By William Brumfield
IN Russia, it seems, all roads lead to Moscow. But if Russia's provinces are to emerge from economic stagnation, roads must also wind their way throughout the countryside, connecting towns and villages and allowing the mobility of people, services and goods. The fabled dirt tracks that have so often been the bane of travelers must become a thing of the past.
This need became especially clear to me recently as I traveled through Vologda oblast, or province. Historically this extensive area had developed along natural waterways, and most settlements were located with ready access to a river. Only a very few roads linked the main towns of the region. Even during the Soviet period, rivers such as the Sukhona, the Yug and the Northern Dvina served as important transportation routes, while roads in the same area were often barely passable. One could travel by boat at a leisurely pace from Vologda to Veliky Ustyug and see this beautiful land as its settlers and early inhabitants had seen it - from slow, winding rivers.
Now all of that has changed, or is changing. The state no longer has sufficient resources to subsidize river travel in most parts of this region, and its slow economic development cannot sustain passenger and freight transportation without subsidies. The result: River traffic in most of Vologda oblast has come to a halt in the past two years. Only the Sheksna River still carries occasional freight barges and large tourist cruise boats that dock every summer at Goritsy, some eight kilometers from Kirillov and the St. Cyril-Belozersk Monastery. In fact, the Sheksna itself is much changed: For long stretches it is not so much a river as a reservoir within the Volga-Balt Canal system linking Moscow and St. Petersburg. Land transportation is rapidly becoming the only way to travel in most of Vologda province. But is it adequate?
I had been to Vologda before. Each summer a few kilometers of the road are torn up and resurfaced; but for the most part it is decently paved. This summer I intended to travel northeast, to the historic town of Veliky Ustyug, where the Sukhona and Yug Rivers meet to form the Northern Dvina. The hope of going by boat had faded, and acquaintances in Moscow warned that the roads beyond Totma might be impassable.
Fortunately, friends in Vologda had a different view of the situation, and with their help the trip was arranged. To put it simply, the road from Vologda to Veliky Ustyug is paved the entire distance and was much better than I had anticipated. To be sure, the route is circuitous (some 550 kilometers) and goes far inland from the Sukhona River, all the way to Nikolsk on the River Yug. But that only provided more opportunity to see the beautiful northern landscape of fields and forested hills.
I was puzzled by this well-kept secret about the roads of Vologda Oblast, and at one point along a recently surfaced section of the highway I noticed a large signboard proclaiming this particular improvement part of the presidential program "The Roads of Russia." There is, apparently, some encouraging news from the provinces after all. Roads are being built, and new bus lines are operating on a more frequent basis, although still less than the demand. And while I had not previously heard of "The Roads of Russia," it seemed appropriate in the new democratic order that the program should be advertised with a not-so-covert political message.
Indeed, the federal government must devote more resources to road construction. Highways offer more flexibility and convenience than river or rail transportation, and they provide the individual with greater freedom of choice. One local inhabitant pointedly told me that the large area of central and eastern Vologda Oblast is almost entirely without rail transportation. A look at the map confirms this: Apart from the main north-south line from Yaroslavl to Arkhangelsk, the transportation needs of this province were left to rivers. Under present conditions it would be prohibitively expensive to undertake rail construction in this sparsely inhabited, underdeveloped region. Roads, however, can serve as an impetus for development, particularly in the private sector, whether it be farms or other enterprises. And as the number of private cars increases, tourism and related services should recover after a sharp fall following the end of state subsidies.
The Vologda region has considerable potential for the development of tourism. In Vologda itself, the magnificent 16th century Cathedral of St. Sophia has frescoes that rival the best in Yaroslavl. And in small, sleepy Totma on the Sukhona River, there are soaring churches and bell towers of unusual design - some, to be sure, showing the effects of neglect, misuse and inadequate funds for restoration. But they still stand in graceful harmony. And at the northeastern corner of the province there is Velikii Ustyug, which, like Moscow, celebrates its 850th anniversary next year. What a remarkable creation! Its natural beauty and architectural monuments are topics for a separate article, but it has the qualities to become an attractive tourist destination. This will not happen soon, but happen it must, if there are to be funds to maintain these historic sites.
To be sure, the construction of new roads and the proliferation of private automobiles will bring a different set of problems, but these challenges must be met. Here, as in other areas, a new infrastructure is gradually taking shape in Russia, and with this process comes a reconfiguration of society as a community of individuals. In this way Russia's new highways are quite literally a path to the future.
William Brumfield, professor of Russian at Tulane University in New Orleans, is the author and photographer of several books on Russian architecture. He contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.