Life in the "technogenic disaster" zone

At the junction of the ridges of the North-East Altai, Sayan and Kuznetsk Alatau, a small people-Shors live in the distance from civilization for two thousand years. The descendants of the Turkic nomads, they are engaged in hunting, fishing, collecting cedar cones and other natural wealth all their lives. However, today Shors can live according to the laws of ancestors only high in the mountains, on the plain their historical territories gradually absorbs Kuzbass. Watch the film by Alexei the Braud from the Unknown Russia cycle.

The Kuznetsk coal basin is one of the largest territories around the world in coal reserves. In recent years, carbon incisions have passed across whole historical shorts.

Life in Kuzbass is like in the war: either you bounce from the explosion, then you stall from the iron roar of dump trucks. In just a few years, the enrichment race turned reserved corners into places dangerous for living.

The indigenous peoples of Russia are protected by the Constitution and international law. Their cultural development, the preservation of identity, the protection of habitats, crafts and traditions are included in the duties of the state.

But despite this, the small people are constantly declining. Now the Shors are only about 12 thousand. The disappearance of the whole ethnic group was concerned even in the United Nations.

In the mining district center, Tashtagol is mined, and in these places there is a lot of gold and other minerals. The most numerous Shor communities live here.

"Do you want to live - know how to spin"

Gennady Tepchehegeshev comes from the old Shor family, which was called - Shor. He believes that his main achievement is that the family has preserved the language of the ancestors. “Today it is more difficult than going to a bear,” he says.

In the houses, Shors still do not have electricity and heating. In this regard, centuries -old historical traditions are 100%preserved.

Gennady is forced to obtain electricity himself. Sunny batteries on the roof fill the battery, this energy is enough for it for household needs.

“Here is the battery, converter, 12 volts produces. Light - 220. Do you want to live - know how to spin,” Gennady continues.

In the taiga, Gennady himself and power, and an electrician, and a baker. In the bins of the father’s house - as in the museum. The tools of work of the Schorma ancestors are still working.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the shorts were turned into a Christian faith, but always secretly went to the shamans and prayed to the sky. This continues to this day.

“People are no worse in power, no better. Everyone creates a country. You come, and the system can bring you to everything. He was a patriot, someone did not like it-and became an enemy,” Gennady argues.

Young people from Mountain Shoria are leaving to study in large cities. “Only the old people remained in the village. The youth began to leave. In St. Petersburg, to Moscow, they want where in a civilized manner,” says a local resident of Claudia Tortumasheva.

"Puffing village"

“Without light, there are no refrigerators. There are no TVs, there is no TV. We have an endangered village, everyone is trying to leave. And so there was light - the village would have been revived,” Tepchegyshev complains.

The Shors are very worried about their small homeland. To defend their rights, several activists created a public organization. But the local security officer has already threatened with an extremist article.

Valery Nemirov, the responsible secretary of the newspaper Kuznetsk Worker, has long been watching how money and financial profit turned the heads of many oligarchs. In pursuit of Siberian wealth, they destroy the familiar life of ordinary people.

"Now they mines 250 million tons of coal, destroying everything. They will soon turn Kuzbass into a zone of technogenic disaster. Now they have a task - to put 450 million tons of coal per year," the journalist says.

From black from coal production of rivers, the fish has gone, there is no longer in the taiga and animals on which the Shrities hunted. You have to go to the neighboring Tyu or Khakassia for fishing. To defend the last thing that remained, the Shors began to actively oppose the environmental disaster. The side with them are local Russians. People go out on pickets, stop the motornote of the governor. They are listened, nod, but excavators do not stop their work.

White snow near the houses of Shors are now with a coal tint. Last year in the region was declared the year of ecology, in fact, only a beautiful slogan was made of this.

Life in the village of Chuvashka is like on a powder barrel. It happens that it shakes several times a day. Here, 200 people live on the streets with Shorsky names. There are few indigenous shelters, and every year there are less and less. Due to poor ecology, people get sick, die early, leaving their health in the mines.

“I would like to leave, but because of these coal enterprises, because of this ecology I can’t sell the house. I have to live here,” the local resident says.