Showing posts from: March 2022
The Beatles’ Pipe-dream Paradise: The Aborted Greek Island Venture
IN a 1966 double-A side single the Beatles sung “we all live in a yellow submarine” but in real life the Fab Four (or at least, 75% of them) did want to live together on a secluded Greek island that they intended to buy. It happened the following year, 1967, the boys were holidaying in the Greek islands and were island-hopping when they came upon an ideal island location. Or at least that was what George, John and Paul thought while on acid the whole time of the “inspection”{𝔸}. The island that their eyes lit on was roomy enough, some 80-acres with a fishing village, a large olive grove and four beaches. In addition to the main island there were four smaller islands surrounding it (one for each Beatle!)
The prime mover for the island home scheme was Beatle John. At that point in his life Lennon was edging his way into his glorious hippie phase. The Aegean “Arcadia” represented a chance to live communally, an idyllic place where he and the other three celebs could escape the overwhelming pressures and attentions of superstardom. The plan was for the four musicians and the group’s entourage (manager Epstein, the roadies and the inner circle of assistants plus relatives) to all live together on a huge estate on the island hideaway. Paul and George seemed to have been on-song with John at that hazily propitious moment in time…McCartney: (the island was the means of achieving) “a sort of hippie community…where nobody’d interfere with your lifestyle”…Harrison concurred: “we’ll buy the island, we’ll just go there and drop out” (‘The Beatles in Greece’, Daily Beatle,, 03-Jul-2014, www.wogew.blogspot.com).
Team Beatles hit Greece (Source: Greek City News)What prompted such an extravagantly fanciful and surreal notion? The short answer would appear simply to be drugs! Narcotic substances may have inspired the germ of the highly romantic and improbable idea. As Beatle Paul explained later, the boys saw in the island jewel a place where they could smoke pot unhindered, without fearing the consequences of the law. Paul attributed the island acquisition project to “drug-induced ambition”. Certainly drug consumption was part of the agenda in coming to Greece – if you accept the word of NEMS staffer Peter Brown. According to Brown, a Beatle associate Yannis Mardas (AKA “Magic Alex”) had brokered a deal with the Greek authorities giving the Fab Four the green light to bring personal supplies of drugs secreted in their carry-on bags into the country in return for photo ops in aid of Hellenic tourism (Daily Beatle).
The rich celebrity artists’ commune Roadie (and later Apple Corps head) Neil Aspinall’s recollection of what John, Paul and George (but especially John) had in mind was a configuration of individual villas for the four Beatles which would all be linked to a central dome of some description. There would also be a recording studio on the main island, plus an entertainment complex and some “knock-up” housing for Beatle staff and visiting friends.
Trinity Is (Source: Culture Trip)The decision to buy the island paradise was pretty much made on the spot and another NEMS assistant Alistair Taylor was sent back to London to seal the deal. This necessitated the boys buying £90,000 worth of special export dollars to complete the international transaction. But by the time the deal was set up, the Beatles’s initial enthusiasm had waned and they had changed their minds…or maybe they just forgot about the whole grand scheme. Taylor then had to sell the export dollars back to the Greek government, which resulted in an unexpected windfall for the group, courtesy of a favourable exchange rate for the UK£{𝔹}.
Trinity Is is commonly referred to as “guitar-shaped” but with such a profound bend in its “neck” it looks more like one of Pete Townshend’s well-thwacked Fender guitarsIn the application to purchase document (held in the British National Archives) the name of the would-be Beatle island—described as “300,000 square metres of arable land, olive trees, beaches and rocks”—is given as “Aegos, Konstadinos”(?), however no such island can be identified among the multitude of Aegean offshore islands. Another name ascribed to the heavily-wooded island fancied by the Liverpudlian musos is “Leslo” which also unfortunately does not exist. The more likely candidate which most people favour is Trinity Island{ℂ}, located to the east of Athens and just off the larger Euboea Island in the Western Aegean ‘The Beatles visit a Greek island they intended to purchase’, The Beatles Bible, Updated 13-Sep-2021, www.beatlesbible.com .
╾╾╼╾━╼╼╾╾╼╾━╼╼╾╾╼╾━╼╼
{𝔸} Ringo wasn’t on the real estate expedition, he bailed after the Greek mainland part of the trip to return to his Weybridge (Surrey) mansion
{𝔹} a profit of £11,400 was forthcoming for the band
{ℂ} sometimes erroneously called Agia Triada (“Holy Trinity” island)
Beatles Not For Sale: Public Enemy # 1 in the Philippines
1966 was indeed a watershed year for the world’s most popular band the Beatles. It was the year that at its end the fabled foursome called it quits on overseas touring and live performances. This followed a demanding 12 months of touring, including Germany, Japan, the Philippines and America (the third visit but this time as reluctant tourers). The constant grind, the heavy work load, the culmination of five years of more or less nonstop touring, had left the group exhausted.
Nihonjin cultural lesson for Ringo & John (Source: nippon.com)This was only one factor in the ultimate decision to pull the plug…increasing dissatisfaction with sound quality at the various venues they played contributed as well as fears about their personal security and safety on tour1⃞ which escalated after John Lennon’s controversial comments about the Beatles being “more popular than Jesus Christ” and his stated prediction that Christianity will wither away.
Fateful words of the leader
John’s spontaneous act of hubris had profound ramifications as the year unfolded. On the “reunion” visit back to Hamburg, Germany, the Beatles received a death threat. In Japan though fans at concerts were rapturous, Japanese traditionalists voiced opposition to them, and were incensed that the Beatles’ gigs were held at the Nippon Budekan, a Japanese shrine for the war dead. But this was all mere turbulence compared to the tsunami greeting them in Manila, the Philippines’ capital. Moments after the boys stepped foot on the tarmac they were separated from manager Epstein and abruptly whisked away by military types to visit some local plutocrat VIP they didn’t know. The two concerts scheduled for the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium for that day (before a Beatle record combined audience of 80,000) though went exceedingly well.
The Marcoses in 1966 (with an American “friend”) (Photo: Yoichi Yokamoto/National Archives) “Enemies of the state” snubbing the First Family What brought the tour undone and turned it into a nightmare for the Beatles was Epstein’s declining an invitation for the boys to attend a brunch reception at the presidential palace organised by “First Lady” Imelda Marcos 2⃞. After the no-show by the Fab Four things turned ugly. The Philippine media castigated the Beatles for their grievous insult to the Marcos family, whipping up an instant public frenzy of Beatlephobia in the country.
Manhandling the teen iconsBeatles Alis Dayan!3⃞ All the chickens came home to roost the next day when the Beatles and their entourage tried to leave the country. First, the local promoter refused to pay the group for their performances, then they weren’t allowed to leave the hotel until Epstein coughed up nearly 75,000 pesos in taxes on the performance fees they were never paid! Meanwhile bomb and death threats against the Beatles were phoned in. But it was when they got to the airport that Filipino vengeance displayed its real venom. The Beatles found their protection had disappeared and the airport refused to handle their baggage and gear, forcing them to carry their own luggage (and their roadies to lug all the equipment themselves) to the plane. As they struggling to make their way to the plane, guns were brandished and the entourage was jostled and attacked by thugs (Mal Evans copped a beating, Epstein was hit, even Ringo got clocked with an flailing uppercut!). They were seen off into the aircraft with an equally hostile reception from hundreds of irate Filipinos wishing them good riddance!
But that wasn’t the end of the ordeal for the Beatles and their minders. The authorities suddenly discovered that some of the group’s flight paperwork was awry and roadie Mal and press officer Tony Barrow were forced to leave the safety of the Beatles’ KLM plane and return to the terminal to make amends. So the Beatles’ jet sat idly on the tarmac for another 40 minutes before it was finally allowed to depart. When they arrived back in London (via a stopover in India) the Beatles vowed never to return to the Philippines – an oath that all four musicians kept.
Talking it down…or up? (Photo credit: AP)Footnote: The Religious Right’s war on the Beatles The last tour, which Epstein had long pre-committed John, Paul, George and Ringo to was back to the USA. Lennon’s perceived slight on Jesus and Christianity–although he tried to walk the comments back once he arrived in the US—plagued the entire tour4⃞. Southern fundamentalists and the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated against the “degenerate and blasphemous” Liverpool band. More death threats, some radio stations in the South banned Beatle records from the air, some even organised bonfires, inviting listeners to burn the group’s discs and merchandise. Security became a more pressing issue the longer the tour proceeded, crowds of fans broke down barriers on several occasions. The four band members harboured a genuine fear that they may be the victim of an assassin’s bullet while performing on stage. By the tour’s end all four had hardened their resolve to draw a curtain on touring (‘The Beatles’ 1966 US tour’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org).
Postscript: Hello/Goodbye! The Beatle’s final ever concert (leaving aside the impromptu rooftop jam in London in 1969) at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, didn’t play to a full house, resulting in a loss for the local company organising the event.
𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜
1⃞ for which the four performers to some extent blamed Brian Epstein resulting in a loss of confidence by them in his managerial skills
2⃞ “Go Home Beatles!”
3⃞ a disastrous PR move as Epstein had been advised by the British ambassador to accept the invitation as the band’s security while in the country was in the hands of President Marcos (‘A Hard Day’s Night in Manila’, www.beatlesnumber9.com)
4⃞ John in fact proceeded unhelpfully to pour petrol on the fire by criticising the American military intervention in Vietnam which added to the backlash (at that time 90% of Americans still backed the US’ war in Indochina)
Manchurian “California” — the Zheltuga “Republic” of Adventurer-Bandit Prospectors
Amur/Heilong River basin (Photo: WWF–Russia/Y Darman)In 1883 in a remote region of Northeast China gold was discovered near a tributary of a tributary of the great Amur River by hunters from the local Orochen (or Oroqen) tribe➀. Once word got out, aspiring prospectors flocked to the location on the Zheltuga stream from far and near. The bulk came from Russia, peasants and workers from Siberia and beyond. Many chancers came from Blagoveschensk, by boat to the Cossack station at Ignashino, just across the river from the gold strike spot. Many of these were miners who had deserted from the Amur goldmining district (of which Blagoveschensk was the centre). The gold discovery also became a magnet for all sorts of criminal elements including escaped convicts and deportees from the Far East including Sakhalin Island.
A multi-ethnic mix
As more and more miners joined the hunt for gold, a community given the name of Zheltuga grew up, by 1885 there was around 10,000 miners in residence. Russians were the dominant group but the Chinese (mainly Manchus but also some coolies from Shandong province) made up possibly as much as 10% of the population. Others who joined the diggings included Koreans, Orochens, Frenchmen, Germans, Americans, Poles, Jews and Siberians. The population of the mining community was very fluid, the chancers would dig frenetically for the precious nuggets and if favoured by fortune, they wouldn’t hang around, no one stayed long at the goldmining caper in the Zheltuga camp, a couple of months being about the average➁…the mining community was in “a state of constant flux” [Gamsa, Mark. “California on the Amur, or the ‘Zheltuga Republic’ in Manchuria (1883-86).” The Slavonic and East European Review 81, no. 2 (2003): 236–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4213684].
Nine of the 10 headmen of Zheltuga (Photo: Earth Science Museum & Moscow State University)༓ ༓ ༓
Administration and rough-hewn code of civic duties Despite (or because of) the wildness of the camp and the dubious morality of many of its residents, Zheltuga didn’t function in an ungoverned, anarchical manner. To maintain order and keep Zheltuga’s rampant violence, murder and mayhem in check, a political structure was established with an elected leader and an executive of ten headmen or foremen. A code was promulgated with harsh penalties for breaches of the community’s law – execution for murder, flogging and banishment for lesser crimes. Major decisions affecting the community as a whole were made democratically, meetings of miners (Orlinoe poe) were held in the central field (Orlovo pole/“Eagle Field”) with the entire assembly voting on the matter at hand.
Colours of the Zheltuga republic’s flag༓ ༓ ༓
Leaders (rather grandly termed “presidents of the republic”) also tended to come and go in regular fashion…the first leader went by the name of Adolf Karlovich Fass, a man with a mysterious background, variously thought to be German, Italian (Karl Fassi?) or Jewish in origin. Fass’ short tenure in charge was terminated when he was arrested by Cossack forces and disappeared. Briefly filling the void apparently was an equally shady figure from the Cossack stations named Sakharov. One of the camp’s last leaders was the better known Russian lawyer Pavel Prokunin who led armed resistance against the Chinese assault on Zheltuga before being deposed as well (Gamsa).
Photo: Earth Science Museum & Moscow State University༓ ༓ ༓
Commerce in a frontier proto-state As the camp’s population swelled, a rudimentary township grew rapidly. To service the burgeoning numbers on the goldfield there were 160 shops by 1885 including 18 hotels and taverns, bath houses, a theatre, a church, a hospital, a billiards saloon and even a circus. A sex industry for the miners (Zheltuga was decreed a male-only community) was set up on the Russian side at Ignashino. Also popular on the goldfield were the spiritonosy (“alcohol carriers”) merchants—mainly Jews and and “Old Believers” from Transbaikalia—who sold vodka to the miners. Businesses in the Zheltuga ’republic’ were required to pay tax [‘ Zheltuga Republic’, Wikipedia, https://en.m.wikipedia.org].
With the mining of gold Zheltuga’s raison d’être the camp was inevitably tagged with the nickname “California on the Amur” in reference to the more famous, earlier American gold rush. Another name it acquired was Novaia Kalifornia (“New California”). Similarly Ignashino’s proximity to the Manchurian prospecting epicentre earned it the sobriquet Ignashinskaiia Kalifornia.
Source: MAMM / MDF / russiainphoto.ru༓ ༓ ༓
Heightening political instability on the border The Zheltuga gold mine was located within the northern frontier of imperial China. The Qing authorities’ slowness to act on this trespass on sovereign Chinese land was due to Peking’s ignorance of the goldmining activity. Russia conversely was well aware of the situation and the local region command tended to usually turn a blind eye to it. When the veil dropped from Chinese eyes, the governor (amban) of Aigun (Dongbei China) protested to the new Russian governor-general of Priamur region Baron AN Korff about the illegal gold mine on Chinese territory. Finally forced to take some action, Korff in 1885 moved to bring the community under rein…supplies were cut off and a Cossack cordon was imposed to block Russians passing to the Chinese side and the miners were compelled to sell their gold to the Cossack commander Prince Wittgenstein at a set price. (Gamsa).
Curtains for the “Amur California” The Chinese Qing government issued warnings to the Zheltuga community to disband its operations on Chinese soil. Initially the miners retreated to the surrounding taiga (boreal forest), pretending to have vacated the camp, only to return to their diggings afterwards. Peking eventually got jack of the miners‘ refusal to heed its demand they vacate the camp, finally taking decisive military action. In early 1886 a detachment of 1,600 Chinese soldiers attacked the mining camp, dispersing the Russian miners who were allowed to skedaddle back over the Amur➂…the Chinese miners were not so fortunate, those caught while fleeing were summarily massacred by the troops. The camp was subsequently razed to the ground. The following year an officially-run Chinese gold mine was established nearby in the village of Mohe (today China’s northernmost city).
Postscript: Hóng-húzi, an imagined “Red Beard” republic of proto-communist Chinese brigands A curious sidelight to the Zheltuga story is the mythical “Hóng-húzi republic”, the invention of two late 19th century French writers (Messieurs Ular and Mury) both of who travelled to the region and wrote separate accounts. Both concocted alternative versions of the Zheltuga episode as Chinese outlaw republics in northern Manchuria (Ular: ”Feltuga republic”| Mury: “Cheltuga republic”). The essentially “Russian enterprise with a proportionally limited, though nonetheless intriguing, Chinese participation” was recast as “an egalitarian republic of Chinese ‘red beards’” based on communist principles. The myth gained some traction at the time and persisted well into the 20th century. Mark Gamsa described the “Red Beard” saga as “a jumble of myth, rumour and unverified bits of factual information…(fuelled by) “an inventive spirit” [Gamsa, Mark. “How a Republic of Chinese Red Beards Was Invented in Paris.” Modern Asian Studies 36, no. 4 (2002): 993–1010. www.jstor.org/stable/3876481].
§§§§§§§§§§§§§§
➀ a Manchu-Tungus linguistic ethnic minority of forest hunter-dwellers in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia
➁ some got no further than the local (Chita) casino, set up to relieve them of their hard-earned moolah (‘How Russians secretly set up their own ‘California’ in China’, Boris Egorov, Russia Beyond, 03-Feb-2021, www.rbth.com/history/333347-russians-secretly-set-up-california)
➂ leniency was shown to the Russian miners as Peking didn’t want to antagonise Moscow and worsen relations with the Russian Bear
Manufacturing Beatlephobia in the Holy Land: Beware the Rhythm Beatles – Corruptors of Israeli Youth!
▪ ▪ ▪
This is a story about how Israel missed a golden opportunity to get the Beatles, then on the cusp of greatness, to perform live before Israeli audiences. The “Fab Four” were supposed to tour the country in 1965, concert tickets were even printed for what became a non-event. At the time the official account of why the Israeli government didn’t let the concert tour proceed was the fear of the deleterious effects that the Liverpool band were likely to have on the local youngsters. Citing the teen frenzy created by Cliff Richard’s 1963 concert hullabaloo in Israel, the authorities deny entry to the ‘Rhythm’ Beatles (as they were called in Hebrew) less they ”corrupt the minds of Israeli youth”. A follow-up investigation by a Knesset finance committee finds that “the band has no artistic merit” and reinforces the assertion that they were liable to “cause hysteria and mass disorder among young people” (Resolution 701). The local conservative press echoes the ’outrage’, describing the band’s music in hyperbolic vein as “yeah-yeah–yeah howls which are capable of striking dead a real beetle”.
▪ ▪ ▪ Cliff Richard: not wholesome enough for Israel? ▪ ▪ ▪ Thus the Beatles’ fans in the Jewish state never got to see the biggest band on the globe play live⍟. No doubt the desire of Israeli politicians to keep out the ‘pernicious’ influences of “sex, alcohol and rock‘n’roll” in the early 1960s was part of the thinking, however evidence emerged during the Aughts demonstrating that the (official) narratives presented in 1964/1965 were in fact apocryphal. A 2007 Israeli musical documentary Waiting for Godik by Ari Davidovich and subsequent investigations by Israel historians Yoav Kutner and Alon Gan unearths more personal considerations guiding the decision.
▪ ▪ ▪ Giora Godik, Theatrical promoter (Source: Lama Films)
▪ ▪ ▪ The true story—apparently—starts in 1962 with the mother of the Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein✥, she apparently makes an offer to Israeli music promoter Giora Godik for the not-quite-yet famous Liverpool band to perform in Israel. Godik rejects the offer and instead invites the better known-internationally Cliff Richard to do a concert the following year. Fast forward two years and Godik’s rival Israeli promoter Yaakov Uri trumps him by securing the rights to a Beatles’ concert in the country. To get back at Uri for being “one-upped”, Godik successfully lobbies the Israeli authorities to veto promoters from taking out foreign currency (thereby making the whole undertaking financially unsustainable)…Godik persuades the bureaucrats by apparently playing up the bad publicity engendered from the Cliff Richard concert. A dispute between rival Jewish music promoters – and neither of them got the Beatles!
▪ ▪ ▪
End-note: In 2008 the state of Israel issued an official apology to the Beatles via a letter to the surviving sister of John Lennon for the 1965 snub, citing lack of budget and the contemporary concerns of some members of the Knesset⌖ as the reason for pulling the tour.
Retro McCartney sparking a mini-Beatlemania revival in Tel Aviv (Source: abc.com.au)▪ ▪ ▪
◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨◩◪◧◨
⍟ though they did finally get to see one-fourth of the band, Paul McCartney, perform there solo in 2008, triggering a new, short-lived wave of Beatlemania in Israel
✥ an Ashkenazi Jew
⌖ at the time of the incident some insiders within the country pointed the finger at Israel’s matronly prime minister Golda Meir
༺ ༺ ༺
Articles and sites consulted
‘The Beatles and Israel’, The Beatles Bible, Updated 16-Mar-2018, www.beatlesbible.com)
‘Truth after 42 years: Beatles banned for fear of influence on youth’, Toni O’Loughlin, The Guardian, 22-Sep-2008, www.amp.theguardian.com)
‘A Beatle (finally) coming to Israel’, Matti Friedman, The Inquirer, Aug 28-Aug-2008, www.theinquirer.com
Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, a “Twin Cities” Odd Couple on the Sino-Russian Border
Image: Moscow Times
The greater part of the boundary separating Russia from China comprises a 2,824-kilometre river – known as the Amur to the Russians on the northern side and Heilongjiang (meaning “Black Dragon River”) to the Chinese on the southern side. At the river’s confluence with the Zeya River is a curious juxtaposition of urban settlements on the border of the two great Asian powers – Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, facing each other across the river, two small cities similar in size and separated physically by less than 600 metres of water.
Image: russiatrek.org
Heihe, a prefecture-level city within the province of Heilongjiang, only came into existence as recently as 1980 (an earlier town called Aihui or Aigun was located in the vicinity, some 30 km south of contemporary Heihe). Blagoveshchensk«𝓪» is the capital of the Amur (Amurskaya) Oblast in Russia’s Far East with a controversial back story. Cossacks built the first Russian outposts here (then called “Ust-Zeysky”) in the 1850s, on land that under the terms of the 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk between the Russian tsar and the Qing Dynasty that Russians had been evicted from. Blagoveshchensk (or ‘Blago’ as it is often shortened to) came into being after an opportunist Russia forced China to acquiesce to the inequitable Treaty of Aigun in 1858…the Qings lost over 600,000 sq km of territory in Manchuria including the Amur River site of the future city of Blagoveshchensk. The resentment felt by the Chinese at the unjust 1858 Treaty was magnified in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion when the Russian authorities in Blagoveshchensk forcibly deported the city’s Chinese community resulting in around 5,000 of the fleeing refugees losing their lives in a mass killing. In modern times Heihe/Blagoveshchensk has been the scene of violent confrontation between Soviet and Chinese troops. In 1969 the two countries fought a battle close to the ”twin cities” over a disputed island in the Amur/Heilong river – at the cost of hundreds of casualties.
Amur/Heilong River (Source: worldatlas.com)
By 1989—the year in which the border between the USSR and China reopened after being closed for much of the century—Heihe was still a small village. During the following thirty years Heihe has witnessed the rapid growth and accelerated development associated with many Chinese cities (eg, Shenzhen), a flurry of commercial activity with mercantilist purpose, a flourishing of modern high-rise apartments and even some greening of the city. Conversely Blagoveshchensk, older and more settled, looks “sedate and almost stagnant” by comparison…seemingly resistant to the modernising example of its nearby neighbour. [Franck Billé, ‘Surface Modernities: Open-Air Markets, Containment and Vertilcality in Two Border Towns of Russia and China’, Economic Sociology, 15(2), March 2014, www.repository.cam.au.uk].
Blagoveshchensk tertiary institution
Heihe and Blagoveshchensk over contemporary times have evolved diametrically different urban landscapes. Blagoveshchensk’s taste in architecture tends toward a kind of “horizontal functionalism” (Franck Billé). It’s structures which includes some classical public buildings as well as surviving grey concrete remnants of the Soviet era adhere mostly to a flat, horizontal form«𝓫». Urban planning is faithful to a rigid grid format and retains a “Roman fort” quality. Heihe, on the other hand, in its modernisation projects the iconic vertical model of the Chinese mega cities to its south (high-rise on overdrive, modern shopping malls, etc). Structures like the large Heihe International Hotel sit jutting out prominently on the riverside promenade (Billé).
Heihe lightshow (Photo: Maxim Shemetov/Reuters)
Heihe’s vibrant exterior can be viewed as a pearl set against the beigeness of Blagoveshchensk’s static oyster. At night Heihe’s waterfront becomes a glittery cornucopia, a spectacular colour light show advertising itself to the other side. The stark contrast between the two towns is reminiscent of a similar chiaroscuroesque nocturnal effect observable with the northern Chinese city of Dandong and its barren ill-lit North Korean neighbour 500 metres across the Yalu, Sinuiju. While Heihe’s edge sparkles, Blagoveshchensk’s riverbank remains largely underdeveloped. Notwithstanding the drabness of Blagoveshchensk many of its citizens remain unimpressed by their showy twin’s persona. Blagoveshchensk skeptics describe Heihe as a “Potemkin village”, a flash exterior hiding a poor and dirty reality below the surface, and the evening light show a transparent bait to lure Russian visitors and their roubles from across the Amur [Joshua Kucera, ‘Don’t Call Call Them Twin cities’, Slate, 28-Dec-2009, www.slate.com].
Sculpture of a kiprichi (Source: Indian Defence Forum)
༄࿓༄ The proximity between the Russian and Chinese towns has led to patterns of interaction, especially after the 1989 border opening when Blagoveshchensk day-trippers began making shopping expeditions to Heihe to buy cheap consumer goods, clothing, the latest electronics, etc. Some Russians segued this into a nice little earner, commuting to the Chinese side, buying in bulk and transporting the goods back to Blagoveshchensk in suitcases to resell at a profit. They were known as kiprichi, also acquiring the less flattering nicknames of “suitcase traders” and ”bricks”. The bottom fell out of this two-way trade however in 2014 when the value of the Russian rouble disintegrated against the yuan. The suitcase trade was no longer profitable for Russians, finding their main source of trade with Heihe had disappeared down the gurgler. The devaluation also had a deleterious effect on many Chinese traders who had set up business in Blagoveshchensk (Kucera).
Russian dolls in Heihe (Photo: Zhang Wenfang/chinadaily.com.cn)
Mutual development?
༄࿓༄ The potential for larger scale cross-border exchange between the two cities has been slow to take root, not for lack of commitment or effort on the side of Heihe. Blagoveshchensk has repeatedly dragged its feet on initiates for joint commercial and industrial projects proposed by the Chinese, this is despite China being the Amur region’s largest trading partner! A case in point is the highway bridge connecting Heihe and Blagoveshchensk, essential to expand north Asian trade by integrating the two sides’ road networks. First mooted in 1988, the Russians procrastinated and procrastinated regarding committing to the project which it was envisaged would increase the flow of goods and people between the two towns exponentially…work only commenced in 2016 and construction finalised in late 2019 (still not opened in 2022 due to the ongoing pandemic). Heihe city became a free trade zone in 1992 and boosted by funding from Beijing as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), has strived to forge local (Dongbei/RFE) economic integration with it’s Russian twin town (even tying it to Moscow’s Siberian gas pipeline plans) [Gaye Christoffersen, ‘Sino-Russian Local Relations: Heihe and Blagoveshchensk’, The Asian Forum, 10-Dec-2019, www.theasianforum.org ].
Russian Far East demographic vulnerability ༄࿓༄
Blagoveshchensk’s reluctance to wholly engage with Heihe as partners in joint developments tap into prevailing Russian fears and anxieties about its giant southern neighbour, with whom it shares a porous 4,200-km border. With the Russian Far East being population poor and resource rich, Russian concerns about the possibility of future Chinese future designs on the vast, sparsely-populated territory—including the perceived threat of ‘Sinicisation’«𝓬» (being culturally overwhelmed by the far more numerous Chinese), Chinese expansionism and the balkanisation of the RFE—are never far from the surface. Concerns which are made sharper by awareness of the persisting sense of injustice felt by China at the 1858 Treaty (Billé).
Image: http://gioffe.asp.radford.edu/
Postscript: Siberian exports, casino tourism ༄࿓༄
Over the last several years there have a few optimistic signs that Blagoveshchensk is tentatively opening itself up to more trade with Heihe. In the last decade Amur Oblast’s exports (mainly soy, timber, gold, coal and electricity) to China have risen by 16% , and in the same period Chinese visitors to Blagoveshchensk increased tenfold aided by the hosts putting more effort into creating a more attractive environment for tourists, eg, the introduction of casinos in Blagoveshchensk to cater for Chinese gambling aficiandos. Of course, as with the new cross-border bridge, COVID-19 has stopped all of these positive developments dead in their tracks for now [D Simes Jr & T Simes, ‘Russian gateway to China eyes ‘friendship’ dividends after COVID’, Nikkei Asia, www.asia.nikkei.com ].
ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็ก็็
«𝓪» = “Annunciation”, literally meaning in Russian, “city of good news”. The traditional Chinese name for Blagoveshchensk is Hailanbao
«𝓫» with some exceptions such as the 65-metre tall, hyper-modern Asia Hotel
«𝓬» Kitaizatsia in Russian