Baikal Amour

Baikal Amour

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It was grand and extravagant, utterly outlandish, and the most expensive infrastructure project of the Soviet era. The BAM, the Baikal-Amur Mainline, is the railway crossing Eastern Russia, running for over 4000 kilometers. Along the way, small villages lie scattered across the endless taiga, and the odd four-story building stands in the middle of nowhere. The roads are mostly dirt tracks and broken pipes poke out of the ground. Beyond the villages, tumbledown huts with no running water or electricity dot the landscape. The BAM was meant to conquer the Far East but was ultimately a costly folly. During the 70s and 80s, workers came from across the USSR to build the dream in the middle of the taiga. They were given decent wages and, after three years, a car - a luxury in Soviet times. Yet by the mid 1980s, the project ran into trouble and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 spelt a temporary end for the line. Some stations that had developed along the line during construction were simply abandoned. A number of industrial and mining projects were cancelled, leaving many who had moved to the Far East for work suddenly unemployed. Due to the lack of usable roads in the region, many communities came to rely entirely on the BAM for basic supplies and services. Today, those few who have stayed behind struggle with high unemployment and the absence of opportunities for young people. Basic services like police, hospitals and post offices can be hundreds of miles away, only accessible by rail. Health care is a particular problem for an ageing population in the towns and villages along the line.

Along the BAM line.

Along the BAM line.

Kenai. The view from the back of the Matvei Mudrov medical train that delivers essential medical services to people living in remote villages along the 4,324 km long BAM railway.

In Khani, Nikolay (Ivanovitch) Koknaev, a former worker for the BAM construction, suffers from gout of the foot, which he treats by applying cabbage under bandages on his feet.

In Olekma, Liza Bazhanova waits for the pathology results in the laboratory aboard the Matvei Mudrov medical train.

In Uktur, along the BAM line.

In Elban, along the BAM line.

In Tungala. young residents of the small village of Tungala celebrate a birthday with beer, vodka and shashliks cooked on an open fire. Most of the young people work for the Russian Railways.

In Yuktali, students who have completed the last year of the secondary schooling line up with bunches of flowers and balloons to celebrate the 'Posledni Zvonok' (Last School Bell) in the village of Yuktali.

In Chilchi, Svetlana Vishniakova was the school mistress in Chilchi but since she had a stroke her right side is paralyzed, and she can't speak.

In Kun, Olga Kolmogorova tries to get a mobile phone signal to make a call. She and her husband Piotr are raising their three grandchildren, as the children's father is often away, working in the taiga, and their mother has lost custody because of parental neglect.

Near Gurskaya, the Matvei Mudrov medical train travelling through the taiga at night. It usually travels during the night and is then ready for service in the morning in one of the hundreds of villages along the route of the Baikal Amur Magistral (BAM) railway.

On saturday night, most of the youth gather at the "Disco". The house of culture 's nightclub of Tungala. My interpreter Liza, from Moscow, dances with a local

In Elban, the medical team on board the Matvei Mudrov medical train celebrates Maslenitsa in the train's dining car, drinking vodka and playing music. Maslenitsa is an eastern Slavic festival which is celebrated to mark the imminent end of winter.

In Tungala, on Saturday night, the village youth gather at the "Disco". The tiny nightclub of the house of culture.

A worker at Ikabia coal plant.

In Bolon, a doctor and nurse on board the Matvei Mudrov medical train record an electroencephalogram of Nadegda Gaskevitch who struck her head in a fall in 2003 and now needs regular treatment. The Matvei Mudrov train delivers essential medical services to people living in remote villages along the 4,324 km long BAM railway.

Taksimo. Bagulnik district heating plant.

Taksimo. Bagulnik district heating plant.

Patients queuing inside the Matvei Mudrov medical train in Neryungri.

A child sleeps in Kuanda.

Tynda, Siberia.

Along the BAM line.

In Tynda.

Taksimo. Bagulnik district heating plant.

In Loptcha, children play in a burnt building.

A woman wait for the train at Ikabia station somewhere along the BAM line.

In Tynda.

Taximo.

In Tulutchi, Igor Gaponenko, 9, and his mother Marina Gaponenko, wait to meet a doctor in the Matvei Mudrov medical train.

In Verkhnezeysk, Elena Shershova, who suffers from severe psoriasis, in her tiny apartment’s kitchen. She has regular medical appointments in Blagoveshchensk, a town some 16 hours on the train from her home.

Novaya Tchara. Alexandre Koutouzov is a cossack, part of the group Stanitsa Kalarskaya. He is in change of recruiting and educating young new cossacks.

In Kenai, an Evenki girl is seen through the door between coaches in the train.

Novaya Chara. Coal storage station in the city of Novaya Chara, in the Russian Far East. Built by Kazakhs along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in the 1980s, the city has since lost half its population despite its mining potential.

Tynda is the capital city of the BAM. Like most cities and villages along the line, Tynda's population is declining. It has dropped by over 30% since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

In Loptcha, paraplegic Albert Popov at home.

In Tchapo Ologo. Piotr Malchekitov, a former Evenki reindeer breeder.

Taximo.

Kryuchkovo.

Along the BAM line.

Muddy and frozen water in the Kedrovskaya Gold Mine.

Siberian taiga, inhospitable and practically uninhabited, along the legendary, remote BAM line.