The miners of the Darasun mine ended the hunger strike after receiving all the payments. The Darasun mine demanded money from the Uryumkan group

In Transbaikalia, 20 miners who were laid off from the Vershino-Darasunsky gold mine began a hunger strike on Monday due to delays in their legal payments. In total, about 500 miners, who were laid off in July-August, did not receive settlement payments on time. This was reported in the administration of the Tungokochensky district of the region. The protest action started this morning near the administration building of the village of Vershino-Darasunsky. The miners' demands for debt repayment are addressed to the Yuzhuralzoloto group of companies, which includes Darasunsky Rudnik LLC.

Hunger strike participant Inna Babenko said that now all laid-off miners are registered with the employment service. “That is, 500 people ended up on the street with no money at all,” Zabmedia.ru quoted the protester as saying. Babenko added that the workers called the office of the presidential envoy in the Siberian Federal District, but "there is no action." “We intend to stand to the end, we will starve until the debt is repaid,” Babenko said.

As Novy Den reported, on May 18 of this year, 81 people refused to leave the Yugo-Zapadnaya mine of Darasunsky Rudnik LLC due to salary delays. The amount of wage arrears to 873 employees of the Darasunsky mine amounted to 16 million 419 thousand 850 rubles. The prosecutor of the Trans-Baikal Territory, Vasily Voikin, informed the prosecutor of the Chelyabinsk region, where the owner of the mine is registered, about the incident. Arriving together with representatives of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the FSB in the Tungokochensky district, Natalya Zhdanova went down into the mine. After meeting with the head of the region, the miners went to the surface. At the same time, it became known that the Management Company YuGK (a group of companies Yuzhuralzoloto) is going to close the unprofitable Vershino-Darasunsky mine. Later it was reported that Yuzhuralzoloto decided to sell Darasunsky Mine LLC to the Trans-Baikal gold mining company Uryumkan.

Chita, information service of RIA "New Day"

Chita. Other news 18.09.17

© 2017, RIA "New Day"

At the Darasunsky mine in Transbaikalia, the miners went on a hunger strike. On the morning of July 24, 33 miners announced this, by lunchtime there were already 90 people starving.

The reason for the protest was the delay in the payment of wages, interruptions in which began in May.

The action of the miners was heard by the Investigative Committee - its employees arrived at the mine to study the situation on the spot. And the prosecutor's office noted that the management of the mine has already been exposed. In other words, a submission has been made related to non-payment of wages to employees, the issue of bringing him to administrative responsibility under Art. 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (“Violation of labor legislation”).

This is not the first protest at the Darasun mine. In May last year, 81 employees of this enterprise refused to leave the Yugo-Zapadnaya gold mine due to dissatisfaction with the size of the salary, which was also constantly delayed.

Then it was possible to calm the miners only after the visit of the governor of the region Natalya Zhdanova. But her promises did not last long, and already in September of the same 2017, about fifty former employees The mine has been starving for several days due to delays in paying salaries.

Around the same time, Konstantin Strukov, who owned the mine, hurried to get rid of the troubled asset: his JSC Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies (UGK) sold 100% authorized capital company "Uryumkan". This solved the problem of Strukov, but, apparently, it did not solve the problem of the miners.

Hopes for new owners did not come true. At one time they paid regularly - and here are new delays and new hunger strikes. The current total debt of the employer to the miners is 35 million rubles. Prior to this, the owner of the enterprise shifted the existence of problems to Promsvyazbank, which allegedly does not want to transfer funds to the mine from own funds its owner Uryumkan LLC. Although the stumbling block, as they say, is the owner's unfulfilled credit obligations to the bank.

Vitaly Koidan, General Director of Uryumkan LLC, said that in 2017, when the Darasunsky mine became part of the company's structure, negotiations were underway between the owner and Promsvyazbank on lending to the mine in the amount of 800 million rubles. “This decision gave a chance to launch the enterprise. However, the bank began reorganization, and the issue of lending was postponed indefinitely,” said Mr. Koydan. According to Evgeny Rogalev, general director of the Darasunsky mine, Promsvyazbank refuses to transfer money because of Uryumkan's loan obligations: Uryumkan took loans for $50 million, $8.9 million should be repaid this year, but the bank assumes that the company will not repay this amount ... ".

Promsvyazbank itself stated that the bank had never financed the Darasun Mine project of the Uryumkan Group of Companies. However, the bank announced its readiness to communicate with the owners of the Uryumkan Group of Companies on this topic. A strange position - if they didn’t give a loan, why negotiate? So they probably did.

Somehow they tried to influence Promsvyazbank repeatedly - including through local government departments. However, one can hardly expect significant support here.

The press service of the governor Zhdanova sees the situation somewhat differently, considering the fault is not the sanitized Promsvyazbank, but the fact that the management of the Uryumkan group of companies does not cope with its obligations to the bank. And in the end, starving miners remain hostages of the situation.

As reported on the eve of TASS, referring to the general director of the enterprise Yevgeny Rogalev, on July 27, workers began to receive wages for May and June, and decided to end the strike. But none of the other media confirmed this message. Perhaps this is a kind of "misinformation" to relieve some tension. They gave something so that the miners would not buzz or simply wishful thinking.

Yes, and a strange thing - there are so many disputes around where to get the money and who is to blame for their absence, and not for the first year, but as soon as the miners went on strike, the necessary millions were immediately found. Strange, don't you think?

Are the "black miners" to blame?

But let's look a little around what such passions are. Darasun mine is a mining enterprise for the extraction and enrichment of ores from the Darasun gold deposit. Located in the urban-type settlement of Vershino-Darasunsky, Tungokochensky district, Trans-Baikal Territory, Russian Federation.

Until the 1990s, the mine worked without interruption. On October 1, 1998, it became the property of ZAO Talatuy-Chita. Gradually, the company curtailed production, reduced staff. In November 2000, the mine closed completely.

Since November 2001, Darasunsky Rudnik LLC, a subsidiary of Russdragmet LLC, which manages the assets of the British Highland Gold Mining Ltd in Russia, has become the owner of the enterprise. The company has built a new gold recovery plant in the village with a design capacity of 450 thousand tons / year, and since 2004 has started gold mining.

Life in the village began to improve - but after a fire that occurred at the mine in September 2006 and claimed the lives of 25 people, gold mining at the enterprise was stopped and was not carried out until it was sold to YugK. Gold production here was resumed in December 2007.

Now the enterprise is once again going through the process of transfer from one hand to another and is idle. And all this leads to one important question - why is such a strategically important enterprise and once a gold mining giant on the brink of death?

It is noteworthy that according to the ex-management of the mine, in particular, Mr. Strukov, one of the main reasons for the decline is the activity of "black" miners. Like, no matter how the billionaire’s henchmen tried to overcome this misfortune, they did not succeed, so it was decided to sell this industrial facility for a penny (according to some reports, for about one billion rubles).

By the way, the purchase of the mine by Yuzhuralzolotom from Canadian Highland Gold in 2007 cost $25 million. Initially, the project was considered quite promising. But life has shown that the gentlemen believe, and she disposes.

But it is not worth blaming people who live in beggarly conditions and try to earn a living through illegal diligence. Yes, almost everyone here extracts gold using artisanal methods: from young to old. In the abandoned mines in the vicinity of the village, sometimes even whole families climb. How else? There is no infrastructure, the majority of the population is not provided with jobs. Even during the period when the Darasun mine was working at full capacity, the number of vacancies there was limited - about 700. This is despite the fact that over 5 thousand people live in the village - and there is nowhere to work here except at the mine.

The rest also had to somehow survive. Here they hunted and hunted illegally. And the miners themselves free time from their official work they were engaged in shadow gold mining. Their salaries can hardly be called "gold".

Although the total amount of illegal mining is very small, and Mr. Strukov's version that his enterprise in Vershino-Darasunskoye fell to its knees due to illegal gold mining is a so-so version.

In fact, the inhabitants of Vershino-Darasun extract pitiful crumbs of precious metal in abandoned mines - and this could not knock the industrial giant off his feet.

The essence of the fall of the enterprise into the economic abyss is completely different - the management did not seek to modernize the mines in technical terms. They just pulled gold from the mine and that's it.

The bulk of the proceeds from the Darasunsky mine went to help Strukov's controlled mining enterprises in the Chelyabinsk region and in the Republic of Yakutia. For example, in the Yugo-Zapadnaya mine, where the first strike of workers took place, for several years they could not bring the mine shaft back to normal. There was a feeling that Mr. Strukov bought the mine for ... temporary use.

Dig at the risk of life - but without it, starvation

Illegal mining in Darasun has flourished since its discovery. In the middle of the 19th century, gold diggers rushed to Vershino-Darasunsky and hard laborers went; in 1861, the merchant M. Butin became the owner of the mine. We can say that almost nothing has changed in 150 years.

After the collapse of the USSR, Vershino-Darasunsky suffered the fate of most Russian single-industry towns: the mines closed, their workers were fired, people began to leave. Those who remained became "black" miners - there is no other way to survive.

However, this activity, with all possible benefits, is life-threatening. They tell what last years about 20 people went missing in the village. Bodies are found in the mines almost every year. Sometimes conflicts between diggers lead to victims. Often they end in death - many in Vershino-Darasunsky have weapons.

An important factor in the mass illegal mining are high prices and relatively unproblematic sale of gold. If we take the price of gold in rubles per gram calculated by the Central Bank of Russia daily, then in recent years the cost of gold has grown in price from $300 per ounce (31 grams) in 2000 to almost $1800 in 2011, it has grown in price and on the black market. Now there is a slow decline dynamics, but this does not mean that it will always be so.

Everyone in the village knows the buyers, but no one touches them. Sometimes the Chinese come to Vershino-Darasunsky to buy gold in batches - they can be sold a little more expensive and directly.

Buyers also come from Central Asia. Gold is most often transported to Chita or Krasnokamensk, a city bordering China, where there are more buyers. Sometimes they come across in the FSB networks. Some diggers are trying to ship gold to China on their own - for example, last spring they tried to take out 1.5 kilograms of gold in bread.

But they are not particularly afraid of criminal liability here. The main thing is not to get caught with a lot of explosives and not to sit down for terrorism. Oh, and don't get caught with a lot of gold.

According to the law, criminal liability occurs in the event of episodes with damage from 1.5 million rubles (this is the approximate price of 600 g of gold). But usually the "black" diggers during police raids find less and they get off with administrative fines from 3 to 5 thousand rubles.

The state does not provide for special sanctions for unlicensed use of subsoil. The activities of "black diggers" formally fall under the provisions of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Illegal business".

One of the main factors for the development of "black" prospecting are low wages in production with hard labor miners. It is impossible to provide a good salary due to outdated equipment and technologies.

There is an unspoken arithmetic in the artisanal artels - if a worker has 2 kg of gold per year, the earnings will be worthy. On Darasun over the past 20 years the best indicator in rare years it was 300-400 grams per worker. At first, YuGK provided average salary at the mine about 40 thousand rubles, at the processing plant up to 25 thousand rubles, but due to insufficient production volumes, he reduced it with the help of coefficients to 12-18 thousand rubles.

The lack of work in the village led to an increase in crime. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Trans-Baikal Territory, 13 criminal cases were initiated in 2016, 10.7 kg of gold were seized from illegal circulation. 5 cases on 7 crimes were sent to the court, but only two were considered. In both cases, they were given 5 years of suspended sentence. According to one fact, there was a fine of 500 thousand rubles.

Despite the gold under their feet, the younger generation sees only the surrounding poverty. When a strong wind blows, electricity often goes out in the village: power lines are flimsy and can fall. At night, there is no light here at all, and packs of stray dogs run through the streets. Garbage heaps all around, clean up local budget no money.

There is no special leisure for young people in Vershino-Darasunsky. When teenagers do not go down into the mines, they wander around the village, sit with beer at the war memorial or in the entrance. Here they joke bitterly - leaving Vershino-Darasunsky is the easiest way in two ways - to join the army or go to prison.

According to a teacher at a local school, many teenagers go down into the mines after school and on weekends, and then sleep in class. But the woman does not undertake to condemn anyone. “There will be no mine, there will be no these trips to the galleries - there will be no gold. If there is no gold, murders will begin,” she is sure.

A resident of the village agrees with her, whose son spends 20 days a month in the mines. “If they fail completely, there will be a famine, as in the 1990s, they will, as then, kidnap dogs and eat them,” he says. “Then I lost three shepherd dogs.”

In the 2000s, when about two thousand people lost their jobs due to the closure of mines, people began to mine gold on their own in order to survive - returning to what their great-grandfathers did a hundred and fifty years ago.

The head of Transbaikalia, Natalya Zhdanova, spoke two years ago about the need for a law on free-bringing - in 2003, such a law was even adopted in parliament, but Vladimir Putin did not sign it and sent it for revision.

In 2017, the Ministry of Natural Resources proposed to allow individual gold mining in Kolyma, and already this March, the representative of Transbaikalia in the Federation Council proposed introducing gold mining patents in the region - but so far all these initiatives have not been continued.

And the Trans-Baikal leadership, and specifically Governor Zhdanova, failed to push through the initiative to legalize free-bringing in a single region. This would make life much easier for people in places where there is nothing else to do but go down into the mines at your own peril and risk. So, in fact, all the diggers of Vershino-Darasunsky remain outside the law.

To combat them, the authorities fill up illegal mine entrances almost every year. Several times they fell asleep with people inside - however, there were no casualties: the gold miners simply found other manholes to get to the surface.

In 2016, it came to an open conflict. When the management of the operating Yugo-Zapadnaya mine tried to fill up illegal passages, dozens of diggers lined up near adits with crowbars and saws. The service of bailiffs came to the rescue, but the residents of Darasun felled trees on the way to the village and laid spikes on the road. Then the OMON was called to the village. It was only after this that the mines were closed. The next day they dug them out - it took one and a half to two hours.

All owners and workers have strained relationships. Here they say that last year's strike began after the management of the mine reduced their coefficient labor participation and at the same time gave out half of the salary, forcing to sign as for the full one. They almost openly told the workers - you still trade and earn money by “black” diligence - in fact, rob the enterprise, which means we will save on you.

Then more than 80 miners descended 400 meters and did not leave the mine for several days, declaring a hunger strike. The bosses did not begin to dive with the workers - the debt to them was paid off, but the mine was closed.

At the same time, the CEO, after working for three months, wrote a letter of resignation for own will because of the constant threats of the inhabitants of the village. “He didn’t allow connections to electricity, he didn’t give out fuel for unreasonable work,” he said. “In the current situation, when there is no support from the authorities and pressure from semi-criminal structures on me, I ask you to release me from the post of director, as I fear for my life and will not return to the Trans-Baikal Territory.”

Will help come from Chita?

In the current situation of the mine and the settlement around it, the position and support of the regional authorities is especially important. For the past few years, the region has been headed by Natalia Zhdanova. Before understanding whether the miners can count on help from Chita, it is worth looking at how Transbaikalia generally lives under the leadership of Mrs. Zhdanova.

And he lives, frankly, so-so. Once visiting Chita, the chairman of the Council of Federations, Valentina Matvienko, was horrified by the state of affairs in the region and in the regional center. “I was very upset by such neglect and neglect of the city. I had a very serious talk with the leadership of the city. This is a complete disgrace,” said Valentina Matviyenko, explaining that the local authorities had promised to take action.

Will they just accept it? Natalya Zhdanova has been in power for more than two years. Little has changed during this time. And not only for this, but since the last century.

Even 30-40 years ago, it was striking that in the villages and towns of the region (then it was the Chita region) there was no central electrification. In each village, a diesel generator was simply running, which turned off at midnight. Farther locals lived in the old fashioned way, with lamps.

And it turns out that in many rural areas of Transbaikalia everything is still the same. The same diesel generators, the same lamps after midnight. And this is in the 21st century! Should we be surprised at the culture shock experienced by native Petersburger Valentina Matvienko?

At one time, Natalya Zhdanova was a close associate of her predecessor, Konstantin Ilkovsky. How he led, they still remember with a shudder.

In particular, Ilkovsky was accused of completely ruining the system of regional education. He was replaced by Natalya Zhdanova. Many thought that now the situation will change. However, the new governor turned out to be a worthy successor to Konstantin Ilkovsky. And local education almost sank even lower, and all the other numerous problems of the region remained problems. So, the replacement of the governor so far is a replacement of “sewn on soap” - nothing more.

But education is only one of the "hot spots" of Transbaikalia. There are countless of them here. And the Darasun mine is also one of them. And judging by the reaction of the governor, who sees the fault of the owners of the mine in what is happening, there is nowhere to expect help from the miners. Although, if Mrs. Zhdanova wanted to show herself as an adult leader, the first ones she had to lend a helping hand to were the residents of the dying workers' settlements. Until they stretched their legs...

And one by one businessmen come to the unfortunate mine, pull gold veins from it, then give it to another. Some quickly fill their pockets, while others, in order to get at least some salaries, are forced to go on a hunger strike.

Such is our country - gold is lying underfoot, and people swell from hunger. And Darasun boys after school still change into uniforms and climb into abandoned mines - in the hope of happiness or their own death. How else to survive if no one cares about you - neither the state nor the regional authorities ...

Nine participants of the hunger strike at the gold mining enterprise "Darasunsky Rudnik" LLC in the Trans-Baikal Territory ended up in district hospital due to pressure issues. The miners went on a hunger strike on July 24 due to non-payment of wages.

"For some, the pressure dropped to 110, for others it rose to 160, 83 miners continue to participate in the protest action, in total 92 people supported the hunger strike," Andrey Mikheichev, a mining drilling and blasting foreman, told Interfax.

According to him, the miners intend to continue the hunger strike and seek repayment of wage arrears.

The head of the enterprise, Yevgeny Rogalev, left for Chita, where he will meet with the presidential envoy to the Siberian Federal District, Sergei Menyailo, and the governor of the Trans-Baikal Territory, Natalia Zhdanova.

In turn, the press service of the regional Ministry of Health reports that during the first day of the strike, the condition of the people was satisfactory. On July 26, after another medical examination at the enterprise, nine people were taken to the district hospital for a more thorough examination and a decision on their possible hospitalization.

"People complained of dizziness, malaise due to high blood pressure," the report says. Examination of miners who have declared a hunger strike is carried out twice a day by the paramedic of the local hospital in the village of Vershino-Darasunsky. Earlier it was reported that the miners of the Darasun mine LLC went on a hunger strike, demanding the repayment of wages.

As of July 24, 2018, wage arrears for May-June 2018 to employees amount to about 32 million rubles, Interfax clarifies.

"The last time, in May, all the miners were given 1,340 rubles each, everyone thought it was an advance. Since then, they stopped paying. Today, my husband's wage arrears are about 200 thousand rubles, he has not even received vacation pay," - said the wife of one of the workers Yulia Shchukina.

Earlier it was reported that a case was initiated against the company "Darasun mine" administrative offense under Art. 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation ("Non-payment on time wages a person previously subjected to administrative punishment for a similar offense"). Checks of the incident were organized by the territorial body Federal Service for labor and employment and the regional department of the RF IC, TASS clarifies.

In recent months, this is not the first performance by the miners of the Darasun mine. On May 17, about 80 employees of the enterprise went on strike and refused to leave the mine. Before that, the management said that the miners would be paid only 30% of their salaries due to failure to fulfill plans. In April the miners went on strike again. Then they wanted to cut their salaries by half, but after the protest they were paid in full. At the same time, Sergei Menyailo, the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Siberian Federal District, came to the mining village. In September 2017, about 50 former mine workers went on a hunger strike for several days due to delays in paying salaries. It was reported that on September 19-20, people

Photo: Denis Grishkin / Vedomosti / TASS

The Uryumkan company paid 32 million rubles of debt to the employees of the Trans-Baikal gold mining enterprise Darasunsky Mine after a hunger strike that forced about 90 desperate miners. This was followed by the announcement that the mine would be suspended from 1 August due to financial problems. The protesting miners, meanwhile, actively joined the ranks of the newly created trade union organization. The head of the regional committee of the GMPR fears that the city-forming enterprise may be closed.

“A”-REFERENCE

Darasunsky Rudnik LLC is a Russian gold mining enterprise. It is located in the urban-type settlement of Vershino-Darasunskoye in the Trans-Baikal Territory. Until 2007, the mine was owned by Highland Gold Mining Ltd. Roman Abramovich, in 2007 - 2017 the asset was owned by the Chelyabinsk Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies, controlled by businessman Konstantin Strukov. In September 2017, he sold the mine to Uryumkan LLC, registered in Chita.

HUNGER STRIKE

On July 24, miners at the Darasun gold mine in Transbaikalia began a hunger strike due to wage arrears. The next day, the number of hunger strikers reached 70. Andrey Shishkin, chairman of the Trans-Baikal Regional Committee of the Mining and Metallurgical Trade Union of Russia (GMPR), told Solidarity that up to 93 people participated in the hunger strike at the peak of the protest. In the prosecutor's office of the Trans-Baikal Territory, the enterprise's debt to employees for May and June was estimated at 32 million rubles. Three days later, the miners began to receive the first payments, and the hunger strike was ended.

In July, a decision was made by the initiative group to hold a hunger strike. At first, there were 30 people starving, at the very peak their number reached 93. Only the mine did not work, although all the mine workers did not receive wages. Money for payments was found with the help of the government of the Trans-Baikal Territory and the presidential representative for the federal district. The owner of the mine received a loan and paid for May-June, including holiday pay. The hunger strike was terminated, as the main requirement was met - a salary for two months was paid. Now the money for July should go, if the salary is delayed again, a new hunger strike is possible, - Shishkin believes.

According to the trade union leader, the payments are likely to arrive on time, since the authorities do not need a hunger strike now, especially on the eve of the September elections to the Legislative Assembly of the region.

This is not the first time that Darasun gold miners have resorted to extreme measures to get the money they have earned. So, in September 2017, the miners were paid a debt of about 38 million rubles after the hunger strike. And the first protest at the mine took place in mid-May 2017. Then more than 80 miners refused to rise to the surface, organizing a spontaneous strike.

SIMPLE

After the issue of payments was resolved, the management of the Darasun Mine announced that due to financial problems, production would be suspended from August 1 for two months. Accordingly, all workers not involved in the life support of the mine during this period will be paid two-thirds of their earnings.

The former owner of the mine - "Yuzhuralzoloto" - announced its intention to close production. But in order to save the enterprise, it was sold to Uryumkan LLC. According to the results of the first half of this year, the company even became one of the leaders in terms of growth in gold mining in Transbaikalia.

Director General of Uryumkan LLC Vitaly Koidan explained that in 2017, negotiations were underway between the owner and Promsvyazbank on lending to the mine in the amount of 800 million rubles, but the bank began to reorganize, and the issue of lending was postponed indefinitely. All this time, the mine lived at the expense of Uryumkan's own funds. And now he needs a loan to restore it. According to Evgeny Rogalev, General Director of Darasunsky Mine LLC, Uryumkan will look for an investor or negotiate with another bank.

If funds are not found, the mine may be completely closed, the head of the Trans-Baikal Territory Committee of the GMPR trade union fears. And this, meanwhile, is a city-forming enterprise and the largest source of taxes for the budget. municipality Vershino-Darasunsky with a population of just over five thousand people. 428 people work at the mine, 70% of them are local residents, the rest are shift workers.

The mine never recovered from the 2006 fire when the central mine was closed. Now, instead of five mines, only one works. The mine has gold reserves, you can still work, but you just need to invest in development. The current owner has no funds yet. In my opinion, in the saddest scenario, the Darasunsky mine will face the fate of the Zhirekensky GOK, - Andrey Shishkin believes.

The Zhireken mining and processing plant in the village of Zhireken, Zabaykalsky Krai, was shut down in October 2013 due to lower prices for molybdenum and ferromolybdenum. They are trying to attract small and medium business, but to no avail.

CREATING A PROFORGANIZATION

In April 2018, the primary trade union organization, initially 13 people joined it. During the days of the protest, people actually saw that the trade union was defending their rights, and the starving people began to actively join the ranks of the trade union organization.

Ksenia Cheberyak, chairman of the primary trade union organization Darasunsky Mine, told Solidarity that although trade unions do not approve of such methods of waging a struggle as strikes and hunger strikes, preferring to act in other ways, they supported the hungry in every possible way.

People have already forgotten what a trade union is, but when they saw that we are trying to protect their interests, we are negotiating with the leadership, the authorities, we are resolving issues with drinking water for the hungry, they realized that the union was created to protect labor rights to avoid extreme situations in the future. And the workers began to join the trade union, on the first day of the hunger strike, more than 30 people wrote statements. Now there are already 76 people in the trade union organization of the mine, - Cheberyak noted.

The trade union leader hopes that the enterprise will live and, possibly, the downtime will end before the designated period of two months.

According to the director general, Uryumkan is looking for a way out of this situation. In particular, negotiations are underway on lending with Rosselkhozbank. If we manage to reach an agreement or Promsvyazbank will reconsider its position and give an additional loan for the development of the Darasunsky mine, it will probably start working sooner than in two months. So far, there is no decadent mood and panic among the workers. People calmed down, as they received a salary for two months. They promise to pay the July salary in August, we hope that it will be so, - said Ksenia Cheberyak.

If the owner finds a way to solve financial difficulties, then the mine will live and, accordingly, the trade union organization will also exist. At least the miners believe in the trade union, Andrey Shishkin concluded.

An administrative offense case has been initiated against the Darasun Mine company. The State Labor Inspectorate and the regional investigative department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation began checking the incident.

Yesterday morning in the Trans-Baikal Territory, 33 miners from the Darasunsky mine went on a hunger strike, and by the middle of the day the number of strikers had almost doubled. Mine workers demand payment of wages for May and June. The total debt of the employer to the miners is 35 million rubles. The owner of the enterprise claims that the bank refuses to execute the payment order for transferring money to pay wages to the mine workers from the own funds of Uryumkan LLC, which includes the Darasunsky mine. At the mine itself, they note that the bank refuses to transfer money because of Uryumkan's loan obligations.

The strike of workers at the Darasunsky mine (part of the structure of Uryumkan LLC, engaged in the extraction and enrichment of the ores of the Darasunsky gold deposit) began yesterday morning. As Kommersant was told at the enterprise, at 9 am, 33 miners, who had notified the mine administration in advance of their decision to start a hunger strike, settled down near the building of the mining department. “People demand to pay their wages for May and June,” the company said.

The head of the administration of the Tungokochensky district, Mikhail Gornov, went to the strikers. “When I arrived in the village of Vershino-Darasunsky, the number of hungry people increased to 60 people. They are sitting at one of administrative buildings enterprises. People are not going to leave the territory of the plant, they took sleeping bags with them to the strike. They were given a room where they could spend the night,” Mr. Gornov told Kommersant. He persuaded the miners to suspend the strike for two or three days, but they refused. “During this time, the issue of transferring money from Promsvyazbank should be resolved,” Mr. Gornov believes. The head of administration also said that the employer's total salary debt now stands at about 35 million rubles.

Vitaly Koidan, General Director of Uryumkan LLC, told Kommersant that in 2017, when the Darasunsky mine became part of the company's structure, negotiations were underway between the owner and Promsvyazbank on lending to the mine in the amount of 800 million rubles. “This decision gave a chance to launch the enterprise. However, in the fall of 2017, the bank began reorganization, and the issue of lending was postponed indefinitely. All this time, the Darasunsky mine lived at the expense of our company's own funds,” Mr. Koydan told Kommersant. He added that now, for reasons unknown to him, the bank refuses to execute payment orders to the mine from Uryumkan's own funds. “We wrote a letter to the bank, there is no official answer yet. One of these days the credit committee should meet, we are waiting for its decision,” Vitaliy Koidan noted. According to Mikhail Gornov, the credit committee of Promsvyazbank already considered this issue last week. Despite the fact that the regional governor Natalya Zhdanova petitioned for a positive decision, the bank refused to pay. According to the general director of the Darasun mine, Yevgeny Rogalev, Promsvyazbank refuses to transfer money because of Uryumkan's loan obligations.

The bank is insured. "Uryumkan" took out loans for $50 million, $8.9 million should be repaid this year, but the bank assumes that the company will not repay this amount, and therefore the funds are not sent to the Darasunsky mine at all, "- quotes Mr. Rogalev" Chita .RU".

The general director of Uryumkan said that the search for an investor is ongoing. “We got the enterprise in a ruined state, with outdated equipment. Of the three mines, only Yugo-Zapadnaya operated. After the fire in 2006, no restoration work was carried out at the Tsentralnaya mine. Uryumkan is working to restore the mine and pump out water,” he said. Vitaliy Koidan also said that the factory is undergoing modernization, work is underway to re-evaluate reserves.

This is not the first strike at the Darasun mine. In May 2017, more than 80 miners refused to leave the mine until their salaries were paid. In September 2017, more than 50 miners went on strike again. At the same time, the owner of the enterprise changed - the Chelyabinsk company Yuzhuralzoloto sold the asset to the Chita LLC Uryumkan.

Yevgeny Sinelnikov, senior assistant to the prosecutor of the Trans-Baikal Territory, told Kommersant that on July 16 the supervisory authority submitted a submission to the management of the enterprise in connection with non-payment of wages. According to him, the prosecutor's office is considering the issue of bringing the employer to administrative responsibility under Art. 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses (non-payment of wages).

The Investigative Committee of the ICR for the Trans-Baikal Territory began a pre-investigation check at the enterprise.

Ekaterina Eremenko, Irkutsk