Siberia – Scenes from a Russian Mine

By definition being a software implementer/trainer means working indoors, in an office, and usually someplace far away from windows. This project has been pretty standard in that regard. The first week I was here, I did not get a lot of opportunity to explore my surroundings. However, in the last few days our project tasks widened out some, allowing me to feed my curiosity about this place tucked away in a corner of the Krasnoyarsk Krai, Sibir.

This is the view from my balcony. I don’t know how far we are from the Arctic Circle. We only have light here between 8 am and 4 pm. The result is that I’ve only seen our apartment buildings in daylight on two occasions now. The rest of the time, I have to content myself with looking at the Siberian night sky.

I am one of the lucky ones who has a room with a balcony, though I don’t spend much time out on it because of the snowdrift which ensures there’s about 18 inches of snow it in at all times. On the left hand side of the frame you can see the end of the neighbour’s clothesline. In the middle-ground you can see the other apartment buildings which house the mine workers. In the distance, where the big lights are, you can see the waste dumps. It sounds worse than it is. Waste in this case means the dirt and rocks that aren’t ore-bearing. You have to move this material somewhere to get it out of the way of the good stuff and waste dumps is where that happens.

It’s easy in this business to lose your sense of wonder. After a while the size of the vehicles loses its shock value and you start taking it for granted that there are machines lumbering around you that could crush a cottage, house, and most certainly a half-ton pick-up truck without pause. It’s one reason why mines continually stress safety, safety, safety. But every so often you get the opportunity to pause and really see what is in front of your nose.

For me that opportunity came when we were on a tour of the pit operations a couple of days ago. I saw this welder working on the bucket of one of the electric shovels they use here. The bucket itself is the size of an SUV. The shovel it is attached to, the size of a small office building. The daily grind of mining makes everything look hundreds of years old. It was about -15c degree weather that afternoon, and the snow was coming down pretty hard at times. Added all together, it made for a very surreal moment.

A little further along that same afternoon I happened on another welder working in the snow. Not on the snow; in the snow. It’s a tough gig, but these guys are used to it I guess.

There’s no particular significance to this image other than the fact that I thought this bundle of wires looked kind of funky.

I don’t know what you out there associate with the word Siberia. Honestly the terrain is not that different than Canada. At least, the Canada that I know, which includes large chunks of the country west of Kenora, Ontario all the way to the shores of the Pacific. This scene could be anywhere in Manitoba, Saskatchewan or Alberta.

The three major manufacturers of off-highway mining trucks are Caterpillar, Komatsu, and Terex. Komatsu and CAT trucks I’ve seen elsewhere, but this was my first look at a Terex.

Terex at one time was owned by General Motors, but is now an independent company. It`s good thing too, since GM has fallen on some pretty hard times of late.

This particular truck is an MT 3000 series truck with a hauling capacity somewhere between 150-200 tons, which is about the same as the other CAT and Komatsu trucks here.

Behind the truck, you can see the main pit in the background. You can be thankful that it started snowing pretty hard or I would have more pictures of it. The experienced hands around the office say, “You seen one pit, you seen ‘em all.” I guess I’m not there yet. I find all of it still very interesting.

The maintenance building at this mine is about one-third the size of the maintenance building at the last mine I visited. But they stuff the trucks in anyway. There was just enough light for me to get this photo. This monster Komatsu HD785-5 is backing away from me so there is this cool motion blur.

I’ve posted pictures of this kind of thing before, but the power of hydraulics still gets me every time. In this case what you’re looking at are the two hydraulic rams which are used to lift the “box” of the mining truck to dump the material out. Each of the two rams is approximately the same thickness as my thigh and tapers down to about the same thickness as my lower leg. Maybe this doesn’t blow your mind, but just imagine what it would be like if you could lift 150-200 tons of material with your legs. Come to think of it, I wonder if this is how they train their Russian wrestlers and weight-lifters?

I wrote earlier about functionality being one of the virtues of being Russian. Closely allied to that is the view that Russians are practical to a fault. Surely they could have bought a forklift instead of producing this, uhhh, franken-fork. It looks like a 1950’s truck with the engine mounted on the back instead of the front. Then a big ole chunk o’ lead was bolted to its butt for good measure.

I have been trying for days to get some photos in the cafeteria, but as I mentioned, time and circumstance have conspired against me. I did manage to snap this one off, but it’s a little blurry. Maybe that’s a good thing. You might not want to get too close a look at what’s up for grabs. (In this case, they’re offering us shredded carrots and shredded cabbage as the salad option of the menu.)

One of the really cool things about Flickr that I enjoy is the exposure to a lot of really amazing photographers. The problem is that one can very easily get discouraged too if one gets into the comparison game. The remedy I’ve found is to remember to enjoy photography for itself and for yourself. Take pictures that you want to go back and look at again and again. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Anyway, I was poking through the photos I wanted to upload and was tickled again by how gosh-darn lucky I felt having bagged these images. No matter how you cut it, snow is tricky and shooting into the sun even more tricky.

To complete the thought I mentioned at the start, some software guys are absolutely fine with being indoors all the time because it makes projects in more-than-out-of-the-way places like Siberia that much more bearable.

Not me. I love the outdoors and no less here in Sibir than anywhere else. So I gleefully take any offer I get to go out on a field trip. This particular time we needed to survey the sight-lines for our radio network along a new road being built to a new pit site north-west of the current operations.

On the way out to the new site I was made aware of how a pea might feel in a whistle or baby’s rattle. This is because Russians don’t use seat belts. It’s bad enough on their regular dirt roads. It gets 10x worse on the roads they need a 4-wheel drive for. I had to try and wedge myself into my seat by jamming my boots into the frame of the passenger seat in front of me.

This was the jeep and driver who were detailed to take us out on our survey. Standing to the right of it is Vladimir ostensibly taking a picture of Denis taking a picture (I cropped him out of the frame). Thankfully there wasn’t anything hairy with fangs in the woods behind me scoping me out scoping them out.