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What are the dynamics of a contaminated community – in Russia or the U.S.? These six diverse chapters chart what I have called “Environmental Turbulence,” the disrupted complacency of everyday life caused by accepting information about one's exposure to environmental contamination as fact. The Theory of Environmental Turbulence (Edelstein 2004) posits that normal social and institutional networks regularly fail to help toxic victims address their needs, forcing victims to band together in common response.

The post-Cold War period allowed the U.S. nuclear legacy of ecocide to be declassified and made public. The policy of nuclear secrecy, evident in Russia (see Mironova et al., this volume), was not merely an eastern practice. Western nuclear releases were kept equally under wraps. In England, for example, the Windscale disaster was not fully disclosed until 1987.¹ Likewise, releases from the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, in Washington State, and other U.S. nuclear sites were kept undercover until the same period. The irony was that Americans learned of many of the nuclear skeletons in their closet around the time that Russians learned of theirs (see Mironova et al., this volume). It would appear that glasnost was contagious.

This paper is about some of my experiences as a sociologist, doing research at the Love Canal. The Love Canal remains an important story, because it aroused the consciousness of the world to the human and social consequences of environmental pollution. As an indication of continuing interest in that area, the 25th anniversary ceremonies at the site, early in August 2003, were well attended and publicized nationally by the mass media.

Volgograd, Russia, my home for most of my life, was entirely rebuilt after World War II. Under its prior name, Stalingrad, the city was the epicenter for what many believe was the most crucial battle in the entire war. That battle came at the cost of many millions dead and wounded and the destruction of all but one shell of a building. From this oblivion, a new city arose under the direct order of Stalin, who mobilized captured German engineers for the task. Following his concept of planning, the city would be long and narrow, hugging the banks of the mighty Volga River for some 80km. The width would involve only two main thoroughfares with side streets. The narrow profile would allow for farms and dachas to be close by on one side and the river on the other, providing bounteous and accessible food. Residences were organized in neighborhoods formed around key enterprises lining the river to meet their needs for water. The neighborhood designs allowed workers to easily walk to work. It was a truly utopian scheme.

This chapter analyses conditions under which residents of a small Russian town accept the concepts “pollution” and “ecological risk.” The town in question is Sokol in the Vologda oblast of the Russian Federation, where there are two pulp and paper mills and other forest industries. Sokol is a typical small town with a population of about 40,000. The pulp and paper mills are locally run. The issues surrounding Sokol's pulp and paper mills generally present a typical Russian picture (Kuliasova & Kuliasov, 2002a, 2002b) with one major exception. Industrialization in Sokol goes back more than a century and thus reflects the broader history of the 20th century.

The deteriorating relationship between humans and the environment is a cause for our concern. On one hand, the human influence on nature has resulted in global climate change and a decline in the health of the world's oceans. On the other hand, it is evident that humans cannot adapt to new ecological conditions, as evidenced by new diseases. Is there any way out of the crisis?

In both natural sciences and social sciences, there is relative agreement about the fact that the 20th century saw great diminishment of the earth's natural resources. In addition to dwindling materials and space for human activities, our industrial mode of natural resource consumption brought various ecological problems, including waste, and pollution of water, soil, and air.¹ The specifics of any given social system influence an individual's perception of pollution of the surrounding environment and its consequences, and also influence the reaction of a society in general to ecological problems. In other words, different societies develop different collective and individual strategies for coping with problematic situations related to “technogenic” pollution of the environment. This article, based as it is on an in-depth case study, analyzes the peculiar relationship of people to ecological issues in Russian society. Research was carried out in the city Dzerzhinsk, which, throughout the Soviet period, was proudly called the “Capital of Soviet Chemistry.” This city is thus a demonstrable example of the Soviet period, and the history of the city will serve as a lens through which we will analyze contemporary ecological problems of the city and the relations of its citizens to these problems. Dzerzhinsk was selected for study after it was described in newspapers as “the dirtiest (i.e., most polluted) city in Russia.”

In the cold war era, perhaps there were no greater heroes of the Soviet Union than the as many as 700,000 firefighters, workers, and military personnel who fought the blazing fires at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor that burned out of control for months until smothered by a makeshift concrete structure, called the “sarcophagus” built to contain radioactive releases. Whether this sarcophagus will last as long as the Egyptian monuments, its name evokes has been a matter of grave continuing concern. And it is doubtful that its symbolism as a lasting evidence of 20th century life will be equally appreciated through the ages. But in April 26, 1986, northern Europe had been placed in dire peril by the catastrophic accident in the number 4 reactor at Chernobyl. Smoke pouring from the fires lofted high in the sky to carry radioactive contaminants eventually across the Northern Hemisphere. Some 100 million curies of radiation were released within 10 days of the initial explosion, comprising the word's worst civilian radiation release (Lawrence Livermore, 1999). And, the reactor threatened to unleash a nuclear explosion that would have dwarfed the effects of what already was the world's worst nuclear accident. The situation demanded extreme sacrifice (see also Zykova, this volume).

The chapter compares the factors involved in environmental altruism, the willingness to involve oneself in working for environmental and ecological goals, in Russia and the United States. The lead authors developed the idea for the research from their participation in the grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding, examining how Russia and the United States deal with contamination in their communities. We were the only clinical psychologists in the group that toured in Russia, and we both taught young people at universities, sometimes in courses that dealt specifically about the environment, but more usually in courses that helped prepare them for their roles as psychologists. Because of our clinical perspective, we had several discussions about the role of the individual in dealing with the environment. The role of the individual is particularly critical to environmental issues in Russia. Although Russia has even more strict environmental laws than the United States, its level of enforcement has been minimal. At the same time, environmental activism is a relatively new phenomenon there and it faces cultural and social barriers. While activism plays a major role in the United States to keep the system functioning, efforts to deal with contamination in the United States generally occur on a political and legal level in the context of creating and enforcing laws. While the U.S. activists are hardly satisfied with the system's functioning, a greater level of creativity and commitment is needed from Russian environmental activists to help the nation even reach this level of routine enforcement of environmental laws.

Personal life experience is not sufficient for an adequate environmental risk evaluation. People cannot understand environmental danger without having necessary information. Once established, however, environmental awareness has a direct influence on people's evaluations and, consequently, on their lifestyles (Sjoberg, 1996).