For many natives of Siberia, life involves staying in harmony with nature. Skills passed down within their families for generations include knowledge of local plants and herbs, which potentially have healing properties. The pressures of modern life are advancing into even the most remote areas, however, which pose a challenge to traditional ways of life and indigenous knowledge.
One way of resolving these challenges is to market the knowledge they have inherited. While major companies have found wealth in Siberian timber stands and oil and gas deposits, Roman Boltov, director of the Krasnoyarsk region’s Center for Small- Business Assistance, said that his region includes some 110,000 small and medium-sized businesses, many of them connected to the taiga.
Healing the forest and the body
Yury Rudakov (left) is the director of Krasnoyarsk-based Flora-Biotech and a Siberian business activist
For locals, it’s no secret that the taiga is a treasure trove, with valuable material sometimes right under your feet. Vladimir Terentyev, an agricultural scientist, set up a business called Ecovit to process and sell plant extracts and oils, balsams, fir-based water for use in perfumes and drinks and herbal supplements. “I started my business with 4,000 rubles [$130 at current exchange rates] received as severance pay back in 1998, and it served me as start-up capital I used to rebuild an old fir-pulping machine,” he said. Ecovit later received an international grant to establish a venture to help prevent forest fires.
“Raw materials for our products are herbs and fir and pine needles, the latter which are just lying on the ground,” he said. “By picking them, we can save forests from fires: when needles dry out, they can go up in flames like gunpowder.”
In 2000 Terentyev returned to state work as a forestry inspector, while continuing to study agricultural science. By 2006 he had risen through the ranks to become deputy chief inspector for the Krasnoyarsk region, specializing in combating forest fires.
Terentyev resigned his post in protest in 2007, after the government introduced a new Forestry Code that, he said, made it impossible to monitor forest conditions properly. At the time, the code was heavily criticized by ecologists for shifting responsibility for the preservation and recovery of forests from the state to private timber operators. Many state foresters were laid off, but the catastrophic fires in the summer of 2010 showed that the law was a serious mistake. The following December, it was amended and state fire stations were reintroduced.
Ecovit now offers taiga products on the market, which Terentyev said can help treat indigestion, circulation problems, skin burns and wound healing, among other conditions.
Bioflavonoids from pine trees, for example—once known as rich with vitamin P—can have positive effects on the permeability of capillaries in the lungs, where carbon dioxide in the blood is exchanged for oxygen. Terentyev acknowledged, however, that there is further research to be done.
More tests needed
Vladimir Terentyev is the head of Siberian-based Ecovit
Igor Goryanin, head of the biomedical cluster of the Skolkovo Foundation, said that further international clinical tests are needed to study the medical potential of taiga products.
“It will take an in-depth investigation to determine whether these products are suitable for international markets,” he said. “Among other things, we have to know how to separate useful components, because they should work as a mixture, in combination with other medicines, like other drugs.”
Nationally, the ratio of taiga products is still quite low, said Andrei Sizov, director of the Sovecon think tank, but their popularity is growing along with incomes, as consumers strive to include more ecologically friendly products in their lives.
For example, pine nuts, balsams and oils produced in the taiga are making their way to the shelves of specialized eco shops. Viktor Mogilev, director of a Moscow-based online store that sells natural products from Siberia and Altai, said his business is getting more popular. “Consumers are looking now for different 100 percent ecologically pure products,” he said, but he feels there are still few Muscovites who know about them.
Potential for crafts
Cedar cones for sale at a rural fair in the Omsk region
Yury Rudakov, a Krasnoyarsk member of Delovaya Rossiya, the association of small and mediumsized businesses, agreed that the market for renewable biological products, such as mushrooms or medicinal herbs, is growing, but said: “Siberia is in a risky zone for traditional farming due to climatic conditions.” Another problem with marketing Siberian products is that entrepreneurs are not experienced in packaging their businesses to investors, he added. Investment is needed since the region, with its remoteness from key consumer markets and resultant high transportation costs, needs to export manufactured products with higher added value, Rudakov said. This would make consumers willing to pay a higher price.
Local crafts could be one such value-added product. Arthur Murzakhanov, an Omsk-born entrepreneur who moved to the Krasnoyarsk region, is trying to develop a craft industry. This winter, he has hired some locals to build furniture made of the roots of cut trees, and draw pictures drawn on native bird feathers. “Villagers have very gifted hands,” he said.
Nature tourism
Water sports in the Irkutsk region
Murzakhanov is not just interested in selling products from the taiga, however - he’s also started his own eco-tourism venture. Some 340 kilometers away from Krasnoyarsk, Murzakhanov and his friends have started building a 17th-century style village. “Tourists will love to come here: the place is just beautiful, like in a fairy tale,” he said. “Many who visit nearby villages for a weekend spend all their time just gazing at the surrounding nature.”
Siberia’s economy has always depended heavily on its natural environment, but local entrepreneurs hope this can be harnessed sustainably, rather than exploited mainly through oil and gas. Challenges of marketing and delivery persist, but there appear to be no lack of ideas from the region’s eco-friendly businesspeople.
Source: The Moscow News