The World - Russia oil wealth blackens mood - Cleanup crew on Black Sea shore blames key export for problems.
TUZLA SPIT, RUSSIA — Crunching through oil-crusted seashells scattered on fouled beaches among dead and dying birds, exhausted volunteers fumed Wednesday about the uneven distribution of Russia's petroleum wealth.
As far as the eye could see, the pale sands of this narrow finger poking into the Black Sea were coated with a heavy film of black and piles of oil-soaked seaweed. A strong smell of diesel hung in the air.
Three days after a mighty storm cracked a decrepit tanker in two and dumped 2,000 tons of oil into the Kerch Strait, a small army of workers toiled to clear the mess.
Dead dolphins began to wash ashore, adding to the thousands of birds and untold numbers of fish known to have been poisoned.
"Somebody is making millions of dollars by selling oil and sending those ancient tankers to our shore, ready to sink at any minute," said Alexander Gayduk, a middle-aged farmworker from nearby Taman. "But they are not here to help with this mess, are they? Where are the trucks? Where is the heavy machinery we need?"
"All of our problems are because of this oil," said vineyard worker Alexander Ostapenko, 43. "But what's in it for us? They are polluting our sea and land."
With oil prices soaring, Russia is earning vast sums through petroleum exports. The country's oil income not only is fueling the increasingly assertive foreign policy of President Vladimir V. Putin's government, but creating a new class of fabulously wealthy businessmen, many with ties to the Kremlin.
The government says oil accounts for about half of Russia's economy; some analysts say the figure is much higher. Up to a third of the exported oil moves through the Black Sea.
Russia and Ukraine agreed Wednesday to form a working group led by the deputy transportation ministers of each country to combat the effects of the oil spill, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich said in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital. He said that he and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, who flew to the region Tuesday to oversee cleanup efforts, also agreed to develop joint plans for dealing with other emergencies.
The oil spill was only the latest in a history of man-made insults to the Black Sea, which once was a famously polluted, low-oxygen "dead zone." The sea's fortunes improved when the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 put an end to central economic planning and closed down giant feedlots and pig farms.
