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Radio show 2-3-'04 Richard Creasey BBC Radio 4?_



Audio Radio show 2-3-'04 Richard Creasey

32kbs Voice

Helix Server Version 9.0.2.881 (sunos-5.8-sparc-server)



Guitar music
Male singer

Way up north,

Way up north

North to Alaska

We are going north,

The rush is on,

Way up north...

music fading


wind noise
Richard Creasey:
 

I am on the isolated coast line of an alaskan island called Saint Lawrence

And I am leaning back on a thirty five knot wind.

Wich is howling down from the arctic,

and just fourty miles away to the west is the russian coastline

footsteps on gravel

And I can just see the white snow capped mountains of siberia

and between me and them,

is what the escimo villagers here used to call the 'Ice Curtain'

It is where the date line and more importantly

the international border between russia and america is.

But this was not always the case,

only a hundred and fifty years ago,

the whole of alaska was russian

wind noise calms down


music comes back again
Male singer

North to alaska,

north to alaska,

north to alaska,

we are going north

the rush is on


guitar chord fading

Tatiana:

It was the very first thing

that surprised me a lot here when I came to alaska

I started to read the geographical names

and I found that most of them where russian's

The names where russian's,

the geographical names where russians, and besides that,

many people, most of them are ehm,

native people, native alaskans, they have russian names

for instance 'Sacha', 'Sobolev', hah,

it is just russian, russian name,

so who gave these name to these person

his father and who gave the name to the father,

his grandfather, so was his father,

so this, they keep it,

they keep russian culture here between themselves 

Richard Creasey:
 

Tatiana Stepanaber who emigrated here to Juneau,

Alaskas capital city, from russia.

After winning a green card lottery.

Yes, just over two years ago, Tatiana won the jackpot.

The right for here and the family to move from russia

to live and work in the u s a.

It is not at all surprising that she was immediately attracted

to all things russian,

especially the russian heritage of this part of the world.

for it was [an appare ?] up here the russian navy

that Titrus Berring a danish sea captain, first

came along the alaskan coast in seventeen forty one.

Soon fur hunters and traders began to drift accross the strait

into what they discribed as 'Boshoi Zimnia', or the great land.

Richard Danhauer is an author and historian in Juneau.

Richard Dauenhaner:

The big history in this is the russian expansion eastward

they where moving from quodiac in the late seventeen hundred

seventeen nineties quodiac and then upto prince william sound

over to jakatat and then down to sitcom and they got down to

sitgo in at round eighteenhundred I beleive

and then they negotiated to build the erm settlement there.

And they ofcourse where looking for erm, sea otters and

this was the fur trade from the russian point and by that

time they also had formed the russian american company

wich was a fairly large organisation

and it had the the blessing of the tsar and the tsarinas

as the case may be and so it was essentially the

the company was the the government


church bells

Richard Creasey:
 

Tatiana works in the alaskian state archives

and she was overwhelmed by the apparent good

relations between many of the russians

and the indiginous people who lived in alaska.

Indeed centuries later many of them still share the same religion

Tatiana:

I was in Saint Nicolas church, erm, here in Juneau,

it is an orthodox church, I noticed that most

of those people who come to this church, are natives,

native americans clingcert I beleive,

cheida, illusions some illusions come

And I here I find a link

between russians who lived in alaska originally

and the native population of alaska of present days

So they keep this faith they bring children to the church

and they are not catholics,

they are orthodox 


church choir

Richard Creasey:
 

The native americans in alaska

use the name linked to their tribal language

Nora Danhauer is a clinkert

Nora Dauenhaner:

I was baptised as an infant in the church uphere

and it is a russian orthodox church

and my name in russian orthodox is Annah

we go by that name in church.

church choir

We have russian orthodox music that are inslingert

we really appreciate these songs

and the prayers that where done inslingert

because that identifies us with the russian orthodox church

and that our ancesters where into it heavy


church choir

Richard Dauenhaner:

This kind of a steroetype about missionaries being nasty and

doing their number and erm indiginous people and in this case

most of the missionaries where very supportive of the native people

and trying what they could to minimise the impact of

the russian american company wich by this time was now a sort of a

quasi military position and they could inforce

they do pretty much what they wanted 

Richard Creasey:
 

The success of the russian american company was alot the

caracter of Alexander Berrinhof he was a resourceful and

charismatic man who collaborated with the indigious people

and even learned to speek many of their languages.

The russian american company was not unlike

the brittish east india company

and had the potential to expand further into alaska.

The conditions where never easy

Richard Dauenhaner:

When you read the correspondence

there was really a struggle for survival

here the russians and they were in the rain forest (?)

they can not grow grain, they can not grow potatoes

They are constantly dealing with of of erm, native people

for food and one of the things that amazed me was the bark

They where always bying bark and I asked one of my colleagues on it,
'then what is this dealing with bark?'
'Well, their roofs leaked.'

So an immense amount of their budget

went on bying tree bark from the clinkerts

so that they could put it on their roofs

And the bottom line was that they either had to beef up the colony

or get rid of it and the americans want to by it maybe we erm,

maybe we should broke her a deal 

Richard Creasey:
 

And in a way you could argue that they got quite a good deal

because in one ways it was not theirs to sell.

Richard Dauenhaner:

That was ofcourse the whole point that the natives have argued

that the russians had souvereigned there

but they did not own the real estate

and especially with in the clinkert, they had a fort

and the clinkerts where on the outside,

and the russians where on the inside

and that was very highly restricted

when they could come and trade

they where always on guards their where endless skirmishes

So the russians never erm, militarily subdued the clinkerts. 

Richard Creasey:
 

And so in alaska today there where still traces

of russias toho in the new world

In a land where the traditions of the clinkert people

are still passed on from generation to generation.


aboriginal song

?

The words to the song are:

we will again open this container of wisdom in our care

"su he de sugag tu tan yaya kruce ket had jid a nach has cowd ik yt"


aboriginal song

Richard Dauenhaner:

In eighteen sixty seven

the united states of america

decided to purchase alaska.

Richard Creasey:
 

Peter Schweitzer professor of anthropology on the university of Alaska in Fairbanks


Peter Schweitzer:

Primarily at that point in time

the american congress and the american people

where kind of outraged to pay

seven point two million dollaers for

what seemed to be a useless piece of real estate

but it was in eighteen sixty seven that

an imaginary line devided the Bering Strait

because before that the different peoples and cultures

of the bering strait area had always been part

of one common social and economic network 

 

 
Richard Creasey:
 

So here for the first time is the boundary

seperating the people of two great land masses

We are so used to the idea that russia and america

are ideologically and even seemingly physically far apart

that it is hard to realise

that here at the bering strait they almost touch

Peter Schweitzer has made a study of the indigeanous groups

in this part of the world 

Peter Schweitzer:

The bering strait area

biologic we can talk about three ethnic groups,

three cultural groups living in this area

as far as we know that has not changed

in the last five hundred years.

On the alaskan side we have the so called 'Inupiat'

they speek the inupiac language

it is actually very much like the inuit languages

On the russian side we have one group that are the 'chuckchee'

after whom chukotka, the province of Chukotka

and the chukchick peninsula are named.

That is one of the cultural linguistic groups of them

that originally crosses the boundery

These where called the siberian yupic people 


sweet music

Anders:

My name is Anders,

a passing duck

semior 

<?>

Richard Creasey:
 

Anders is an speek siberian yupic

and he lives on Saint Lawrence Island

heritage of the u s a and is therefore an american citizen

and is given an english name. 

Anders:

The yupic name, there the original name

I would prefer it but like me

my yupic name is something else not Anders

they just put those english names through

for convenience of english

erm english or english speeking people I beleive 

Richard Creasey:
 

So where did your name 'Anders' come from? 


music faster violins

Anders:

I do not know, maybe there erm,

when I was born

either the school teacher or the missionary

see that name and thought:

'Well, that is a good name for this child.'

It does not have anything, meaning to me or my parents 

Richard Creasey:
 

And what is your real name? 

Anders:

'Iyaaka',  Eye Why Ah Ah Kah Eh

 

Richard Creasey:
 

And what is the name of the Island in yupic? 

Anders:

Island name is 'Chivoocock'

And this village have the same name 'Chivoocock'

The legends say that when the creater

created the world, earth

there was a bare spot of sea

between here and the mainl, the russian mainland,

So he reached down, the bottom of the ocean bering sea

Pulled out gravel , or whatever is down there sand Squeeze it

that is what chivoocock mean,

squeeze it and put it on top of the bering sea

and then there is the island 'Chivoocock' 


music louder, flutes



walking on gravel, sand or empty shells

Richard Creasey:
 

To get here, to the village of Gambell

on the island of Saint Lawrence

I have flown a small dozen seater plane.

We are just a few miles south of the arctic circle

And from here for centuries, millenea in fact

Siberian ypics would cross the bering strait

in seal skin boats, to visit their relations

on the mainland of russia.

Indeed this tiny island wich 'Anders' accurately discribed

as looking like squeesed gravel

from the bottom of the bering strait

is closer to russia then the mainland of america

sound of empty room

Do you find it strange that as your relations,

your cousins are only thirty miles away,

and you can see the russian chukotka coast

Do you find it strange that they have to go trough customs,

do you think that is wrong?

Anders:

It really is since, erm, just about the early nineteen twenties

native people, escimo people on the island,

escimo people over there never think of

they belong to another country

This was their country so their visitation was free and open 

Charlie Johnson Charlie Johnson:

My real name is Tomongack and that means
'someone who has it together'

I was name after an uncle

and my english name is Charly Johnson

so you could call me either one

Richard Creasey:
 

Back on the mainland of america

in the former goldrush city of Nome in Alaska

I met Charlie Johnson the chief U.S./Alaska commissioner

of the bering straits regional commission

He explains some of the history of cross border relationships

up until the early twentieth century

Charlie Johnson Charlie Johnson:

Well in those days their was a lot of both friendly

and not so friendly erm,

travel back and forth

in fact old timers tell me of times

when people from chickatka and men

from chakatcka would come over to alaska

and steel women

raid the villages and take back the women

And I suppose we probably did the same thing with them

but there was also a lot of interchange erm,

of freight and things like that

and in fact my grandmother

was born on the russian side

And so I have relatives there

Richard Creasey:
 

And when you say trade, what where people doing,

what was it like the other people in this part of the world

Charlie Johnson Charlie Johnson:

Well, you know people where hunters and gatherers

and the trade was largely, I think things like erm,

furs and probably tools

and a little bit later probably fire arms as well

and there was a cultural exhange

in that many of the things we see

are very much the same on both sides

Their harpoons are very similar to ours

I am talking about the old type of harpoons that we use

and many of the other tools that they make and still use

for example the drills, the boat drills and things like that

are very much the same on both sides


old noisy record, soviet march tune

Richard Creasey:
 

But it was the arrival of the soviet union

which had change all this

For the first time,

what was become to be locally known as the
'Ice Curtain' was introduced

And this was soon to split indiginous families apart


old noisy record, soviet march tune

Charlie Johnson Charlie Johnson:

The earlyest evidence I know of

is around nineteen twenty three

that a soviet officer showed up

in one of the coastal villages

of the chukchick peninsula

and the presence of one or two officers does

has probably not changed a lot but

from then on, nineteen twenty three,

nineteen twenty four, we have

we have reports of that for example

it became for foreigners

not very easy to enter this part of the world

for example people trying to travel from alaska,

over to russia they experienced

for it the first difficulties

for the native peoples,

not very much changed through all of the nineteen twenties

and it took until the nineteen thirties

for some changes to become noticeable in the area

That was really the time,

the nineteen thirties,

for the residents,

for the native indigenous residents of the area,

The presence of this border

became to be felt for the first time

they realised there was something, and that we,

for us, there is no line in the water there

but they came to understand that

for somebody else there existed a border

and in nineteen forty eight,

all official travel was closed

and for the next forty years to come

there was no official contact allowed accross this border


fast sweet music

Victor Goldsberry:

This is erm, the cross continental conference here

this is where erm, folks came to the americas through

and people keep crossing back and forth thru erm,

our own family has family from erm,

this side sorenica, on the russian side

on the ucan and alaska to uclavic and nuvic and cannada

yes this is where it sat

Richard Creasey:
 

Victor Goldsberry owner of the tacolga alaskip shop in Nome,

has pianting and books and crosses

all over the Chackocory region of syberia

married to some one who has crossed the boundary

he has a vast knowledge of the bering strait region

and the time when relationships first froze up

The very backdoor for america and russia

are the Diamedes only two miles seperate them and

horn music threathening

the international date line and the border

wich in ninetheen forty eight snapped shut

drum beat

horn music threathening

horn music fading

Victor Goldsberry:

There where fifteen people

from american little diamede

Who had not got the word

who had visiting at use

at relatives at russian big diamede

and they spend erm,

fifty five days in a sofia jail

These where folks who where proteine eaters

at the time almost a hundred percent meat diet

who subsistent for the next fifty five days,

on barley soup and stail black pritt grass

Colonel Mike Bridges:

They where held for something

like six weeks or thereabouts,

and then in forty eight [Phone ringing]

the russians moved the village on big diamede

they moved it to the Naucan area

wich is near the Lovrentia.

So that they would not erm,

have the opportunity to leave russia

Richard Creasey:
 

Naturally it was not long before the american military

found itself constracting

on their backdoor with the soviet union

Curtle Might Bridges is commander

in the first batalion alaskan national guard

Colonel Mike Bridges:

almost like their brandenburg gate in berlin

it was there the two miles of the bering strait

between little diomede and big diomede

it was the equivalent of the brndenburger gate,

if you dared to cross the mine field

yuo where going to get shot, or grabbed and

taken in for questioning, and vice versa,

they did not want any of their folks to comming across

to visiting any of their relatives on little diomede


drum beat

horn music slowly fading

drum beat

Colonel Mike Bridges:

There in the cold war there was erm,

alaska was on the front line unlike in europe

where every body was the fold a gap attack

with soviet armies and what not

the backdoor of alaska into north america

was also concidered strategic and important so

rather then having a hard standing army here,

the alaskan scout batalions where on the forward edge.


Little diomedes was one of my detachments

which, no kidding,

when you go to the little crows nest

at the top of the armoury

with a pair of standard binoculars,

two miles away as big diamed

which during a cold war

would have a huge soviet base

that base is still there,

although it is now,

russian confedertion soldiers who are there


And in the winter,

when the bering straits froze over

it was providing an easy excess

had the soviets decided to come in.

But our job and my predecesters job and the scouts

was to keep an eye on those things

and if anything lookeed funny,

the, my escimo scouts, or escimo scouts from here,

Would call in the multiple range radio network,

and report that to alaskan command and,
'Hey, we have seen some funny planes'
'We have seen some rubberboats' and
'seen operations going on at the main land'

Whatever the case was,

to keep an eye up for those things

and additional early warning means to it erm,

senior command evels know something is going on in alaska

When you go and visit some of my small village detachments,

there are soviet gas masks,

odds and ins of weapons parts and things like that

rubberboat pieces, frogmen suits bit and parts

and all kinds of odds and ins that they have piched up

over the decades of the cold war

Larry Persily:

Alaska has always had

this funny kind of relationship with russia

where we knew they where the enemy,

we also knew they where part of our past

and probably going to be part of the future

in a positive sense

Richard Creasey:
 

Journalist and energy expert Larry Persily

has also made a study of the region

Larry Persily:

When the cold war was the dominant factor

Generally the only really read about

the russian issues in the alaskan press is

when a russian bomber would stray

too close to alaskan air space

then the US airforce would scramble

their jets and would go intercept the bearcat bomber,

take pictures of it mark where it was where it was going to

it was a cat and mouse game

so occasional you would see

one of those scrambles and read about it

obviously these are long gone

now you read about cooperation, oil and gas,

tourism, friendship missions back and forth

with trainloads of people who had come one way or the other

trade missions official delegations that kind of stuff.

Richard Creasey:
 

And you see that growing in the future?

Larry Persily:

I do, I think so.

Alaskan airlines used to fly to russia

They cut that back for economic reasons but,

you can get ther by air from Nome,

every so often you read about some adventurer

who finds a new way to cross from alaska to russia

wheter they try it by dog sled or by boat,

or something else, so it would

it is a more positie way of presentating the news

as opposed to the army standing ready you know,

now the military in alaska does not look toward russia

as the enemy, we are worrying about north korea

I mean every one has to have an enemy to

justify the army and then and

in our case it is north korea now, rather then russia.

Richard Creasey:
 

The collapse of the soviet union has

also brought an existent peace talk evidence

to the historians of alaska

For Richard Daunho in Juneau

a new and rich piece of research was opening up

Richard Dauenhaner:

One of the exiting things is from the point of view

of the political history is with,

the diomedes of the former soviet union

a lot of the archives where opened for the first time

to russian scolars because the two areas

where tabooed there in the soviet period

namedly the church and the capitalists

so between the two of them they had all

of these incredible records and

one of the most remarkable a fellow named Gringeoff is

discovered a diary of a russian mining engeneer

who was left as a hostage, They exchanged hostages,

so the russians would take some clingerts

and leave some russians

so this guy was a youg luitanent

went with the clingert over the ice field

upto the copper river and came back

and this increadible journey

this is in the seventeen nineties

these are increadible things

that just been there

and so what it does is,

there is a lot of cold war stereotyping

you know 'the nasty natives',
'the incompetent russians',

or 'the nasty russians', and

but when you start looking at the dynamics,

of what was actually going on

trough these daily journals,

the correspondance of the gouvernours

of the russian american company,

the things as boring as the payroll stabs,

the passport applications you begin

to get in an entirely different view of

what was going on who was there

how where they interacting


sweet music

Richard Creasey:
 

Next week I will be back

wind plops in the microphone

on the wind swept alaskan island of Saint Lawrence

with people who recently crossed

the icy waters of the bering strait

in open dingies

And I will be talking to eighty year old Winifred James

about the traditional wallrus skin boats

that are still used to hunt whale

Winifred James:

This is a skinboat and it is about twenty nine feet long

it takes two, two wallrus hides they split in two

See how it splits overthere in the front?

The front side is allways the inner side

the inner side of a wallrus hides

wind plops in the microphone


sweet music fading


sound of all terrain vehicle engine

Richard Creasey:
 

We are off now,

we are off towards the north coast,

wich is only a coouple of miles from the arctic circle

and not very far from the north pole

and the wind is commig directly down from those

I is the prevailing wind

now we are just comming

to the crastinous pebble dune

and I can see russia

and there it is glisting in the sunlight

between the cloud and you can see the,

the white cliffs of siberia

very very close and it is quite clear

that people regulary where able to

from there to here

when the weather conditions where right

in the summer time


sound of all terrain vehicle engine


sweet twinkeling music


sweet music fading

Mark Rickards RecordingRichard Creasey Presentation

Richard Creasey

Presentation

Mark Rickards

Producer and Life Recording

Alice Jenner

Off Line Researcher


27:08


Part two?


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