From my original archive
Russia
Destination overview
About this destination
Russia extends across Eastern Europe and northern Asia. Moscow is its capital, while St Petersburg preserves a major part of its imperial urban heritage. The country includes plains, forests, mountain ranges and Arctic coastlines.
Rivers such as the Volga have shaped settlement and transport. Russian is the official language, alongside numerous regional languages. Distances and seasonal conditions vary greatly between regions.
Literature, music, engineering and industrial development form important parts of its cultural history. Energy-producing areas, historic cities and remote northern landscapes reveal how different the experience of the country can be from one location to another.
My connection
I lived in Volgograd for 18 years, making the city my home base between international work rotations. From Russia, I travelled to the different countries where I was assigned, returning to Volgograd between rotations. My connection with Russia therefore extends well beyond individual projects: it was a long-term place of residence and the starting point for much of my working life abroad.
My Russian assignments include pipeline maintenance and site supervision with CAMOM–Starstroi, followed by electrical and instrumentation engineering and electrical supervision at Kharyaga in 2010–2012. In 2017–2018, I worked at Sabetta on Yamal LNG as electrical commissioning manager, coordinating substations, heat tracing, energisation, safety and handover to operations.
Original archive notes and photographs
My original travel notes
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the largest country in the world by area, and the largest country in Europe (European Russia) and the largest country in Asia (Siberia), extending across eleven time zones and sharing land borders with fourteen countries. It is the world's ninth-most populous country and Europe's most populous country. The country's capital as well as its largest city is Moscow. Saint Petersburg is Russia's second-largest city and cultural capital. Other major cities in the country include Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Chelyabinsk, Ufa, Samara,and Volgograd.
Personal memories
I lived in Volgograd, Russia, for eighteen years. My family and I had a very good life there until I had to leave suddenly because of family circumstances beyond my control.
Volgograd is an industrial city. In the early 2000s, I found it very safe: you could walk around at night without problems, and living costs were low. The Russians I met could seem rather reserved at first, but once you got to know them, they were very kind.
From around the 2010s, I felt that crime was increasing and that the old mentality of mafia influence and corruption was gradually returning. Corruption seemed to enter almost every transaction whenever we wanted something.
Purchases were often made in cash. At times, I carried as much as US$50,000 to buy a house, a car or other items, because sellers wanted to keep bank transactions to a minimum.
I still have friends there, but the situation has made communication impossible for me. I see a madman leading them into disaster. Similar problems can exist in France, but in my experience not on that scale. Denunciation has become commonplace, and I feel that people have forgotten the Stalin era, when their parents and grandparents were killed. The younger generation does not seem to realise what that history means.
I will continue these accounts in future articles.
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