Searching for the “Old Glory” of Kyrgyzstan’s Coal Mines

Several hundred meters underground, Emylbek Oumarov, pickaxe in hand, detaches blocks of coal, the best in Kyrgyzstan, despite the latent danger in these Soulouktou mines which have swallowed up dozens of miners in recent years.

“It’s scary, it’s hard, but there is no other work here,” the 27-year-old miner told AFP during a brief respite.

In these guts lit by a few lamps hanging from the ceiling from which drops of water ooze, fits of coughing resound.

Miners at a coal mine in Soulouktou on December 13, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

Those of his comrades, their faces blackened, who load in the stifling air nearly a ton of coal into a wagon.

Yet with a double degree in computer science and economics, Emylbek was forced, like so many others in this region on the southwestern borders of Kyrgyzstan dependent on the coal economy, to go down to the mine.

Using drill hammers, picks, shovels and explosives, he fences with his comrades twelve hours a day, fifteen times a month, day and night. For less than 150 euros monthly.

A miner in a coal mine in the city of Soulouktou on December 13, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

Before plunging into the bowels of the Turkestan mountains, the miners were tossed about for an hour on rutted roads in a Russian Kamaz truck.

In the distance, in these dented landscapes, a few silhouettes are revealed in the dewy dawn: metal skeletons of trestles dating from the Soviet era.

– “Fear” –

Nestled in the foothills of mountain ranges, the city of Soulouktou, founded in 1868, is one of the oldest coal mining centers in Central Asia.

Trucks transport coal from a mine in Soulouktou on December 13, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

Here, everything is reminiscent of anthracite: “Miner’s bread”, “miner’s non-alcoholic beer”, local football team named “Chakhtior” (“miner”, in Russian), fine coal dust accumulating on the floor. ..

This city, which “heated Central Asia under the Soviet Union”, as mayor Maksat Kadyrkoulov explains, was hit like many others by the deindustrialization following the end of the USSR, experiencing a brutal fall population and coal production.

The city of Souluktou, on December 12, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP / VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

“Here, there is no land made for agriculture, we only work in the extraction of coal and there is not a family without a miner”, he sums up.

But Mr. Kadyrkoulov “hopes Soulouktou will regain its former glory” by taking advantage of a growing need for coal in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, plagued by frequent energy crises.

a sickle and a hammer four meters high at the entrance to the city of Soulouktou, on December 12, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

At the entrance to the city, a sickle and a hammer four meters high face the gilded statues of two miners, in front of which parade an incessant ballet of trucks filled with coal.

The latter are now forced to travel 350 kilometers to deliver their cargo to Uzbekistan, the border with neighboring Tajikistan now being closed due to recurring conflicts.

On a mosaic mural glorifying Soviet power, a miner on a background of a red star faces passers-by, surrounded by four figures showing the coal mining process.

Miner Nimadjan Abdulaievich walks past a mosaic mural glorifying Soviet power on December 12, 2022 in Souluktu, Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

In the past, “it was a source of pride to be a minor”, says Nimadjan Abdoulaïevich, 64, 37 of whom spent in quarries.

“I even received the medal for + the value of work +” from the hand of Gromyko”, ex-Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs, he welcomes in a hoarse voice, the fault of throat cancer .

– “By hand” –

While no miner has lost their lives in the “black gold mine” where Emylbek, one of the five largest mining companies in Suluktu, works, headed by the jovial Kanynbek Ismailov, the risk still looms.

Miners at a coal mine in Soulouktou on December 13, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

With this sentence that comes back in the mouths of minors. “The mine is the second front, you risk dying there.”

Last year, the metal bars, planks and birch trunks supporting the seam gave way on Emylbek, breaking his leg.

“Since then, the fear has remained”, recognizes this solid young man with still youthful features. A story almost similar to that of his father Djoumbaï, who now works on the surface as a welder.

If the conditions in this mine are much better than in the quarantine that Soulouktou counts, Mr. Ismailov deplores the lack of means.

Miners carry rails outside a coal mine in Suluktou on December 13, 2022 in Kyrgyzstan (AFP/VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO)

“We recover what was not exploited under the USSR, we do everything by hand, we have no new equipment”, summarizes the forties who, somehow, tries to ensure the good -being of its employees.

Driving at full speed in his red Lada Niva back from the mine, Mr. Ismailov hurries back to Suluktu, where he is to preside over a ceremony to bless a new truck. Which will be used to transport coal, of course.

© 2022 AFP

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