Issue link: http://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25123
you want to be the FIRST to celebrate the new then forget the [ave on Ko Pha Ngan or a su!1f to Fiji. In fact, forget telephones, running water and :pallatalble food. lust a few miles from the United States, but a light-year from the modern world, Chukotka, Siberia, has the distinction of being both the very first continental landmass to enter the new millennium-lt is the easternmost land in the first time zone-and one of the most ill-equipped to live in it. Chukotka used to be home to nothing more than a few hardy reindeer herders. When the Russians discovered minerals there, they built cities that cost a fortune to support. Then it became a cold war bulwark against imperialists lurking just a few miles away, across the Bering Strait. But with Russia hardly able to cope with Moscow, let alone far- flung regions in Siberi a, there is no more cold war in Chukotka. Now, it's just cold. Chukotka is bigger than Texas and has about as many people as the Rose Bowl can hold. It contains the world's northernmost nuclear reactor, an average yearly temperature below freezing, cities that are quickly being abandoned and gold mines that should be. Chukotka is so remote that even the capital city Anadyr is a helicopter ride away from its own airport. In winter, the sun disappears for months at a time and people have reindeer burgers and vodka for breakfast. Yet the arctic can be a majestic place and Chukotka is no different. In Anadyr, the winter darkness yields to the morning with a frozen languor. First the buildings take form, then details appear (smokestacks, abandoned cargo containers, mountains in the distance). Slowly the city appears, swaddled in a newborn pastel pink. The air is still, the morning is quiet except for the three- dimensional crunch of snow under boots and an occasional dog bark in the distance. The only traffic lights in t he town are rusty and broken. They must have been part of some grand expansion dream because they are utterly unnecessary in a town virtually devoid of cars. Throughout the winter months, Anadyr is tortured by howling winds and blowing snow that make the average minus 20- to minus 40-degree temperatures even crueler. At these temperatures, snow doesn't form large flakes: tiny ice crystals, like fine sand, blow around in the wind until they finally freeze into a hard shell on bUi ldings, streets and trees. The people who live there make do with only occasional electricity and sporadic food supplies. I don't suppose they think about being first in the new millennium much. These days, the rest of the world doesn't think much about Chukotka either. Back in the glory days of the Soviet Empire, Chukotka bristled with sensitive listening equipment set up for eavesdropping on the American military located just a few miles away across the Bering Strait. The whole region was closed to fo reign visitors, but the cities swelled with miners lured to the area by the promise of hardship pay and early retirement. Before that, Stalin simply imprisoned his enemies and sent them east to work themselves to death. Siberia was one big icy canvas for Stalin's violent and paranoid megalomania. He saw the far eastern fringe as the perfect way to ki ll his enemies while they mined the huge mineral wealth. Prisoners usually died II Above lett, Anadyr. the capital of Chukotka. through the window of a helicopter. • within 20 to 30 days of arrival, having scraped a few grams of gold out of the frozen earth with poor or no tools, working 12- to 16-hour days in exchange for a little sa lty cabbage soup or soggy black bread. Prisoners ate axle grease and moss out of desperation. In a Soviet history book, this period is summed up as: "work proceeded on the big, demanding task of re-education through socially useful labor." Ironically, this Russian drive eastward came at the expense of the local Chukchi, whom ethnologists believe were the ancestral cousins of the Native Americans that the westward expansion of the United States pushed aside. Once a proud nomadic tundra people, the Chukchi today are plagued by alcoholism and unemployment in vi llages built for them by the Soviets. Only a few Chukchi cling to their native lifestyle, herding reindeer on the open tundra and living in ya rangas, tepee-like structures built from reindeer skin and wood. Ever since Vitus Bering traveled east in the early 18th century and discovered the narrow strait separating Asia from Ameri ca, forcing the locals that he met en route to supply and staff his ships, subjugation and forced rule has been the name of the game. During the Soviet era, vi rtually all the Chukchi were either slaughtered or collectivized into cities. In the waning days of this millennium, however, t he Soviet tide has receded far from Chukotkan shores and the area, littered with relics of the past, is once again forced to fend for itself. Ignored by its own country, Chukotka is slowly perishing to death in serene arctic beauty. Around the world, thousands are making plans to be the fi rst to enter t he new millennium. Hundreds of ships will be just west of the date line, using satell ite positioning to pinpoint the precise place to await the millennial dawn. In Chukotka, the ships are frozen in exactly the right place already, locked in abandoned harbors awaiting the brief summer thaw about a half a yea r away. There 's plenty of booze and room to spare at the loca l hotels. Skewered on the forefront of the world, yet trailing it badly, Chukotka may be the ultimate place to ce lebrate the new mil lennium- it wil l be the first place to enter it and the last place to reach it.