Nanai brick factory

We entered the village of Sinda, Nanai district (Khabarovsk Territory) during lunch break. And they saw a deserted landscape with long rows of “beds”. It turned out that bricks were drying in the “beds” - one could not help but recall the immortal song about “aluminum cucumbers on a tarpaulin field.”

This man works at a brick factory. He comes from another village because there is no other job nearby.

Another worker lives in Samarkand. He is proud that the director invites their entire Uzbek team for seasonal work every year. The crew lives in a brick dormitory at the entrance to the plant. The brick factory operates several months a year. The photo was taken inside a huge brick kiln. A team of Chinese specialists arrives for firing when so much raw brick has been prepared that it can fill the entire space of the huge firebox. Loading was scheduled to begin in two weeks, so the Chinese worker could not be photographed.

A few more portraits of workers. There are not many locals, Sindins, who work there. The work is hard, from seven in the morning to nine in the evening. Two hour break for lunch. By local, and even more so by Uzbek standards, you can earn quite well, about two thousand rubles a day. Nanais, and many Russians, prefer to lead a “traditional” way of life: fishing, hunting, vegetable gardening.

The first people came to the “beds”; the soil was compacted under piles of raw material, which would be laid out to dry.;

Devices for sifting slag. The production technology refers to the construction of the pyramids - that’s how it has remained. The main difference is in the firing in the kiln; the power of the Khabarovsk sun is not enough. The beautiful Egyptian history is hampered by several anachronisms. For example, this bandura with a star.

The clay is poured into the bunker along with slag and sand. Bricks are made from this mixture.

The machine forms a beam, which is cut with strings into a dozen bricks. The outermost “cut” is thrown back into the hopper with the mixture. A raw piece of the mixture weighs six kilograms. New timber, for example, is cut once a minute. If you divide the hours of work by the number of bars and multiply by six kilos... It’s better to do the math yourself.

The immortal Chinese three-wheeled "pepelats" transport bricks to the "beds" for drying.

At this absolutely hellish job - unloading and laying bricks to dry - a couple of women work alongside the men. In the background is a kiln resembling a casemate.

Endless plantations of drying raw bricks over the river.

The stacks are covered with mats and with film on top. During the day it is raised to allow the bricks to ventilate and dry, and at night it is lowered. When I said that this view reminded me of vineyards, the Uzbek workers laughed in unison.