Trajectories of murmansk

REORIENTATIONS reorient |rēˈôrēˌent|verb [ trans. ]change the focus or direction of

The arcticWhen starting this project, I knew that the arctic is struggeling with problems like industrial pollution and climate changes. It will be fatal for the biodi-versity and ourselves. When the ice melts it no longer works as a reflec-tion for the sun, and the permafrost in the earth disappears so that the earth releases carbondioxide. This has rip-ple effects; the global warming will go even faster and the world will soon look completely different. The biodiver-sity is allready suffering.

I have looked more into the arctic´s biggest city, Murmansk. A city is com-plex just like every other space on

earth and should not be simplified. A place is always changing and it is never finished but always developing with time. During this project I have tried grasping some of the complexity of Murmansk and its surroundings and and showing my thoughts for the fu-ture.

Murmansk CityMurmansk is the biggest city in the arctic. It is a young and was founded in 1916. Fisheries, mining and metal-lurgy has long been the citys biggest industries. Military forces are also big in the area, but they are mainly located at close-by neighbour cities.

The last decades the population has decreased drastically with 25% in the last 15 years, from 468,039 in 1989 to 307,664 in 2010. Espesially the young population is moving away. Hearings show that many more wants to move, but they cannot afford it because of expensive prices in the south.

The soviet era is still present in the city, with a slow bureaucracy and peo-ple finding it difficult to take initiative.

The last years there has been dis-covered big areas of oil and gas, e.g. stockman. Some expect the popula-tion and the economy of Murmansk will grow because of the oil industry.

SocialEven though the indiginous samis ear-lier lived in the area Murmansk lies today, they are not numerous in the region. The nationalities are Russian 85.2%, Ukrainians 6.4%, other nation-alities 8.4%. The inhabitants are not known for mountain hiking and entu-siasim for nature activities, but they like to go skiing in the mountains close to the city in the winter and some peo-ple enjoy fishing, hiking and sailing. There is a lack in offers for youth.

A special social phenomenon in Rus-sia are their garages, where the men meet and socialise while fixing their cars.

Emerging landscapeThroughout this semester I have re-searched the vulnerability of the ga-rages in Murmansk, as well as veg-etation and wildlife, politics, economy, industry, sociological aspects, pollu-tionton and the armed forces.

The urban landscape is characterized by a monoculture grounded in the cit-ies leading industries, a slow bureau-cracy and a declining population.

It is hard to get ideas acconmplished, the population is declining, Putin is building up the military and the archi-tecture is made more for industry than for people.

I met and talked to the municipal-ity when I was there myself and they told me about their plans for the citys 100th aniversary in 2016; They have planned to build more monuments and a new shopping mall. Other plans in-cluded luxury flats, parkinghouses, bicycle routes and a sport scenter. No restauration of old buildings was planned even though big parts of the city is decaying.

Wether the population increases or shrinks, which we don´t know, I think something has to be changed in the city.

Hydroelectric powerstation

Hydroelectric powerstation

Lake Notozero

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Kola -ancient pomor city

Nuclear power plant

Polyarnyy -Colsed city

Severomorsk -Closed ci

Murmansk

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Compeating interrests around Tuloma river.

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New HierarchiesMurmansk and its surrounding area are as all places full of contrasting in-terests that are all linked together in one system. We humans often forget what is not a part of our own daily life. Murmansk river has several hydropow-er plants, nuclear power plants, coal

and metallurgy industries and now oil industry. This all, even the very house they live in effects the ecosystem in some way. And it is important to re-member that we are all dependent on eachother for survival. Some of the other interrests, vegetation and ani-mals are listed bellow.

Tundra: reindeer, norwegian lem-mings, voles, fox, arctic fox, wolf, grouse, owl.

Forrest: elk, brown bear, marten, fox and squirrel. Birds: grouse, woodpeck-er, warbler, bunting, cuckoo, buzzard,

Mosiac of Murmansk City Mosaic of Murmansk- and Tuloma River

eagle.

Lakes and rivers: insect larvae, worms, air beetles, caddis flies, mos-quitoes, flies, river hydra, leeches, daphnia, cyclops, salmon, sea trout, carp, perch, pike, burbot,muskrat, ot-ter, mink, water vole.

The coastal waters of the White and Barents seas: herring, cod, haddock, saffron cod, saithe and plaice. All year round the coast are holding seal and sea hare. Belugas whales. Every win-ter, the White Sea seal herds come. In the summer of coastal waters: killer whale, and in some months there are baleen whales.

Pollution: In the eastern district (harbour) there is significant pollution. Almost all year round the average daily concentra-tions exceeded the permissible level in the eastern city.

“Black carbon is the biggest threat to the climate changes and is emittet from both diesel cars and coal mines, which there are many of in Mur-mansk.”

MapsRight: map of Murmansk in the landscape, by Murmansk river. Above: map of the locations for my kick-offs for change.

HistoryHistorically the garages has meant a lot to the russian men. It goes back to the 70ies when the only privately owned property they had was their car. They built garages for themselves to keep the car inside during the winter and to have a place to fix it. It quickly turned out to be more than a garage; a hangout, a fridge for food and a social meeting place. Some even built sau-nas inside their garages.

The garages today:Because of population decrease, a lot of garages has been standing empty

to rot. This is espesially the garages in the outskirts of the garage areas.

The municipality is planning to remove several of the clusters becuase of lacking space in the city center. They want to build parking houses instead. This is the same destiny the garages has had in other russian cities. They just don´t seem to be able to survive in a modern oil city. Or can they? “The times are changing; a few years ago Russia paid off its debts and the development that has followed is obvi-ous on many levels. The need for car

THE RUSSIAN GARAGES

Garage clusters that is planned to be moved to make more room in the city.

that are contrary to those ruining our society.

I want to focus on art and ecological processes. I think art can change so-ciety, and so can a closer relationshop to and better understanding of ecol-ogy. That is why I have focused on ex-actly this.

My interventions are based on rus-sian culture. I want to take some of the good cultural identity in Murmansk and give it a new possible trajectory for the time to come.

I have focused on the russian garages mentioned earlier and spare-time fish-ing and sailing.

I am doing some low scale acts that have active forms; Active forms may describe the way some small change performs within a group, multiplies across a field, reconditions a popula-tion, or generates a network.

Hopefully they will have positive ripple effects and develop over time, both spacially, socially, politically and in peoples mindset.

Gregory Bateson´s figure explaining root causes to all human threats.

My idea is to make act with posi-tive ripple effects.

Changing focusMy findings showed that the city is de-veloping in a way that is not sustain-able for the city and the arctic as a whole. Inspired by Gregory Bateson; The importance is to be as flexible as possible to overcome the challenges the earth is in. In order to be flexible we have to make sure that we don´t destroy the sustanance for animal and human survival.

I am not just aiming for “a happy city”, but hoping that there can be a change in the “hubris”, people´s mindset.

The way I have chosen to approach this problem is to introduce some counteracts to the earththreatening acts taking place today like pollution from technology and industries and overusing the earth´s resources, by focusing on diversity, human initiative and ecological processes, which there is a lack of at the moment.

My proposal here may not be direct-ly linked up to climate changes, but hopefully it will give the city something new, something that over time will strengthen it, and strengthen values

repairs is not as big as it was. In some places the garages become redundant and decay.” -Iwan Thomson

Not all russians see why they should be kept:

“No, I will not miss the garages when they disappear, I like high-tech, so if there is coming something instead of the garages, I´ll be happy”. -Igor

“People call them seashells, I don´t know why because seashells are so beautiful and the garages are sp ugly” -Woman from murmansk

But have they not meant a great deal for the russians? Socially, spacially and individually?

A new trajectory

Murmansk has some museums, theat-ers and an art school and there the first youthhouse is being built now at the time being, though this has its lim-ited capacity. There is still a lack of a common platform for young citizens and a place for them to develop skills.

I suggest that some of the threatened garageclusters can get a new life. As the russians allready have shown, the garages can be used for practically an-ything.

As said before, there is a lack of youth activities in the town. However the the youth are becoming more politically and environmentally concious.Youth in Murmansk seem to need more plac-es to stay and develop. They could be handed a garages and fix it them-selves. By inhabitting the empty areas of the garage clusters, they could bring new life and strength to the garages, without interrupting the other garage owners. There could be arranged ex-hibitions and attract even more people from the cityfrom time to time.

It could turn out as a dynamic living or-ganism changing day by day.

FinanceThe garages are privately owned. The old get to keep their garages, the young can take over the left ones and fix them themselves.

Instead of tearing down the garages

and putting up parking houses, I sug-gest that some of the many empty and decaying housing blocks could be torn down and given room for parking houses.

That way the garages can live on. The cost for taking over the abandoned garages cannot not be too expensive. The idea is that they fix them and do practical work themselves. As well as being financially profittable this could also give the garages a new modern touch.

A small first time fee could come from norwegian investors and in time, some investments from the municipality.

Architectural valueAs well as an historical and cultural value, the garages also have a spa-cial value. The structure of the garage clusters has a smaller scale than the rest of the buildings in the city, they are flexible and create a variety of space in between them.

“This chaos and instability, which is fundamental, founding and irreduc-ible, is at once naturally the worst

against which we struggle with laws, rules, conventions, politics and provivi-onal hegemony, but at the same time it is a chance, a chance to change, to destablize. Chaos is at once a risk and a chance” Derrida

“Architecture can avoid the traps of prescriptive formmaking whilst re-leasing the potentials of the INCOM-PLETE, of the yet-to-be” Andrew Ben-jamin

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“It is a map, and a space, which leaves openings for something new”.1. Showing all the garages and 2.the one I chose to work further with. 3.,4.,5. The empty garages in the periphery that the youth can take over.

Garagerock and artstudiosI am suggesting that determined youth from murmansk could be handed a ga-rage as a studio for whatever creative field they are pursuing.

It could become an exhchange for ide-as and a strong participant to the cul-tural life in Murmansk.It is not sure how this project would develop over time, but hopefully the initiative and work by the youth would

keep the area alive

It would change with at times of the year from the cold snowy winter, with skiing and indoors-life to a green and colourful garden with plants in the summer.

Over time, it might change peoples at-titides to destrying industries and cli-mate changes.

creatures living in the water and the salmon should propably not be eaten either.

The dock is owned by private compa-nies. There are not many places to go down to tha waterfront.

“With the aquisition of 63,5 percent of the shares in the Russian Arctic port, the coal company SDS-Ugol secures full control of the maritime hub, the second biggest in Northwest Russia

The Russian state controls another 25 percent of the port. However, this stake will soon be up for privatization.”-Barentsobserver

Shtokman will contribute to long-term energy security on the local, European

and international markets supplying sizable portion the gas to meet grow-ing demand for energy.

Introducing counter actsMy idea is to make the citizens closer to the Murmansk river by building a pier far out on the river where they can get closer to the water element and sit and watch the city from the water. Hopefully, watching the city from this industrial site can make people realise the horrible effect all this industry has on the environment and what tragic outcome it can have. Maybe then peo-ple would work harder to keep the river clean.

Maybe they would require a new salm-on lift and salmon stairs to get the numerous fish back? Or maybe they

would require more environmental work proceidures by the industries at the harbour?

ArchitectureThe pier could easily be made, even by the youth in the garage cluster nearby, by putting together floating materials and per say driftwood, and anchor it some places.This way it could be built longer, adding “branch-es” or have parts taken away.They can go fishing, bathing, tie their ca-noes to it and in the winter , ice-fish-ing, ice-skating and sit watching the city from afar.

The idea is that it could be designed to also suit animals, the fish and birds. There is not ususally seals in the mur-mansk fjord, but if/when there is, it-

Murmansk riverThe positioning of Murmansk by the fjord and its long seaport gives Mur-mansk great opportunities to go fishing in the river, and some people do. How-ever; 1. The amount of fish is small due to Hydropower stations, 2. the wa-ter is pollutied, 3. The Coal- and ship-ping industry is taking over most of the harbour. There are lots of docks and piers, but all are made for big industrial ships.

Even though there still are salmon in Murmansk river, there used to be a lot more. The Tuloma river has been dras-

tically reduced due to the Hydro Power Stations ruining the migration routes.

A salmon lift and salmon stairs was built, but did not work well.

It does not help for the salmon that the Murmansk river has suffered from se-vere pollution and this is still a prob-lem.

TodayA new study on water quality in rivers and lakes near Murmansk shows high to extreme levels of pollution. This is not good, and it sure has effects on

INTO THE WATER

could attract them to the pier, like they have done in L.A (picture above).

In the far future it may also be installed an underwater salmoncamera like they have installed in Suldal, so people can look at them and take a part in their life under water, like they have succesfully done in Suldal kommune in Norway.

The idea is to make a collective activ-ity offer to the city, that may change how the city works and think. Intro-

ducing this pier is not merely to “im-prove” the city space, but making a bigger amount of people see the con-sequenses of pollution while watch-ing it and seeing what it does to na-ture, and hopefully make them want to work harder to keep the water and fish healthy.

Yes, people need jobs, but there are lots of ways the industries and emit less pollutants, and to make people work more intact with ecology.