(VLR) This Russian village has no high top cottages with smoky chimneys. It has no graceful white - poplar trees, no surrounding meditative ancient oaks. It has no remindful carriages and three tenderly passing with passionate tintinnabula tinkling. And it has no immense snowy fields in the winter Yet this Russian village is still strangely attractive to such a man who loves adventures like me.
This Russian village has no high top cottages with smoky chimneys. It has no graceful white - poplar trees, no surrounding meditative ancient oaks. It has no remindful carriages and three tenderly passing with passionate tintinnabula tinkling. And it has no immense snowy fields in the winter Yet this Russian village is still strangely attractive to such a man who loves adventures like me.
One sunshine morning, we visit the five floor building - sub-zone 1 at the corner of Le Hong Phong - Nguyen Thai Hoc, which is called by the people here as the Russian Village - the first collective residence area of the Russian experts working in oil and gas industry and their families. Over 30 years, the village has been peacefully standing in the middle of the city, dissolving in the young living pace of the seashore city.
The village was formed in the beginning of 1980 when the USSR experts (mainly the Russian and Azerbaijani people) who came to work in Vung Tau according to the cooperative agreements between USSR and Vietnam about oil and gas survey and exploitation. Since the early years when Vietnam had many difficulties, the experts have been sharing joys and sorrows with Vietnamese people. If Vietsovpetro Joint-Venture is said about as the biggest of a flock of Vietnams oil and gas industry, the USSRs experts then and Russias now are the people who have great merits in building foundation of this Vietnams industry.
Mr. M.A Sobolev, First Vice President of Vietsovpetro warmly welcome us like his long-time-no-see relatives, and introduces us to the guide, a Russian guy named Nikolai - an expert with over 18 years of working in Vietsovpetro. It also means that he has had nearly 18 years attaching to the Russian Village, the friendly people and land in Vung Tau. Mr Nikolai is very influent in Vietnamese and very enthusiastic.
The mild and peaceful villages area is 13 ha. Its just like a miniature of Russian society with absolute security and necessary infrastructures such as culture center, commercial center, library, schools, hospitals
The first spot that Mr. Nikolai leads us is the Viet-Soviet monument with its very beautiful and precise mass presenting the intimate and fast friendship between the two countries, the gratefulness for the pioneers in the task of searching and exploitation oil and gas in Vietnam. Mr. Nikolai tells us that there are now about 1,200 Russian people living in the village, among which over 200 engineers and experts who works for Vietsovpetro. There were once almost 5,000 Russian people in the village during the most crowded time. Nowadays, the Vietnamese engineers and experts have been step by step in charge of most works and mastered the exploitation technology, so the Russian living here is about one third of the previous time.
Meeting us at the school is Mr. Sergey Gorman, the principal of the sole school of the village. He tells us that the school was built in 1984; every morning, when the Russian experts go to work, their children go to school. The teaching content and programs here completely applies the Russian standards; that is to say that there are four semesters each year for the students from the first grade to the eleventh. The school also established many clubs which are helpful playgrounds such as the clubs of photography, football, volley ball, table tennis It has 18 classrooms with 30 Russian teachers of primary, secondary and high school. Mr. Gorman adds that there are 12 Vietnam Russian half-blooded children studying here now.
The commercial center in the village serves the particular needs of food of the Russian such as white bread, solid black bread, piroshki, apple pie, Russian mince, vegetable soup, pickling cucumbers We visit the bakery of the center and see with our eyes the hot batches of bread and loaves of cream cake made by the bakers which are waiting for the buyers. Just as what I `ve heard, The Russian people are friendly and affective!, the women bakers carefully pack some loaves of white and black bread and samsa into the bags and give us with a recommendation, For your family to taste our breads and cakes.
The villages health care center is just like a miniature of hospital with sufficient modern equipped clinic, operation room and 34 doctors and nurses who are capable to treat any dangerous disease.
The culture center is a place for people to relax and entertain with such clubs as dancing, drawing, embroidery The Russian people love hand-made things. I spot here the Russian traditional dress and some skilful hand-made decorations.
The villages cool afternoon and quietness is stirred by the laughing and talking of the children when they ride their bicycles around the quarters, some taking a walk and talking to each other in three or five-person groups. The women call each other to go shopping in the streets nearby the village. The men find their own hobby through playing football or badminton in the sport playgrounds. The life here is more and more peaceful and charming when the smell of the famous Russian fried mince pervades in the fresh winds.
Bidding farewell to Mr. Nikolai and the Russian Village, we are still attached to the friendly smiles, the warm hand-shakes of the Russian friends who weve just met, unable to leave in the sweet tune Its tranquil evening with silent song of the wind In the series of celebrating activities for the 30 year anniversary of establishing of the Vietnam-Russia Joint-Venture Vietsovpetro on July 15, the joint-venture have held the meeting to celebrate the 30 years anniversary of signing of the Convention between Vietnam’s Government and Russia’s to form Vietsovpero Joint-Venture. (June 19, 1981 – June 19, 2011)
Over 30 years of forming and developing, Vietsovpetro Joint-Venture has gained achievements in oil and gas survey and exploitation. Since 2011, the joint-venture has come to a new phase that is the first year that it carries out the Convention about continuing to cooperate in geological survey and oil and gas exploitation prolonged to 2030. On this ground, since now to 2015, Vietsovpetro’s goal is to get yearly output of oil exploitation of over 7 tons of convert oil. It will focus in exploiting the mines of lot 09-1, speeding up the survey for the lots 04-3, 04-1, 16-2 and actively studying to get more investment opportunities and expanding Vietsovpetro’s abroad operation, which give priority to Russian Federation, in the meanwhile quickly investing and changing the equipments, ensuring safe and effective exploitation the existing mines and reaching out to the deep water, offshore areas. Vietsovpetro’s development for the last 30 years has really sublimated and put a firm ground for the traditional friendship between the two countries in the years to come.
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