After years of isolation, Siberian town booms
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TOMSK, Russia: Half a continent east of Moscow and sitting on a frozen swamp the size of France, the city of Tomsk has struggled economically since the Trans-Siberian Railroad passed it by at the end of the 19th century.
Now, it is at the forefront of a Siberian economic boom, fueled by the post-Soviet privatization of oil companies and, more recently, by high oil prices.
Oil and natural gas companies build sports clubs for the residents of Tomsk and playgrounds for their children. They finance schools and universities, and their workers and executives spend money in the bars and restaurants that have sprung up in this city of half a million people.
"The oil companies are competitive and jealous, so they try to outdo each other by building new stuff for the city. So, for us, it just gets better all the time," said Alexei Bykov, who serves drinks at Vechny Zov, or "Eternal Calling," an upscale restaurant and lounge. He patted a pile of tip money left by oil company executives.
To show how far Tomsk has come in the last 10 years, Bykov, a 24-year-old Tomsk native, notes that President Vladimir Putin brought German Chancellor Angela Merkel here in 2006 to show off Siberia's oil assets. He points to pictures of the two smiling leaders, taken in the establishment where he now works.
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The Trans-Siberian Railroad, which runs between Moscow and Vladivostok, passes 260 kilometers, or 160 miles, south of Tomsk through the city Novosibirsk, a trajectory that consigned Tomsk to economic isolation for nearly 100 years.
Tomsk, known for the charm of its brightly colored wooden mansions, survived as Siberia's university town until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the subsequent privatization of the oil companies, which kicked off its current boom.
Yukos, formed in 1993 and once the largest Russian oil company, started a tradition of supplying fellowships at the local universities. Although Yukos was declared bankrupt in 2006 and its former owner, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, was sent to a Siberian jail for tax evasion, the company's assets passed to state-controlled Rosneft and the tradition continues.
Around a fifth of the city's population attends one of Tomsk's 10 universities and institutes, many of them on scholarships to pursue petroleum-focused courses. Students come from Novosibirsk and other parts of Siberia, and from as far away as Kazakhstan.
The average monthly salary in the city is 13,000 rubles, or $531, on par with the national average, and oil workers can earn as much as 50,000 roubles a month, said Vladimir Yemeshev, deputy governor of the Tomsk region.
Parts of Russia that are not so blessed by natural resources, like the Caucasus region of Ingushetia, can have an average wage as low as 1,800 roubles.
"Of course there's a big difference between those regions that have oil and those that don't," said Yemeshev, a former oil executive. "Those that don't have oil, don't have rubles."
Russia, the second-largest oil producer in 2006 after Saudi Arabia, is experiencing its longest economic boom in more than a generation, fueled by oil prices that have climbed to $100 a barrel from around $10 a decade ago.
The Russian government estimates that the country's economic growth rate reached 7.6 percent last year.
Though this has helped make Russia the world's ninth-largest economy, the wealth has not been spread evenly, with much of the benefits being concentrated in Moscow.
But from a luxury hotel in Tomsk overlooking a large statue of Lenin, where a room costs 7,000 rubles a night and fresh mozzarella is shipped in weekly from Italy, Siberia seems to be surging ahead.
Mercedes cars and new sport utility vehicles dominate the city's rush hour, and advertisements for the newly opened Benetton and Valentino stores hang above the traffic.
"There's been significant change within Siberia. Downtown Tomsk looks like you are anywhere in Europe," said Bradford Clark, a Canadian executive working for Imperial Energy, an oil exploration and production company.
"They can now walk into a shop and buy some nice things," said Clark, who has spent 18 years working in various parts of Siberia.
Imperial Energy, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange, finances two orphanages, helps students attend university, and even lined an avenue in Tomsk's city center with trees.
In Tyumen, a city 1,000 kilometers west of Tomsk, it is a similar story; several luxury hotels and shopping malls selling designer clothes have opened.
The good times show every likelihood of continuing. The Tomsk region has proven oil reserves of 25 billion barrels, just under a third of Russia's total reserves, according to West Siberian Resources, a Swedish company that operates four oil fields in the region. The Tyumen region has even greater reserves.
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