Vorkuta: Death according to plan

In my imagination, Vorkuta seemed much more than it in reality. I have never been there, and everything I know is that there are mines in it, as in Donetsk. Only in permafrost. The very word "Vorkuta" causes very wide associations, and it is surprising that only 60 thousand people live there. And almost all of them are somehow associated with coal.

Coal in Vorkuta mines Severstal. Here is what Sergey Proskuryakov, a mining of mountain -house excavation machines at the Severnaya mine, writes in the VKontakte group: “I would like to tell everyone what is actually going on in our mines. This is a forgotten place by God, the management of the enterprise creates everything he wants to earn more money. There are many violations of the safety precautions of rocks. For example, the well -known fact is that in our shaft the sensors were twisted that fix the content of methane gas in the air. At the direction of the authorities, the devices were set up so that they did not go wild and show the numbers that correspond to the norm. In fact, the content of methane in the mine is much higher than the safety rules require. Now those who gave instructions to twist the sensors, let them look into the eyes of the relatives of the dead miners. ” Actually, this is all you need to know about coal mining in Vorkuta to understand why the authors of the petition against the company's administration urge it to be publicly shot.

On Sunday, I called one of the authors of the petition against the leadership of Severstal. I wrote down the conversation with rather obvious answers, what it is about and why. Natalia told me that the mines should be closed, that people are perishable in them constantly. Not always such a number of victims, but death does not rest for a minute. In the end, already about to get a pipe, asked: "Where does your husband work?" “He is a miner,” Natalya answered in some fallen voice. "What, he agrees with you that the mines need to be closed?" “No, my husband does not share my opinion. He says that if you close the mines, no one will have a job at all. ” - "And if he dies?" “He says: if I die, you will receive compensation, so don’t worry.” - “Tell me, how does he rest if he goes to work all the time, thinking that he will die for compensation? Does he somehow behave especially? " “No, he behaves quietly.” Here, in fact, is the whole conversation.

In Vorkuta, this is a story about terrible patience. In such a place, nothing should distract from this.

My colleague Grigory Tumanov described his impressions of a terrible story with a woman who cut off the head of a four -year -old child: “Always the most terrible crimes - whose motive is not understood. I did not understand and do not understand what happened to Evsyukov then when he arranged a massacre in the supermarket, I don’t understand what kind of Rozhna this nanny created this horror, I still do not understand who and why it was necessary to kill Nemtsov. The most terrible thing is that very often even after the punishment of guilty answers does not appear. ” And here, in Vorkuta, there are also no answers.

It doesn’t even occur to me to ask why Russia did not invest in Vorkuta for some other development of this region. Did you put it somewhere? Where the mining companies in Russia get something from the Earth, everything is dying except the booty itself. And the happiness of the living depends only on the climate, the method of production and added value. Coal in this sense is the most unlucky product, northern especially.

The Donetsk miners were easier in something: they had a choice to leave the bottom to the militia or leave for another Ukrainian city-with nothing, but alive, two hours by bus. But they themselves could not stop, the war stopped many. The miners in Vorkut do not have their own local militia, except to go to the Donbass.

In Vorkuta, this is a story about terrible patience. It seems to me that in such a place nothing should distract from this. People are ready to die according to plan so that everyone does not lose their jobs together. Maybe if the mines are closed, Vorkuta will disappear. But it will not disappear.

We are all in this Vorkuta, without answers, so it seems so huge.