Special Report 96 Kazakstan

By Herb Duane

In September 1998, I traveled to Stepnogorsk, Kazakstan as a consultant to the U.S. Department of Defense Special Weapons Agency to assist them in planning the dismantlement of a bio-chemical weapons plant that up until 1989 was involved in the manufacture of the deadly chemical agent anthrax. The plant was built in the late 70's and early 80's by the former Soviet Union.

The plant is now owned JSC Biomedpreparat, an agency of the Kazakstan Government. They took over ownership after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the establishment of the Republic of Kazakstan.

Kazakstan is the ninth largest country in the world. It is the least densely populated and potentially the richest country in Central Asia, with huge mineral resources attracting serious investment from the West. The country is almost unremittingly bleak, from it's treeless steppe to the deserts of the south, to it's decaying industrial cities. The chief exception is the cosmopolitan capital Almaty.

Kazakstan covers 2.7 million sq. km., about the size of Western Europe and is mainly flat. In terms of natural resources, it .s probably the richest country on earth per capita. The country has 60% of the former USSR's mineral resources, including large amounts of oil deposits, gas, lead, aluminum, copper, zinc, uranium, silver, gold, bismuth, cadmium and thallium 96 these last three minerals are essential in electronic, nuclear engineering and rocketry manufacturing. In 1989, Kazakstan supplied 25% of the USSR's coal and 27% of its electricity.

I flew from Boston, Friday, September 3^rd and met up with the Stepnogorsk Team in Frankfurt, Germany on the 4^th. We then flew to Almaty, the Kazakstan capital arriving late in the evening of that day.

The team was made up of David Freeman, Director, Defense Special Weapons Agency; Joan DeMay, International Project Manager; Brian Wilt, Contract Specialist; Craig Arrieghetti, Technical Specialist; Alexey Lopukhin, Interpreter and Celeste Grizard, Interpreter.

We stayed in Almaty two nights. Almaty is about 25 miles from the northern Chinese border, and is about a 6 hour flight from Frankurt. Total flying time from Boston to Almaty was about 15 hours.

Sunday morning we flew for about two and a half hours from Almaty to Akmola, located in the northern part of Kazakstan. We flew in an AN-24, which was an old Russian Aerofolt plane, our plane was about 35 years old.

The plane was a turbo-prop, seating about 30 people. There were no baggage handlers for these flights. They drove us out in a bus to the airplane, where we carried our own bags and placed them in a baggage compartment at the front of the plane. I noticed the plane had wood floorboards. I was a little apprehensive about flying, but, I must say it was one of the smoothest plane rides I've ever had. We had the same plane and pilot for the return trip.

When we arrived Sunday afternoon in Okmola we were met by a small bus to drive us to Stepnogorsk, which took about four hours.

We were put up in a former Soviet Union Spa/Rest Home that was almost completely empty, except for us. This was when culture shock set in. Our accommodations had no heat or hot water and the electricity was unpredictable. You couldn't drink the water; therefore, you had to buy bottled water. Most of the toilets have no seats and you are advised to bring your own toilet paper. And I tell you that's a must.

On Monday, Labor Day, we had our first meeting with Biomedpreparat. This opened with a general discussion of Kazakstani and U.S. concerns and a tour of the plant.

In the afternoon our team broke into two sections, Mr. Freeman, Ms. DeMey, Mr. Wilt, and Mr. Lopukhin met to negotiate the terms of the contract with the Biomedpreparat management. Mr. Arrighetti, Ms. Grizard, two plant officials and myself toured the plant to determine which equipment and process lines had to be removed to the meet the terms of the proposed contract.

My responsibility was to estimate the labor time involved, equipment needs, and dismantlement methods and convert it into local currency amounts.

In this part of Kazakstan, laborers receive between $150 and $200 per month or around $1 per hour. They also have to be transported to and from work and fed at the site. They also will be setting up an onsite medical facility and a laboratory for biological and environmental testing.

The biological equipment was contained in eight buildings; five of those buildings were underground bunkers where the final anthrax product was stored. Prior to my visit the entire plant had been decontaminated and checked by American specialists.

The plant team spent two and a half days doing their evaluations and met at meals with the negotiating team to discuss progress.

We had three meals a day at a local restaurant, most of the time we were the only ones there. I must say the food provided to us was excellent and varied.

On Thursday we all attended the negotiations and presented our conclusions and in the early evening a contract was signed to destroy the manufacturing equipment using local labor with U.S. inspections.

After the signing we retired to the local restaurant where a small banquet was prepared and each side toasted each other on the success of the negotiations and friendship between the United States and the Republic of Kazakstan. The toasts were many and required the drinking of the customary vodka.

After the banquet we retired to our rooms about midnight, packed our bags, got a couple of hours sleep and left Stepnogorsk about 3:30 AM to catch an 8AM flight from Okmola to Almaty.

Our previously arranged transportation had broken down and we were provided with two Russian made Lada sedans with drivers to take us to the airport. These cars were old and not in the best condition. One broke down twice on the way to the airport because of bad fuel and the driver had to clean out the carburetors before the trip could continue.

The equipment in the plant that has to be destroyed weighs a couple of thousand tons. It is made up of complete ventilation systems in each building and the buildings themselves are very deteriorated, since they have been left open to the weather since 1991.

Other equipment on the site includes hundreds of vacuum-sealed steel doors, like you would find on a submarine. Tanks, separators, autoclaves, centrifical pumps, heat exchanges, reactors, de-contaminations chambers, vertical and horizontal measuring tanks, butterfly valves, filters, instrumentation equipment, etc., plus miles of piping that serviced the equipment.

One big problem with the project is there is no scrap market and the used equipment market is soft. Therefore, most of the equipment will have to be landfilled.

Stepnogorsk is a city of over 40,000 people and was built in 1964. It was built as an industrial city by the Soviet Union and was a closed city to foreigners.

The city has hundreds of apartment buildings, either 5 or 11 stories. It has a few public buildings and it seems to have few public restaurants or bars. I saw no private homes, except for summer daches.

In the former Soviet Union, elevators were only allowed in buildings eight stories or higher and even then they operate only from 6AM to midnight.

All the buildings are concrete slab, or concrete panel construction and show serious lack of maintenance. The city was designed by central planning in Moscow.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the people were given ownership of their apartments, but they have little money to maintain them.

Stepnogorsk is located in northern Kazakstan, in the Asian steppes and is part of southern Siberia. Temperature in the summer can reach the 90's and in the winter can go as low as minus 100 degrees.

All the buildings are heated by district power plants and the heat is not turned on until October, there is very little hot water.

Outside the city, there is an area where people are allowed to build their summer homes called daches. The main road divides this area and on one side of the road the daches have water, which you cannot drink and on the other side of the road they have electricity, which is often irregular.

The daches, contain vegetable gardens used for preserves and are a source of great pride for the people. The people I met were friendly, proud and very intelligent, but caught in a bad situation.

One person I talked to said, "Under communism we had no freedom, but we had housing, jobs and food. Now we have freedom, but can't afford to go anywhere,

have no jobs and can't afford good food."

The Biomedpreparat offices where the negotiations took place, is a former elementary school. They have no money to renovate the building. The bathrooms still have the original equipment that was built for elementary school children. The toilets are about 12" off the floor and have no seats. The sinks are about 18" off the floor and only the cold-water faucets work. The only toilet paper I saw was strips of newspapers. These are difficult conditions for people to live and work under.

I met one woman who checked our coats at the restaurant and she must feel like a prisoner in her own mind.

I would say she is in her fifties, she was born in Germany and her father was a Russian Colonel.

When she was six the family moved to Brooklyn and her father worked at the Soviet Embassy. She went to school in Brooklyn from age 6 to 13 and then her family moved back to Russia. She had many questions about New York, but unfortunately had forgotten most of her English. I think Graig Arrighetti was her favorite, since he came from the same section of Brooklyn were she lived and he answered many of her questions.

One thing that was noticeable on the road from Okmola to Stepnogorsk was the abandoned buildings, factories and collective farms. At times there seemed to be miles and miles of abandoned industrial sites.

Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian troops were stationed in this area and when they left, they took everything they could possibly move by plane or train. This included doors, windows, rugs, tile, toilet fixtures, hardware and all types of building material. All they left were empty deteriorating structures.

The leader of our team is a very interesting person. His name is David Freedman and he is the Director of Defense Special Weapon Agency, Acquisition Management Directorate. It is an agency of about 1,000 people.

This was Mr. Freeman ' s 30^th trip to the former Soviet Union in six years. He is responsible for negotiating and supervising the dismantlement and demolition of former Soviet Union missile sites, shipyards, submarines, nuclear testing facilities, military infrastructure facilities and bio-chemical weapon facilities.

His work is a result of the Strategic Annament Reduction Treaty (START). His work is to implement this treaty by helping the former Soviet states destroy the weapons of mass destruction.

Joan DeMey is an International Project Manager and supervises the implementation of the contracts negotiated by Mr. Freeman. Her works also takes he all over the former Soviet Union and she has a deep understanding of the people and their business practices.

Brian Wilt is a Contract Specialist and a graduate of Catholic University. He is a wiz with a lap top computer. It was his responsibility to see that the contracts were correctly typed up and printed out on a portable printer he had with him. Once printed, the contract was translated by Mr. Freeman and the interpreters and given to the Biomedpreparat people.

Mr. Alexey Lopukhin was the lead interpreter and works for the On-Site Inspection Agency. He was born in the United States and is of Russian decent. He told me he learned the Russian language at home and at Russian Orthodox Sunday School.

Celeste Grizard is a skilled linguist in Russian and speaks several other languages. She also has a background with the U.S. Navy.

Graig Arrighetti is a technical expert on bio-chemical equipment. He also has a Navy background, having served on submarines.

During the trip I was impressed with the dedication of these people. Their work ethic is faultless, twelve to fourteen hour days is the norm. The unpredictable and often undependable modes of transportation and the time of travel are accepted by the team without complaint.

To me it was a very exciting and eye opening experience. It is very seldom an ordinary citizen can get an in depth view of the good work our government is doing.