Masha, Irkutsk: what does climate change mean to you?

Masha of Irkutsk

I like Irkutsk right away. It may be the crisper, colder air that gives the city a light feel about it. I am also pleased by the energy efficient light bulbs in the cafe we go to for breakfast but less impressed with the food which remains dominated by meat dumplings.

Masha is twenty three and works at the relaxed and friendly Baikaler hostel. We are shocked to find ourselves thrown into traveller culture for the first time on our trip. I find myself drawn more to talking to our host rather than to other travellers though, and not just for Climate Stories purposes.

Masha & friend Seema enjoying a relaxing Vodka

Masha is the first person I've met who strongly states that climate change is a big problem for Russia. She laments the lack of even basic recycling in her country, or even an awareness that such a thing is possible amongst Russians.

She believes the government must take responsibility for tackling the problem, which is looking much more hopeful these days. She agrees sadly with the Russian saying that you get the government you deserve though and doesn't have much hope they will do enough.

She doesn't think that Russian people are aware enough of climate change. She tells me that things will only change in Russia because that is the way the rest of the world is going, she thinks the nation follows, rather than leads with such matters.

Will & Emma enjoying the view of the beautiful and vulnerable Lake Baikal

The Russian word ABOCb, pronounced avoss, which is roughly equivalent to saying “what the hell, I know something bad might happen but I'm just hoping it will be ok anyway”. She tell me this way of looking at the world is thoroughly embedded in Russian culture, so much that it's a common part of the folklore and fairy tales.

Masha claims to be a realist but talks more like an optimist. She says she expects the worst but hopes for the best. It's difficult to argue with her.

Katia, Yekaterinburg: what does climate change mean to you?

Katia in Yekaterinburg

For some reason I arrive in Yekaterinburg with a little trepidation. Perhaps it's because we've been so lucky so far in meeting some truly lovely people and I'm wondering when our luck might run out. Or maybe it's because I've been reading about Yekaterinburg's bloody history. The last Tzar of Russia was murdered here.

Will debates with some well known Yekaterinburg intellectuals.

We have trouble finding the hostel we've booked. It's definitely not at the X we've marked on the map. However, I already suspect this might be a serendipitous kerfuffle. And I'm right. The charmingly named Meeting Point hostel was recommended to us at a chance meeting with an English girl studying in Kazan and I immediately wanted to go there instead.

Katia, who runs the hostel is in her early twenties, vegetarian and speaks excellent English. She is effervescent in character, with an endearing coughing idiosyncrasy when she speaks. She shares the apparently common Russian love of nature, believes that climate change is caused by human activities and that it's everyone's duty to do something about it.

Emma & Katia

She thinks we need to return to a more natural way of living. She confuses me by saying she isn't prepared to make big sacrifices in her life for any cause but goes on to tell me she turned down a well-paid job with an oil company because she couldn't square it with her conscience. The conversation gradually drifts off onto other things but not before we've agreed that sometimes things can seem like a sacrifice and unexpectedly end up being a wonderful thing.

Alina the Tartar

We leave most of our belongings in the left luggage facility at the station in Kazan, the capital of the autonomous Muslim region of Tartarstan. It was warm when we arrived so when a chill wind brought rain later in the day, we regretted not bringing more sturdy clothing. We spent a miserable hour or so wandering about in the rain, Will looking rather beautiful in my purple cardigan, looking for an internet cafe.

Kazan ... before the rain.

When we finally find one, it's full and we can't work out the infuriatingly incomprehensible queuing system. We're soggy, bedraggled, feeling a little sorry for ourselves and (unfairly) not highly impressed with Kazan, when something wonderful happens. A girl with an American accent asks us if we need help. Alina is a native Muslim Tartar from a village outside Kazan but has been living in New York for the last three years, working and studying English. She takes us to a great cafe that has wifi and delicious cakes.

Alina is always thinking about climate change. She's noticed that it's much warmer than it used to be and believes it to be mainly caused by cities and their polluting industries. She tells me she buys energy efficient products, tries not to use more paper than necessary and gets angry about littering and the pollution of the waterways that is common here.

Alina & Emma

Alina's father works in the oil industry and he has told her that there will be enough oil for his generation and the next (i.e. Alina's) but that the next will have to find alternatives. She worries that so many of the things we rely on are made from oil at the moment.

Echoing other Russian opinions we've encountered so far, she thinks that climate change will affect animals worse than humans and this concerns her greatly. She believes everybody must think about the issue because it's coming whether we like it or not. She thinks we all needs to change the way we live but thinks that human beings are adaptable creatures and is therefore optimistic that we can.

Dennis, Moscow: what does climate change mean to you?

Namik from Azerbaijan

We meet Namik on the overnight train from Moscow to Kazan. Along with our other cabin-mate, as well as half the train it seems, he is on his way to his military school reunion. He's originally from Baku in Azerbaijan and his parents never wanted him to go to military school. They warned him he would be 'married to the army'.

Will & Namik

He tells me the Western world pays more attention to issues like climate change because people from the East are more worried about today. People here are more concerned about their job and their basic needs. He says that 70% of people in Russia are not able to meet their basic needs, although from what I can gather, this may be an exaggeration.

He thinks the government here only talk about climate change because it's an issue for the West, not because it's an issue for Russia. Perhaps also, because it's less of a contentious issue than food shortages.

He tells me he's noticed that the weather is changing though. He visited a place in the North of Russia recently and was told it would get dangerously cold there but it never did. The people there said they had been used to temperatures of 35 degrees centigrade below zero but for the last four years it hadn't got anywhere near that cold.

The Russian military men ... and a gallon of brandy

It's now one thirty in the morning and it's at this point that six burly ex-military Russians stumble into our cabin with a gallon of home-brewed brandy, insisting we help them drink it. The booze is surprisingly pleasant and so is the company. The interview is over but our first night on the trans-Siberian railway has just begun.

Last night in Moscow

My last night night in Moscow we do something we'd been a little disappointed to have avoided so far. We drink vodka. Lots of it. I manage to interview two more people, both in their mid-twenties, before I am completely inebriated. Tanya works for a cosmetics company in a swanky office next to a contemporary art gallery and has the most sparkling smile in Moscow. Dennis works at a cool young TV station that shows mainly cartoons for teenagers, of the Southpark ilk.

Tanya, Emma & Dennis

Tanya isn't familiar with the term climate change as related to global warming is and admits that when she first heard about the Climate Stories project, she thought we were documenting how the weather changed through the regions we're visiting. Having clarified that we're referring to the global environmental problem, she confides she hasn't really thought about it much. She is a massive animal lover though and worries about what impact it will have on wildlife. She is disturbed by the idea that climate change may wipe out up to 50% of all species by the end of the century.

Dennis, Vova, Emma, Tanya & Will

Dennis carries that slightly distant air about him that deeply creative people often do but he is immediately likable. I'm surprised to learn that he is a teetotal, non-smoking vegetarian, which must surely be a rarity in Russia. He is concerned about climate change and thinks that it's everyone's job to fix the problem. He thinks it will take a natural disaster to make people in Russia wake up to the reality of the issue. I tell him this is not a Russian state of mind but a human one and remind him that the US became a lot more concerned about global warming after hurricane Katrina. He high fives me at the end of the interview and I leave Moscow with more hope for the future than I arrived with.

Climate Stories wins award!

As our Facebook or Twitter followers may already know, Climate Stories has been given the Climate Community Citizen of the Week Award! We'd like to thank Dan at the Climate Community, not only for the award but also for his continued support for the project.

Here's what Climate Community has to say about the project:

"Emma and Will our our third winners from Europe. They are from the UK - but are currently on an amazing adventure across Russia and into Asia to discuss Climate Change at the truly grass roots level - with the people in these countries, cities, and towns."

We will be donating the prize money to the Avaaz campaign, which is raising funds to unleash a massive global day of action on 12th December that world leaders cannot ignore at Copenhagen.

More Moscow Minds

Unfortunately I am a complete idiot, somehow managing to delete the video recordings most of my Moscow interviews and some later ones too. I have some notes but I'm really kicking myself for relying so heavily on what I should have known would prove to be unreliable technology.

My last day in Moscow is spent running around the city interviewing to three people, all a generation above the group of young people I first spoke to. I speak to Boris at Focus Media, a public health and social development foundation, and Olga and Lyobov at the Agency for Social Information. I hugely appreciate the time all of them have taken to speak to me. At their offices I get the impression there is always more work to be done.

Boris, like me, used to work for a national agency on climate change issues and has the tired, defeated look that I wish I saw less commonly in older environmentalists. His English isn't perfect (though obviously much better than my Russian!) but he has prepared a statement, which he reads to me. He says that global anthropomorphic climate change is happening right before our eyes and that the potential impacts are frightening. He compares the human race to a greedy crowd of rabbits that destroys itself through over-consumption of natural resources. It's difficult to disagree with him.

Olga seems shy but my interviewing technique is far from polished, which probably doesn't help. She knows climate change is a problem for Russia and wishes her contemporaries took it more seriously. She says her teenage son and his friends are much more aware of environmental issues than her generation. I am also informed that the vodka in Russia is much better in the countryside than the city.

Lyobov has twinkling eyes and a bubbly personality. Like Olga she is modest about her ability to provide an interesting interview but goes on to be absolutely fascinating. She worries about the Russian attitude to the environment in general. She is angry that any areas of natural beauty in the country are spoiled by her littering countrymen. She thinks Russia needs more awareness raising on climate change but remains optimistic about the future.

These three are all deeply concerned about climate change. They tell me that they are taking action in their lives but that the majority of Russian people are not. This sounds little different to a conversation I could have with most educated, middle-class people of their generation in the UK. Caring about the environment, and more specifically tackling climate change, may not be in the forefront of everyone's mind but there are clearly not so few people who are willing to ignore the evidence of climate change that now appears plain to all but a few dwindling 'flat earthers'.

PS Today is Blog Action Day, an annual event held every October 15 that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Get involved.