Valentina is in the kitchen boiling red berries into a thick, sugary jam. Her kitchen is a place of homemade jellies, pickled salads, stewed vegetables. She washes up a few dishes in a large white pan; there is no running water, so she brings rainwater in from a barrel beside the house for dishwashing, bathing and laundry.

She looks at her watch, then wipes her hands and heads out to the generator room, where she checks the barometer and measures the wind speed and direction. She then sits at a radio in the generator room, where she calls in the information to Vladivostok's Meteorological Institute. Every three hours, starting at 2 a.m., the numbers must be called in.

"What other job do you know of where you can read a book, watch a little television, even maybe take a nap?" She smiles wickedly at this last suggestion. "You're not really supposed to sleep on duty, but really, you can lie there on the couch and sleep a bit and then, pop! open your eyes and there it is! The lighthouse is still there! All is well."

Valentina grew up far from the sea, in the Siberian city of Irkutsk. "I came to Vladivostok when I was 20, to see what it was like. I thought I'd come and work for just a year or so.

"But then I met Vasily. The funny thing is, we used to look just like brother and sister. People would tell us that we looked so much alike, we had to stay together. We were married within six months."

"In between the reports and the chores and the trips into town to buy meat, cheese and other goods, the Ilchenkos have time to entertain whatever guests make their way down the steep dirt road to visit. Vasily and Valentina both are happy to indulge in a few rounds of vodka with their guests, and if things get really friendly, they will break out the homemade "samogon" -- hooch -- made by Vasily's sister-in-law.

In the late afternoon, as the sun is setting over the piles of dirt that may signal the beginning of the end of their way of life, Valentina holds aloft a shot glass filled with homemade vodka. "If they want to build this port, they will have to make room for us," she vows. "They can build us a house a little farther up the hill, but they will not drive us away.

"The ships need the lighthouse, and the lighthouse must have people working on it. Here's to our place." She drains the glass to the bottom.

[RETURN TO CHRONICLES]