At the foot of the Northern Urals and at the end of a railway track which brought death to tens of thousands of prisoners lies the Russian Arctic town of Vorkuta.
Built on cemeteries which appeared as soon as this mining town was founded, an embodiment of failed communism's victory over nature, it seems eerily surreal in the blinding scene of snow-white tundra and sky. Blizzards sweep through the desolate streets, and gaping grey walls gaze despondently at bright murals of coal miners welcoming one to "the treasury of the Arctic".
Today, Vorkuta, one of the country's main mining towns, closed to foreigners until last August, faces an uncertain future in a world which has just opened before its eyes.
Life is hard here. Temperatures can jump from-40 to-10 degrees centigrade in the course of a few hours. Because Vorkuta lies within the Arctic Circle, it has 20 percent less oxygen to breathe. The flogging weariness of endless polar nights and days add themselves to a total lack of recreation apart from television, drinking and football when the blizzards aren't howling.
The sense of isolation is acute and now the feeling of abandonment by Moscow is growing.
When Moscow reigned supreme, workers streamed to towns in the Far North like Vorkuta because of the benefits showered upon them. Miners, once called the elite of the Soviet working class in official propaganda, were given an instant 60 percent salary increase plus automatic 10 percent annual increases for the next five years. They had 80 days of vacation per year and travel was free.
But having saved for 20 years to spend their old age by the Black Sea, many died soon after retirement -- their bodies could not adapt to the sudden climatic changes. Some did not make it to the Black Sea at all: The average life of a miner in Vorkuta is 47 years.
While miners used to come from all over Russia, work for 15 or 20 years, and then build dachas in the South, today they are trapped. Their savings are worthless due to runaway inflation, their meager pensions may soon be refused in the former Soviet republics, and the high cost of building materials makes the idea of building a house more of a reverie than a reality.
Hardest hit are the non-miners, 60 percent of the town's population. Living on an average Russian monthly salary of 900 rubles, compared to a miner's salary of 16, 000 rubles, they, unlike the miners, feel they have no recourse for improving their wages". If we went on strike, nobody would care. We might even lose our jobs in this time of cost-cutting", complained a middle-aged female researcher at the local history institute.
"Today, Vorkuta is a town of slaves", said Alexander Pavlov, head engineer of Tsentralnaya mine, one of the town's 13 pits.
"I am against price liberalization and so are many miners", he said, adding that he feared that as prices are freed and subsidies vanish, Vorkuta's mines won't survive: The town's coal is of a higher quality than that found in other regions, but it is more expensive to extract.
"Who will buy our coal rather that the cheaper Ukrainian or Kazakh
stuff? " he asked.
The closure of mines threatens the livelihood of Vorkuta. Two are due to dose soon. The whole town will be affected, for the entire infrastructure, from the deer farm to the milk packaging plant belong to Vorkuta Coal, the enterprise which runs the town. Out of 430 million rubles earned from coal sales in January 1991, 201 million rubles were doled out to a multitude of enterprises, according to Nikolai Nosov, a miner's trade union leader.
Despite the fact that life in this place looks downright bleak, there is a ray of hope. Nearly half of the miners have left the old communist trade union to join the new Independent Union of Miners, founded in Donetsk in 1991. Its leaders confidently expect more recruits.
The miners have seen some improvements: A sauna reserved for the mine's directors was turned over to the miners, holidays in the South have been redistributed more fairly, and last spring the miners achieved a substantial salary increase.
In contrast to the old communist trade union, mine directors cannot be members of the Independent Union.
"The interests of the leadership and the miners do not always coincide, and we want to fight for our rights",
At one time, 700 million tons of coal were extracted annually in the U. S. S. R. to fulfill production plans, but only 300 million tons were needed for domestic use. The surplus was sold abroad or exchanged for consumer goods which the miners never saw.
Now privatization looms on the horizon and cuts in the work-force have already begun. There are no more plans to fulfill, and consequently, there is a reduction in real demand. Vorkuta's miners would like to get some of the hard currency the state once netted for sales of coal abroad, but direct exports have been banned by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He says the coal is needed for domestic use. Russia is on the road to cutting subsidies to the mines, and there seems to be little Vorkuta can do.
The town looks to the future with a mixture of trepidation and hope. Divided between miners and non-miners, a desire for the fruits of market economics and the costs it would bring to the isolated town, Vorkuta faces a tough and cruel fight.
Built on cemeteries which appeared as soon as this mining town was founded, an embodiment of failed communism's victory over nature, it seems eerily surreal in the blinding scene of snow-white tundra and sky. Blizzards sweep through the desolate streets, and gaping grey walls gaze despondently at bright murals of coal miners welcoming one to "the treasury of the Arctic".
Today, Vorkuta, one of the country's main mining towns, closed to foreigners until last August, faces an uncertain future in a world which has just opened before its eyes.
Life is hard here. Temperatures can jump from-40 to-10 degrees centigrade in the course of a few hours. Because Vorkuta lies within the Arctic Circle, it has 20 percent less oxygen to breathe. The flogging weariness of endless polar nights and days add themselves to a total lack of recreation apart from television, drinking and football when the blizzards aren't howling.
The sense of isolation is acute and now the feeling of abandonment by Moscow is growing.
When Moscow reigned supreme, workers streamed to towns in the Far North like Vorkuta because of the benefits showered upon them. Miners, once called the elite of the Soviet working class in official propaganda, were given an instant 60 percent salary increase plus automatic 10 percent annual increases for the next five years. They had 80 days of vacation per year and travel was free.
But having saved for 20 years to spend their old age by the Black Sea, many died soon after retirement -- their bodies could not adapt to the sudden climatic changes. Some did not make it to the Black Sea at all: The average life of a miner in Vorkuta is 47 years.
While miners used to come from all over Russia, work for 15 or 20 years, and then build dachas in the South, today they are trapped. Their savings are worthless due to runaway inflation, their meager pensions may soon be refused in the former Soviet republics, and the high cost of building materials makes the idea of building a house more of a reverie than a reality.
Hardest hit are the non-miners, 60 percent of the town's population. Living on an average Russian monthly salary of 900 rubles, compared to a miner's salary of 16, 000 rubles, they, unlike the miners, feel they have no recourse for improving their wages". If we went on strike, nobody would care. We might even lose our jobs in this time of cost-cutting", complained a middle-aged female researcher at the local history institute.
"Today, Vorkuta is a town of slaves", said Alexander Pavlov, head engineer of Tsentralnaya mine, one of the town's 13 pits.
"I am against price liberalization and so are many miners", he said, adding that he feared that as prices are freed and subsidies vanish, Vorkuta's mines won't survive: The town's coal is of a higher quality than that found in other regions, but it is more expensive to extract.
"Who will buy our coal rather that the cheaper Ukrainian or Kazakh
stuff? " he asked.
The closure of mines threatens the livelihood of Vorkuta. Two are due to dose soon. The whole town will be affected, for the entire infrastructure, from the deer farm to the milk packaging plant belong to Vorkuta Coal, the enterprise which runs the town. Out of 430 million rubles earned from coal sales in January 1991, 201 million rubles were doled out to a multitude of enterprises, according to Nikolai Nosov, a miner's trade union leader.
Despite the fact that life in this place looks downright bleak, there is a ray of hope. Nearly half of the miners have left the old communist trade union to join the new Independent Union of Miners, founded in Donetsk in 1991. Its leaders confidently expect more recruits.
The miners have seen some improvements: A sauna reserved for the mine's directors was turned over to the miners, holidays in the South have been redistributed more fairly, and last spring the miners achieved a substantial salary increase.
In contrast to the old communist trade union, mine directors cannot be members of the Independent Union.
"The interests of the leadership and the miners do not always coincide, and we want to fight for our rights",
At one time, 700 million tons of coal were extracted annually in the U. S. S. R. to fulfill production plans, but only 300 million tons were needed for domestic use. The surplus was sold abroad or exchanged for consumer goods which the miners never saw.
Now privatization looms on the horizon and cuts in the work-force have already begun. There are no more plans to fulfill, and consequently, there is a reduction in real demand. Vorkuta's miners would like to get some of the hard currency the state once netted for sales of coal abroad, but direct exports have been banned by Russian President Boris Yeltsin. He says the coal is needed for domestic use. Russia is on the road to cutting subsidies to the mines, and there seems to be little Vorkuta can do.
The town looks to the future with a mixture of trepidation and hope. Divided between miners and non-miners, a desire for the fruits of market economics and the costs it would bring to the isolated town, Vorkuta faces a tough and cruel fight.