THE acoustics are the dream of any musician, the comfortable plush seats were shipped in from Italy, the marble is lavish and the larger of the two concert halls has all the machinery to make it one of the most flexible stages possible.
The arts complex, costing about $20 million (£10.7 million), would be an extraordinary asset to any city, but Khanty-Mansiysk has only about 100,000 people, is three hours’ flying time east of Moscow and is surrounded by mile upon mile of taiga and swamp.
This is the capital of Russia’s booming oil industry and one of the richest oil- producing regions in the world. Khanty-Mansiysk is its booming administrative centre, but not the oil-producing town. Take a hydrofoil down the vast Ob River and you come to the Priobskoye oilfield, the largest in Russia. Its operator, Yuganskneftegaz, accounts of 11 per cent of Russia’s output and each well lifts 22 tons a day — twice the national average.
Oil production began here 42 years ago, but in Soviet times, technology was crude, wells flooded quickly and conditions were as harsh as the climate. Then came the 1990s, when the oil buccaneers moved in. The state holdings were privatised for a fraction of their cost. Nefteyugansk, the nearby town, became the company town for Yukos, the huge company founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky. After a titanic clash with the Kremlin, in which the founder was jailed and Yuganskneftegaz assets were seized and transferred to Rosneft, the oil industry has come full circle. It is now, again, a subsidiary of the Kremlin.
Russia’s oil industry has cleaned up its act — politically and environmentally. The waste and despoilation of Soviet times have been replaced with a ruthless new efficiency. Today there is no sign of the usual dirt and litter. Detritus is removed from the sites, nature is protected and analysts test the waters of the nearby Ob. The oil boom, its managers say, will last at least another 25 years and exploration continues apace. Investment will rise by 2010 to $70 billion in this field alone. It should keep the best orchestras playing in the concert halls of Khanty-Mansiysk for years to come.