Russia and Oil
I mentioned in class today that I saw some parallels between the Özyürek reading and my honors thesis. While I would never monopolize class time by talking at length about it, I do love talking about my thesis. I did not explain the crux of my argument very well, so I would like to try again on the blog.
Essentially, I argue that Russian oil firms tend to leverage their wealth to instill "ideal" values into Russians living in the proximity of oil. This is to create affinity for the land, the oil firm, and a unified notion of what it means to be Russian. A Russian who feels those things is much more likely to work for the oil company (or at least refrain from working against them).
In March of 2019, a branch of the Maly Teatr opened in Kogalym. Kogalym is a rural Siberian town that is very close to the largest oil field of one of Russia's biggest oil companies. This company, Lukoil, funded this cultural curation project in an attempt to "give Siberians access to their culture." What culture, exactly? Every show playing in the theater is formatted in the same way. To me, they are all reminiscent of aristocratic Russian plays. This isn't quite representative of Kogalym, which was built by Azerbaijanis in the 1970s.
More compelling than this apparent disparity is just how difficult it is to build anything in Kogalym. In a book called The Soviet Multinational State, the process of building Kogalym is described in great detail. Azerbaijani architects quickly found that they needed to install triple the installation they had anticipated in order to make the buildings habitable. For many years, Kogalym had almost no infrastructure. There were living spaces and schools. That was it. In short, Kogalym was developed so that nearby oil fields could be exploited. Building on that land was expensive, but the revenue from petroleum made it worth Lukoil's time and money.
My contention is that Lukoil has moved on to the next phase of development. Kogalym has been purposely constructed such that Lukoil can still control what aspects of identity, culture, and tradition the residents have access to. Douglas Rogers uses a different example to make a similar point in The Depths of Russia: Oil, Power, and Culture after Socialism, but he is much more optimistic about the whole thing than I am. He provides compelling evidence that Russians are aware of the problems that oil-funded cultural projects present. I agree that these Russians are sufficiently aware of the issue, but I worry future generations of Russians who have not witnessed these changes first-hand will never know the difference between culture and exploitation of their labor. (Even if they did know, what could be done about it?) My opinion is that cultural shifts are natural, but forced changes for the sake of revenue are exploitative and morally wrong.
This is a small part of a much bigger thesis, but I hope you have found it relevant in examining Özyürek's thoughts on marriage and the Turkish state. What right do corporations have to decide what elements of culture are worthy of curation? Can cultural preservation efforts by private entities ever be emancipated from more insidious agendas?
Oil love you all,
Emerald
