the geological origin o f the swamps, the life cycle of cranes, local legends and traditions regarding cranes and nature i n general, the history of nature study in the area, and poetry and writings by important local writers , including Klychkov, Mikhail Prishvin (the prolific Russian nature writer who first called this plac e Zhuravlinaia Rodina ['Motherland of the Cranes'] in a book by that name), contemporary local poe t Irina Alekseeva, and others . Nearly half of the room is therefore dedicated to the human inhabitant s or devotees of the area, which shows how much effort the organizers are making to help visitors fee l a human connection to the place . I noticed this also when my guide began her tour of the room , explaining that these wetlands were remnants of an ancient river bed, left by "not just any river, bu t the great Russian river ," which formerly flowed through this region . The second exhibition space is dedicated not to cranes, but to Russian writers, especiall y dissidents, who have concerned themselves with freedom . Apparently the curator felt that, since cranes are important symbols of freedom, the Crane Museum should focus on this issue . There ar e shelves in this room dedicated to Solzhenitsyn and other dissident writers, a tribute to religiou s dissidents, and only a passing reference to cranes in a stylized image above the display . This was th e most extreme effort I observed to link the idea of the nature preserve to human culture in Russia . In addition to materials in the parks themselves, broader propaganda about the parks incorporates appeals to national identification as well . The 1996 "March for Parks" organizers ' handbook contains this inspirational rhetoric : Zapovedniks and national parks are the pride of Russia! The protected lands are our property , our history, and our future . We can only preserve this unique cultural and natural inheritanc e for Russia through our common efforts! .. . [The Biodiversity Conservation Center invites all ] who are not indifferent to the fate of protected lands and Russian nature to participate in the international celebration March for Parks . The language here is very similar to American invocations of civic responsibility : "our property, " "through our common efforts," "to participate ." Yet alongside them are other references, to "the pride of Russia", preserving the lands "for Russia," the "unique cultural . . . inheritance," and "Russian nature," all of which appeal to something other than citizenly duty .

1 3 The main text of the map/brochure, "Zapovedniks and National Parks of Russia" (1996) fro m the Environmental Education Center "Zapovedniks," is headed "National Property of Russia" and begins, It is characteristic of a man to become attached to his native land, to be true and gratefu l to it; and he is glad for everything that distinguishes his native country from others . The zapovedniks (nature reserves) must be included among those treasures that Russia possesse s and in which we take pride. We are rightly proud of our network of zapovedniks, which has outlived and continues t o survive tremendous difficulties while retaining the world's admiration . .. . These specially protected natural areas are our eternal treasure, a promise of survival despite the deepenin g ecological crisis . Even if only some natural areas remain undisturbed, the Russians' soul an d optimism for the future will still remain . This is a clear example of the type of rhetoric the Boreiko was calling for in his 1995 article, for i t openly encourages a sense of pride in the nature preserves . In connecting them to the "native land " and the "Russian soul," it goes a step farther, emphasizing not just that the parks are a national (i .e. governmental) asset, but that they are a part of the national (i .e . ethnic or cultural) storehouse o f values. It is this sort of appeal that seems particularly characteristic of Russian conservation efforts , and that seems to distinguish them from their American counterparts .

5 . Conclusions and Recommendations Though a poll of U .S . citizens might not put our national parks as one of the top three symbol s of the country, most of us would be hard-pressed to imagine the country without them . In a cove r story on decay and neglect in the park system, U.S. News and World Report refers to them a s "America's crown jewels" and compares them in cultural significance to Westminster Abbey i n England or Versailles in France ." Those who want the Russian national parks to gain such statur e in their country must work to improve the visibility and accessibility of the parks, and they mus t work with (and in some cases against) strongly-held cultural attitudes about nature . Some conservation researchers are making creative efforts to address this problem, not b y invoking civic duty but through an appeal to Russian traditional values . Irma Zaitseva and he r colleagues at Zhuravlinaia Rodina sanctuary and Brianskii Les Zapovednik (south of Moscow) hav e been collecting oral legends about nature from long-time residents of the areas . A similar eco-ethnological project has focused on the Pomor culture (a Russian subculture on the White Se a coast) . By sharing the stories of reverence for different species or bodies of water, about the spirit s of forests and streams, about traditional restrictions on hunting and gathering, the researchers hop e

"Michael Satchell, "Parks in Peril," U.S.News and World Report, July 21, 1997, 28.

1 4 to instill in young people the beginnings of their own sense of identification with the places and thei r natural inhabitants . The Crane Museum at Zhuravlinaia Rodina includes some of these stories, an d the book about the area details many more, and there is a film in the works that would also try t o bring some of the legends to life for young visitors to the sanctuary . Russian conservationists are keenly aware of the need to raise the public profile of parks and preserves in order to ensure their continuing financial and political support . They are making explicit efforts to emulate North American models of instilling a sense of national pride in the parks, b y elevating parks to the status of national symbols . However, given the current goals and orientation o f the parks in favor of science and education and against recreation for its own sake, combined with the lack of a civic culture in Russia, they have also tuned their promotional activities to appeal t o Russians' deep love for the motherland . International organizations should not be put off by th e specifically Russian rhetoric in park propaganda. The appeal to local and cultural allegiances may b e the best way to ensure the parks a place in the hearts of Russians, and to teach some of the basi c principles of nature conservation that are preconditions to opening the parks to more visitors .

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF RUSSIAN PUBLICATION S Environmental education and propaganda Boreiko, V . E . Doroga k zapovedniku . Moscow : World Wide Fund for Nature, 1996 . Entitled "The Road to the Zapovednik," this is a guide to conservation propaganda : a brief history of its use, how to establish authority, how to use the press, advertising, museums and exhibits , surveys, and folk traditions to propagandize the preserves . Boreiko, V. E. and O . G. Listopad . Kak "zelenym" rabotat' so sredstvami massovoi informatsii . Kiev : Informatsionnoe agentstvo "Ekho-Vostok," 1994 . Handbook on how to get the attentio n of journalists and increase coverage of environmental issues . Boreiko, V . E . Stoletie prirodookhrannoi propagandy . (Bibliography .) Prirodookhrannaia propaganda, No . 5 . Kiev : Kievskii ekologo-kul'tumyi tsentr, 1997. Bibliography of works promoting conservation over the last hundred years . Ekologicheskoe obrazovanie na baze zapovednikh territorii. Materialy mezhdunarodnogo shkoly-seminara . Kiev-Chernovtsy : Kiev Eco-cultural center, 1995 . A collection of paper s from a seminar on ecological education in nature preserves. Includes historical material (Boreiko), practical advice for organizing educational and propaganda efforts (Boreiko, V . Stepanitskii), efforts to enlist religious leaders in the cause (O . Golovich), description of Tatar ecological traditions (N . Morokhin and M. Grishin) . "Marsh parkov," 1996 and 1997 . Handbooks for organizers of March for Parks, including a history of the program, inspirational rhetoric for organizers . 1997 version includes update on results of the 1996 March . Popov, V. "Osobennosti ekoprosveshcheniia ." Zapovednyi vestnik 26.2 (1997) . Article by director o f education for the Baikalo-Lensky zapovednik . Stepanitskii, V. B., ed . Ekologicheskoe prosveshchenie i rabota s naseleniem v gosudarstvennykh prirodnykh zapovednikakh i natsional'nykh parkakh . Moscow: World Bank [and othe r organizations], 1995 .

1 5 Ustinov, S . "Zapovednik na Baikale ." Okhota i okhotnich'e khoziaistvo 1 (1997) : 24-29. On th e various trails in the park and how few visitors they have, difficulties with propaganda, wit h conflicting goals between educators and park rangers, and with general apathy . Wonders , "Does Russia want us, her nature preserves? " Vestnik SoES . Newsletter of the Socio-Ecological Union . No. 3 (February, 1997) . Volna . Journal of Baikal'skaia ekologicheskaia volna . Volumes 9 (1996) and 1(10), 1997 .

Eco-ethnography, or folk traditions respecting the natural world : Boreiko, V . E . Ekologicheskie traditsii, pover'ia, religioznve vozzreniia slavianskikh i drugik h narodov . Prirodookhrannaia propaganda, No . 3 . Kiev: Kievskii ekologo-kul'turnyi tsentr , 1996. A survey of literature and oral traditions relating to nature in Ukraine and, to a lesse r degree, Russia . Includes a section on religious beliefs, folk sayings about various animals an d birds, and extensive bibliographical information . Zaitseva, I . V . Ekologiia i mifologiia Brianskogo lesa, Briansk, n.d . Ethnographic interviews with i n habitants of Briansk Forest area, focusing on folk beliefs about nature . Zaitseva, I. V ., et al . Otchet po programme Terskii bereg (Issledovanie ekologicheskikh traditsi i terskikh pomorov) . Moscow : n.d . Research into the ecological traditions of the Pomo r population on the east coast of the Kola Peninsula . Part of the "Voice of the " eco-ethnological program of the Kola Peninsula Biodiversity Conservation Center (Kol'ski i tsentr okhrany dikoi prirody) . See also Konovalova, Zhuravlinaia rodina (1997) ; Morokhin and Grishin in Stepanitskii, ed . (1995) .

General guides and map s Chebakova, Irma . Natsional'nye parki Rossii: Spravochnik . Moscow: Biodiversity Conservation Center, 1996 . Guide to the national parks of Russia, with entries on climate, geology, flora , fauna, historical sites, and tourist activity in each park . Konovalova, T, ed . Zhuravlinaia rodina . Taldom and Moscow : Ecotsentr "Zhuravlinaia rodina" and Biodiversity Conservation Center, 1997 (in press) . Description of the crane sanctuary, with chapters on crane life cycles, local poets and writers, local legends about nature, and history o f scientific research and the establishment of the sanctuary . Shtil'mark, F . R . Zapovedniki i zakazniki. Moscow : Fizkul'tura i sport, 1984 . Written for hunters , this is a defense of the need for nature preservation and a description of the work of the nature preserves . "Zapovednik Stolby," 1993 . Topographical map of the park, smaller maps of various groupings o f rock formations, general introduction to park . "Zapovedniki and National Parks of Russia," map and description, in Russian and English . Prepared by Environmental Education Center "Zapovedniks" ; published by World Wide Fund for Natur e and Federal Ecological Foundation of Russian Federation, 1996 .

RELEVANT WORKS IN ENGLIS H Cahn, Robert, and Robert Glen Ketchum . American Photographers and the National Parks . New York and Washington: Viking Press and The National Park Foundation, 1981 . Goldman, Marshall I . . "Environmentalism and nationalism : an unlikely twist in an unlikel y direction . " The Soviet environment : problems, policies and politics . John Massey Stewart, ed . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1992 . 1-10 . Pryde, Philip R . Environmental management in the Soviet Union . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1991 .

1 6 Runte, Alfred . National Parks: The American Experience . 3d. ed . Lincoln and London: Universit y of Nebraska Press, 1997 . Snider, Daniel . "Russia's new revolution in conservation ." Christian Science Monitor 19 Apri l 1994, 10-11 . Weiner, Douglas . Models of Nature: Ecology, Conservation, and Cultural Revolution in Sovie t Russia . Bloomington and Indianapolis : Indiana University Press, 1988 . Ziegler, Charles E . "Political participation, nationalism and environmental politics in the USSR . " The Soviet environment . problems, policies and politics . John Massey Stewart, ed . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1992 . 24-39 .

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