How one village in Russia became epicentre of an international oil scandal

The node in Nikolayevka, now a crime scene, had a capacity to move as much as 40,000 tons a month, or about 1,300 tons a day

Residents of Nikolayevka haven’t had much to gossip about since the owner of the vodka museum over on People’s Friendship Street died, forcing the closure of the only tourist attraction in town.

But now that this hardscrabble village in central Russia has emerged as the epicenter of an international oil scandal, they say they knew all along that something bad was about to happen.

It’s here, just east of a looping bend in the Volga River, that authorities say corrosive chlorides entered Russia’s 40,000-mile network of oil pipelines, causing the first-ever shutdown of the main export artery to Europe. President Vladimir Putin