Pollution

[randoskier]

When was skiing down the Pasvik River I saw these smokestacks and some houses on the other bank, that is the Russian town of Nikkel one of the most polluted places on Earth. Everything is dead around it, this is in a pristine arctic wilderness setting. They also used it as a staging ground for hundreds of Syrian refugees they dumped into Norway when the Kirkenes border crossing was open. They will probably never clean it up; though they have installed scrubbers on the stacks and shut most of the smelter down over the past five years, at one point it accounted for almost 2% of all sulfur dioxide emissions in the world.

[GrimSurfer]

Anywhere Soviet industry is/was is like this. I suspect things get even worse in parts of the Kola. If not from ongoing dirty industry than from chemical and nuclear waste.

Whatever mitigation measures are in place (like scrubbers) is either fully or partially funded by the West. Cleaning up simply isn’t in the Russian psyche.

Same thing down south. When I was in Skopje, Macedonia (engaged in disarming the locals) years ago, I noticed the total absence of birds (which are practically everywhere on the planet). Apparently they were killed off by chronic air pollution… made worse by inversion layers in valleys.

One of the Western physicians there said that people aged ~40 had the internals of Western Europeans in their 70s. Metabolic dysfunctions, cancer etc. Not surprising. It was a toxic industrial cesspool.. and I’m not just talking about the abandoned factory I was temporarily living in either.

I’m not sure I’d want to ski in/around Kirkenes for this reason. It’s not the locals, but the neighbours, that are screwing things up.

[randoskier]

Anywhere Soviet industry is/was is like this. I suspect things get even worse in parts of the Kola. If not from ongoing dirty industry than from chemical and nuclear waste.

Whatever mitigation measures are in place (like scrubbers) is either fully or partially funded by the West. Cleaning up simply isn’t in the Russian psyche.

Same thing down south. When I was in Skopje, Macedonia (engaged in disarming the locals) years ago, I noticed the total absence of birds (which are practically everywhere on the planet). Apparently they were killed off by chronic air pollution… made worse by inversion layers in valleys.

One of the Western physicians there said that people aged ~40 had the internals of Western Europeans in their 70s. Metabolic dysfunctions, cancer etc. Not surprising. It was a toxic industrial cesspool.. and I’m not just talking about the abandoned factory I was temporarily living in either.

I’m not sure I’d want to ski in/around Kirkenes for this reason. It’s not the locals, but the neighbours, that are screwing things up.

"NORTH Macedonia", don't want to piss off the Greeks! What were you doing there? I was in eastern Hungary in 1995 having fermentation tanks built in a fabricator there, the city looked like it had snowed, but the snow was black, so were all the buildings. The people looked haggard, big ugly closed works everywhere, great movie set. Czech was bad too around Brno. I saw the same in former East Germany I lived in an apartment in the former East Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg) during my studies at the TU Berlin. I have serious asthma but had no problems during my leg of the trip down the Pasvik River. I was a little worried because my tent is in the Ukrainian national colors and I was camped right on the river which forms the border, maybe 100 meters from Russia, but I did not receive any stray rounds during the night.

The air quality here in northern Italy sucks too.

[GrimSurfer]

Anywhere Soviet industry is/was is like this. I suspect things get even worse in parts of the Kola. If not from ongoing dirty industry than from chemical and nuclear waste.

Whatever mitigation measures are in place (like scrubbers) is either fully or partially funded by the West. Cleaning up simply isn’t in the Russian psyche.

Same thing down south. When I was in Skopje, Macedonia (engaged in disarming the locals) years ago, I noticed the total absence of birds (which are practically everywhere on the planet). Apparently they were killed off by chronic air pollution… made worse by inversion layers in valleys.

One of the Western physicians there said that people aged ~40 had the internals of Western Europeans in their 70s. Metabolic dysfunctions, cancer etc. Not surprising. It was a toxic industrial cesspool.. and I’m not just talking about the abandoned factory I was temporarily living in either.

I’m not sure I’d want to ski in/around Kirkenes for this reason. It’s not the locals, but the neighbours, that are screwing things up.

"NORTH Macedonia", don't want to piss off the Greeks! What were you doing there? I was in eastern Hungary in 1995 having fermentation tanks built in a fabricator there, the city looked like it had snowed, but the snow was black, so were all the buildings. The people looked haggard, big ugly closed works everywhere, great movie set. Czech was bad too around Brno. I saw the same in former East Germany I lived in an apartment in the former East Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg) during my studies at the TU Berlin. I have serious asthma but had no problems during my leg of the trip down the Pasvik River. I was a little worried because my tent is in the Ukrainian national colors and I was camped right on the river which forms the border, maybe 100 meters from Russia, but I did not receive any stray rounds during the night.

The air quality here in northern Italy sucks too.

I was in Macedonia helping disarm the locals as part of a stabilization NATO initiative. Everything from RPGs to Mosin Nagants.

Locals took to throwing steel girders off overpasses at night. One US vehicle had a piece of angle iron go through the windshield and hit a guy in his frag vest. He had his plates in, so broken ribs only.

I just had a pot shot directed my way. Grazed the roof. The de-miners were dealing with unmarked minefields and flood plains, which was far more hairy.

Nice tent btw. Must have been an interesting trip.

We’ve come a long way in managing pollution… still a way to go though.

[randoskier]

ings up.

I was in Macedonia helping disarm the locals as part of a stabilization NATO initiative. Everything from RPGs to Mosin Nagants.

Locals took to throwing steel girders off overpasses at night. One US vehicle had a piece of angle iron go through the windshield and hit a guy in his frag vest. He had his plates in, so broken ribs only.

I just had a pot shot directed my way. Grazed the roof. The de-miners were dealing with unmarked minefields and flood plains, which was far more hairy.

Nice tent btw. Must have been an interesting trip.

We’ve come a long way in managing pollution… still a way to go though.
[/quote]

US Army? Before KFOR?