{"id":157756,"date":"2026-08-09T15:54:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=157756"},"modified":"2026-08-09T15:54:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-09T22:54:36","slug":"beyond-the-surface-of-the-earth-sri-lankan-perceptions-of-russia-in-the-1960s-and-my-own-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2026\/08\/09\/beyond-the-surface-of-the-earth-sri-lankan-perceptions-of-russia-in-the-1960s-and-my-own-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Surface of the Earth – Sri Lankan Perceptions of Russia in the 1960s\u2014and My Own Journey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sarath Obeysekera\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

In the 1960s, most Sri Lankans knew very little about the Soviet Union. To many, Russia was simply a distant communist country\u2014cold, secretive and politically opposed to the West. Some believed that its universities could not match those of Britain or other Western countries. Yet I saw Russia differently. I believed that the Soviet Union was already highly advanced in science, engineering and technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That belief changed the direction of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without telling my father, I obtained an application for a Soviet scholarship, completed it and prepared for the interview. I did not even own a tie, so I borrowed one from my Advanced Mathematics teacher, Mr. Jayasundara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The interview board was chaired by Mr. Guruge, then a senior government official. He asked me a simple but decisive question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you want to go to Russia?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I told him about my family. We were eight children\u2014one elder sister and seven boys\u2014living in Gampaha. My father came from Bogahakumbura, a rural village near Welimada, surrounded by the mist-covered hills of the Uva region. An uncle who had acquired some wealth helped him obtain an education. My father studied in an English-medium school in Anuradhapura\u2014possibly St. John\u2019s\u2014where he became highly proficient in both English and Latin. He later attended the Technical College in Maradana and built a respected career in the Irrigation Department and subsequently in the Mahaweli development programme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite his achievements, my father remained an extremely simple man. He cycled from our home to the railway station every day. For many years, he would not even buy a radio for the house because he feared that it might distract his children from their studies. He knew, from his own difficult beginning, that education was the only inheritance he could confidently give us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mother\u2019s ancestral property in Gampaha originally had a modest house thatched with coconut leaves. My father later demolished it and constructed a large house from plans he drew himself. My mother had trained as a weaving teacher, but after marriage she devoted her life to raising and educating her eight children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I explained to Mr. Guruge that my father could not afford to send me overseas. If I remained in Sri Lanka, I feared that I might never become an engineer or gain international exposure. I said that I did not merely want to study what was visible on the surface of the Earth. I wanted to understand the science beneath it. I therefore requested that I be sent to the State University of Petroleum in Moscow to learn how oil and gas were discovered, extracted and processed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Guruge asked no further questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were no influential relatives, political recommendations, pulls\u201d or strings.\u201d I was selected entirely on merit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My parents learned of my selection only afterwards. I vividly remember the moment the news arrived. I was engaged in the unpleasant but necessary task of cleaning the skin of a slaughtered animal so that it could be dried and hung on a wall. It was an unlikely setting in which to receive news that would transform my entire future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, my father had been assigned to a dam-construction project. Foreign consulting engineers\u2014whom I remember as Hungarians\u2014were involved in measuring earthworks and certifying additional payments to contractors. Before leaving Sri Lanka, I travelled to meet my father, and we stayed in an Irrigation Department bungalow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Sri Lankan engineers whom we encountered frowned when they heard of my plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why do you want to go to communist Russia?\u201d they asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I replied that the Russians were already far ahead in many areas of science and technology. I wanted a sound education in petroleum engineering, although none of us imagined then that Sri Lanka might one day discover evidence of oil and gas in the Mannar Basin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I travelled to the Soviet Union  and eventually entered the Gubkin Institute of Petrochemical and Gas Industry in Moscow. I had the unusual privilege of being the only Sri Lankan\u2014and the only foreign student\u2014in my batch. That experience allowed me to study alongside Soviet students and observe, from within, the extraordinary scale at which the country was developing its petroleum, gas, mechanical and heavy-engineering industries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia did not advertise every achievement. It quietly trained scientists, engineers and technicians, built vast industries and advanced its capabilities in energy, aviation, space research, defence and heavy engineering. The outside world often saw only communist ideology. I saw laboratories, factories, universities, disciplined research and a population determined to rebuild and progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a holiday in Sri Lanka, I persuaded the chairman of the Ceylon Oil Corporation to allow me to visit the Soviet-supported oil-exploration work at Pesalai. I travelled north by bus and reached the area where the Russian specialists lived and worked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We spoke openly about the exploration programme\u2014helped, as I recall, by a few bottles of inexpensive vodka, which people jokingly claimed had been refined from petroleum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A disturbing story was related to me during that visit. According to the Russian personnel with whom I spoke, political pressure had been applied to create the impression that commercially useful oil had been discovered. I was told that oil had allegedly been introduced into a well so that it could be presented publicly as evidence of a discovery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cannot independently verify every detail of what I was told, and I therefore record it as a personal recollection rather than as an established historical fact. Nevertheless, it left me with an enduring distrust of political announcements that are not supported by transparent scientific evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The onshore exploration programme did not establish a commercially viable oil discovery. Many years later, exploration by international companies identified promising offshore petroleum systems, including natural-gas discoveries in the Mannar Basin. This demonstrated that the scientific search itself had not been foolish. What was foolish was the premature politicisation of exploration results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lankan politicians have occasionally made extravagant claims about petroleum wealth. One minister even suggested that the country could become so rich in oil that every Sri Lankan family might one day give a barrel of oil as part of a daughter\u2019s dowry. Such statements create excitement, but they also damage public confidence when they are not supported by geological, technical and commercial realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Petroleum exploration demands patience. A trace of hydrocarbons is not a commercial discovery. A discovery is not automatically a producing field. Before oil or gas can benefit a country, reserves must be independently assessed, development costs calculated, environmental approvals obtained, infrastructure constructed and markets secured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After completing my first degree with distinction, I continued my postgraduate research in Moscow. My doctoral work concerned the diagnosis of large journal bearings used in gas compressors. I completed the Soviet Candidate of Technical Sciences degree in 1977.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduation, I met a Sri Lankan minister in Moscow. Since Sri Lanka then had no established petroleum industry in which I could apply my specialised training, he advised me to seek opportunities elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I therefore travelled directly from Moscow to the West. My Soviet education opened the door to the international offshore oil-and-gas industry. I joined work connected with Statfjord B, the enormous Norwegian Condeep offshore production platform. The structure was nearly 300 metres high from its foundations to its upper sections and represented one of the great engineering achievements of its era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There I developed practical knowledge far beyond what could be learned from textbooks: welding engineering, quality assurance, fabrication planning, heavy transportation, corrosion protection, inspection, certification and offshore construction. I later worked on other major international energy projects and accumulated experience across several engineering disciplines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That foundation ultimately helped me lead Colombo Dockyard, one of Sri Lanka\u2019s premier engineering institutions. The combination of Soviet scientific education and Western industrial practice prepared me to manage complex shipbuilding, ship-repair and heavy-engineering activities. What some Sri Lankans had once dismissed as an education in communist Russia\u201d became the foundation of my international career.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My life therefore stands as evidence that knowledge should not be judged according to political labels. Science has no permanent East or West. Good engineering is built upon mathematics, disciplined observation, practical experience, honesty and respect for evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia today remains a major world power with immense scientific, technological, industrial and natural-resource capabilities. Whatever one\u2019s opinion of its politics or its present leadership, its contribution to my education\u2014and to the education of thousands of students from developing countries\u2014should be acknowledged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all, I salute my father and mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father rose from a remote village through education, discipline and determination. He denied himself many comforts so that his children could study. My mother, who had once taught weaving, gave up her professional ambitions to build a family and ensure that all eight of her children received an education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They did not possess great wealth, political influence or social connections. What they gave us was far more valuable: integrity, discipline, courage and faith in education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am now in the final stage of a long life that has taken me from a coconut-leaf-thatched house in Gampaha to Moscow, the North Sea, international oil-and-gas projects, Colombo Dockyard and the wider maritime industry. I do not know how many more years I will remain on this planet. But before I leave, I hope to see Sri Lanka become a disciplined, scientifically minded and corruption-free nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That would be the greatest tribute I could offer to the parents who made my journey possible\u2014and to the education that carried me beyond the surface of the Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regards

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sarath Obeysekera\u00a0 In the 1960s, most Sri Lankans knew very little about the Soviet Union. To many, Russia was simply a distant communist country\u2014cold, secretive and politically opposed to the West. Some believed that its universities could not match those of Britain or other Western countries. Yet I saw Russia differently. I believed that the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sarath-obeysekera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":157757,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157756\/revisions\/157757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}