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A new raw material base for ferrous metallurgy is being formed in the Polar Urals
S.V. ROGACHEV
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Priuralsky district. Village of Kharp. Symbolic sign railway. At the top there are “flares”, “northern lights”, meaning the name of the village. Below them are images of an excavator (extraction of mineral raw materials: in the past - mainly crushed stone, now also chromites) and a reinforced concrete slab (Yamalzhelezobeton enterprise, which produced structures for gas workers in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug). On the left (on the shadow side) below is the earth’s hemisphere and the inscription “67th parallel”.
Was there Harp?
Was. Kharp arose long before chromium began to be mined on Rayiz, and even before chromites were discovered here. The settlement began in the 50s, when a railway line was laid from the Pechora Mainline to Labytnangi (it was to become the first section of the great Salekhard-Igarka transpolar route). Started from Podgornaya station. The name clearly conveys the geographical location: at the eastern slope, at the foot of the Ural Mountains, near Rayiz. Later, perhaps not wanting to humiliate the populated area with the prefix “sub-,” the station was given the opposite in vertical coordinates, high, the name is Northern Lights, or, in Nenets, Kharp. After all, although Kharp is mainly a Russian village, it still lies in the Yamalo-Nenets Okrug (at that time the autonomous ones were also called national).
The population of the village is 7 thousand people.
Kharp in the North area
Despite the Yamalo-Nenets and, accordingly, Tyumen affiliation, Kharp, hanging on an iron branch growing from the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, was essentially a continuation of the Komi. The continuation of the system of correctional labor institutions, which had long been based in Komi, also extended here. In 1961, a correctional labor colony number 3 (ITK-3) was founded near the Kharp station.
The main enterprises of the village were a crushed stone quarry founded in 1969, a crushing and screening plant and a non-metallic materials plant. Subsequently, they were merged into the Yamalneftegazzhelezobeton company. They made reinforced concrete sleepers for gas pipelines, piles for building houses on permafrost, and slabs for roads. And all this - through Labytnangi - went beyond the Ob: to geologists and gas workers. They did what was necessary to master the energy resources of the West Siberian North.
Harp. Church on the territory of a correctional labor colony.
Photo by O. Gusarov. 2007 Sobory.ru (People's catalog of Orthodox architecture)
Based on the Cis-Ural North, Kharp served as one of the base points for the development of the gas Trans-Urals. At the end of the 70s, when the activity of gas workers in the Yamalo-Nenets District sharply intensified, the need for precast reinforced concrete increased. The forces of ITK-3 became insufficient, and in Kharp in 1981 another colony was established - ITK-18. It became the main reservoir of labor for production. The convicts built the Northern microdistrict of Kharpa; They built the “Smile” kindergarten.
The 18th is a very remarkable place in the penal system. This is one of five colonies designed to hold life prisoners, or, as they are called, “death row”.
The 3rd colony of Kharpa (ITK-3, or “troika”) also recently gained special fame: in 2005-2006. Co-founder of Menatep Bank P.L. was imprisoned here. Lebedev, convicted in the same case with the co-owner of the Yukos oil company, former Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation (in Yeltsin’s times) M.B. Khodorkovsky. Then Kharp became a salon celebrity - he was visited by correspondents from almost all the frivolous Moscow publications.
This is how an Izvestia correspondent described these places in 2005: “Two mountains seem to hang over the zone. When Lebedev was taken to Kharp, one of them, the one that is now snow-covered, was still completely red, due to the autumn leaves on the trees, but the second, both then and now, is completely black. These are chromites coming to the surface. There is so much ore in the mountain that for many years it has been mined here in industrial quantities and sent in railway cars for processing in Chelyabinsk. And these spurs of the Polar Urals are rich in jasper, jade, serpentine, and volcanic tuff. They are bread for prisoners from the “troika”, colony OG No. 98/3, where Platon Lebedev is now imprisoned. Candlesticks, boxes, and coffee table covers made of stone are a significant component of the colony’s income.”
Change of milestones: Kharp in the Ural area
And indeed, the stone boxes are like real ones Ural Bazhov's tales. Since the 90s, Kharp has lost its significance as a “construction gateway” to the gas Yamal. The production of prefabricated reinforced concrete became too expensive (imported cement became more expensive, railway tariffs rose sharply), and the activities of Yamalzhelezobeton almost ended. The colonies "closed in on themselves." Kharp lost the significance of a step on the spatial ladder of the Center-Komi-Polar Ural-North of Western Siberia.
And then the Ural industrialists paid attention to him. Indeed, the Urals, even Polar, are not just a stone from which you can fill crushed stone - a building material for gas workers. These seem to be metal ores, coal, and gems. This is what allowed the Middle and Southern Urals to develop, and what is already sorely lacking there. In the Kharp area, a new wind of interests blew - not from the southwest, but directly from the south.
Hey, bludgeon, UP-UP!
The potential riches of the Subpolar and Polar Urals have been talked about for a long time. However, the geological knowledge of these inaccessible and very unfavorable territories for life is low. Many deposits have been discovered. But few of them have been studied to the extent where we can speak with confidence about the volume and quality of reserves, their recoverability and suitability for use with existing processing technologies.
Nevertheless, the project to build a meridional railway along the eastern slope of the Urals has already received government approval, and in 2009 it will begin to be implemented. This is part of the promoted project “Ural Industrial - Ural Polar” (it was even declared a party project of “United Russia”). Journalists immediately wittily shortened the name of this project to “UP-UP,” as if imitating something like “Wow-hoo!” or “Clap-clap!” - interjections with which people who have started a difficult task in the heat of the moment, without having the time or intellectual potential to think through the matter in advance, encourage themselves. After all, not a single truly calculated, clearly economically justified and proven necessary supply from the Polar Urals to the south has yet emerged. However, not like that. There is one connection, it is already quite material and is already known to us. This is Kharp-Chelyabinsk.
Remember the goldsmith Khryukin from Chekhov's "Chameleon"? How did he stand in the middle of the market square, raising his bloody finger, thereby testifying that he had indeed been bitten? The extraction of chromites for ChEMK in Kharpe, elevated beyond the Arctic Circle, serves in the justification of the project as the same expressive evidence, evidence of the need for UP-UP. Look, they say, how painfully the evil “Kazakhs” bit us economically; now, willy-nilly, we have to turn our gaze to the pole.
However, as we remember, the warden Ochumelov, having listened to different versions of what happened, in the end was not impressed by the picturesque gesture of the bitten master. Whether Khryukin was right in demanding compensation for the damage caused to him, we never learn from the story, and this is not relevant to our subject. But whether the owner of CHEMK was right when he sent millions of rubles to the Polar Urals, and, accordingly, whether those who now intend to send billions there will be right - this is worth thinking about when studying geography: after all, it is in such thoughts that geographical thinking is formed.
About making placement decisions
It is no coincidence that the topic of correctional labor institutions is included in the story about Ural chrome. The fact is that the main owner of the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant and the main figure in the development of Rayiz chromites, a State Duma deputy of the last convocation from United Russia, one of the most influential people in the Southern Urals - a certain Aristov in his youth, in the 80s, was behind bars (he was convicted of something like fraud in construction brigades or with Komsomol “raised funds” - there are no exact data). This should be mentioned not at all in order to denigrate the polar chrome digger, but for purely scientific reasons - economic and geographical.
About twenty years ago, major Soviet geographers A.P. Gorkin and L.V. Smirnyagin published an article in which they presented to their colleagues a new trend in Western economic-geographical thought that was then gaining momentum - the study of the decision-making mechanism ( decision making) on the location of certain enterprises. School textbooks for the 9th grade, in explicit and implicit form, convey the belief that the choice of location of a country’s enterprises is objective (only as justified, and nothing else). In reality, even in a planned, centrally controlled economy, when deciding on a specific location, someone’s personal choice played an important role. And in private ownership...
Business owners who have been on trial and in prison in the past are no worse than other people. “Don’t renounce money or prison,” says popular wisdom. Meanwhile, popular wisdom has long noticed that among people who have broken the law and got caught, there is a higher proportion of those who are prone to impulsive decisions, who are not accustomed to calculating the development of events several moves ahead, for whom the desire to solve a momentary problem obscures thoughts about the probable consequences.
If we recall the Kharp chromium history, the style of making placement decisions on the development of poor Polar Ural chromites (“Geography”,
No. 14/2008), an eloquent portrait will emerge decision maker"a - “decision maker.” “Ah, the Kazakh Donskoy Mining and Processing Plant does not want to give us chromites cheaply - let’s go to the Polar Urals for raw materials. We ourselves will spend a lot of money, but we will also punish the “Kazakhs.” “Ah, the village of Kharp wants to receive from us share for the fact that we are stationed in it - we will build a separate rotation camp 500 m above sea level on the ridge - on Rayiz. Let us have an eternal winter, let us have to create the entire infrastructure there anew, but these ones below, will manage without our money." "Oh, the Yamal district hopes to be present in the share capital of the chrome mine - we will re-register Kongor-Chrome from an independent enterprise into a ChEMK workshop (so what if the “workshop” is 1500 km away from the plant), we will close from everyone and stop paying taxes to the local budget.”
The slogan under which such decisions are made and under which state support is sought is the slogan about, neither more nor less, chromium safety of Russia.
Chromium safety of Russia
There are few chromium ores - chromites - in Russia. And all known deposits are of low quality. Kazakh chromites are much better in all respects, they have only one drawback: after the meeting of three intellectuals in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991, they are no longer ours. The only large chromite deposit that was developed on the territory of the Russian Federation before the appearance of the mine on Raiza was Saranovskoye in the east of the Perm Territory. But the local Rudnaya mine (in the village of Sarany between Perm Gornozavodsk and Sverdlovsk Kachkanar) is remarkably small in comparison with both Kazakh production and in comparison with the needs of ferrochrome plants in Russia. In any case, this mine is not a helper for the Chelyabinsk plant: it is controlled by ChEMK’s main competitor, the Serov Ferroalloy Plant (in the city of Serov in the north of the Sverdlovsk region).
So, there are practically no high-quality chrome raw materials in Russia. And the capacity for processing chromites into ferrochrome is large. Ferrochromium is a necessary component in the production of stainless steels (without them, the production of many modern and strategically important mechanical engineering products is unthinkable). The conclusion that is drawn from this (drawn by those who benefit from drawing such a conclusion) is: “They are trying to put Russia on a raw materials needle, they are encroaching on the country’s chrome independence.” Some very well-known figures of the current ruling group in the Russian Federation made angry speeches in this vein.
However, what is this “chrome security”? Such declarations can have two aspects - economic (so that the rise in prices of imported raw materials does not make Russian ferrochrome plants uncompetitive) and strategic (so that Russia is provided with strategically important raw materials - chromites in case of war and external isolation).
Economics of Chromium Safety
Do the developed capitalist countries of the world, which the current leaders of the Russian Federation so want to be like, have chrome “independence”? No. Almost all developed countries import chromites (or finished ferrochrome) and do not see this as a particular threat to their security. The main global supplier is South Africa. Global metallurgists must buy chromites on the world market at market prices (sometimes they also buy at in-house prices if they have invested in the share capital of the mines) in order to then sell ferrochrome or stainless steel at market prices. This is what normal market relations are built on.
What seems to be common between the products in the photo?
and Harp's chromites? Common owners
The owners of Russian ferrochrome enterprises, including ChEMK, came to control yesterday’s nationwide factories as champions of private property and the market. And indeed, very well, owning the Soviet plant that you inherited, sell produced ferrochrome at world market prices. Aristov and his companion anticipated this pleasure when they decided to invest their initial capital, made in Chelyabinsk at the Ariant trading and vodka chain, in CHEMK. It is very good to sell at market prices if you take raw materials at a cheap price.
However, when Kazakh chromite suppliers, in full market fashion, did not agree to provide raw materials cheaply, this is where rhetoric about the threat to national chromium independence began. In reality, of course, we are not talking about the interests of Russia, but about the fact that the Chelyabinsk Electrometallurgical Plant has not shown itself to be very competitive in a free international market. Or, in any case, it did not bring such vodka-intoxicating profits that the owners were counting on.
What does China have to do with it?
Kazakh suppliers of chromites (the Donskoy GOK in Khromtau, mentioned more than once) may not have been able to significantly raise the price of their products: who would buy from them, except Russia? The geographical position of the landlocked desert-steppe republic is too unfavorable: the deposit is hidden too deeply in the depths of Eurasia; Kazakhstan's southern neighbors are too underdeveloped to have any serious demand for chrome; Russia seems to be a monopoly consumer and can dictate its purchasing prices. But to the misfortune of Russian metallurgists, the “Kazakhs” were rescued by their eastern neighbor. The rapidly growing, albeit much more distant from Khromtau than the Ural, metallurgy of China offered higher prices to the owners of the Donskoy GOK. And you had to be an enemy to yourself and the market idea to refuse. Kazakhstan reoriented supplies from the north to the southeast. Having now fully understood what a free market and an open economy are on an international scale, the owners of CHEMK rushed par de "pit 11 to Rayiz, in order to somehow compensate for the southern loss. They rushed, instead of starting, as it should be in an open market economy, a competitive price fight for Kazakhstani resources.
Thus, Chinese economic development resonated 5 thousand km away, squeezing a noticeable segment of the Russian economy into the Polar Urals, into the godforsaken Kharp. Sometimes the paths of economic geography are surprising: where are the plants of Baotou and Anshan (now eating Kazakh chrome), and where are Labytnangi and Kharp, near which Ural chromites are now being hastily dug? How, it would seem, can one condition the other? But here you go.
Of course, it was possible to stop the “Chinese expansion” by offering the “Kazakhs” an equal or slightly higher price. But was it really for this purpose - perhaps in order to digest expensive chromites - that the owners invested their vodka money in restoring ChEMK furnaces? With a fair price for raw materials, there is a completely different level of profits, or even unprofitability.
This leads to the question: “Why can the Chinese pay dearly for Kazakh chromites, transport them over long distances and at the same time be profitable, but the nearby ChEMK cannot?” Is it because, within the framework of open international market relations, the old bulky Chelyabinsk plant is uncompetitive? At least with the current management and decision-making style. Is this plant needed at all then, is it necessary to tear up the Rayizsky massif for its sake, and even more so to extend the UP-UP road there?
War and chrome
Of course, all market considerations about the economic efficiency or ineffectiveness of CHEMK could be crossed out at once if it were proved that Russia needs Chelyabinsk ferrochrome and, accordingly, Kharp chromites like air, that without them, come and take it with your bare hands.
Perhaps, when the owners of CHEMK, and after them, excellent Russian politicians repeat the formula about lame security, they mean the extreme case of war?
We remember how President Roosevelt 60 years ago persuaded Turkish President Inonya not to sell chromites to Hitler. After all, every ton of chromium oxide delivered to Germany at that time meant the release of several tons of alloy steel, meant the release of a new unit of military equipment, and meant several new killed Soviet soldiers or soldiers of the second front. To be left without chromium in case of a future war is, to put it mildly, unpleasant for Russia. Each ton of chromium not received will mean an unsmelted ton of steel of the required quality, an unbuilt tank or missile, so many unkilled enemies and so many extra us killed. In the films of future Eisensteins, our sergeant will fall on the bottom of a damaged armored personnel carrier with the words “There is not enough chrome in the armor” or “The steel is not alloyed” (similar to the famous phrase from “Alexander Nevsky”: “The chain mail is short”).
Of course, the excellent student with a tennis racket in Belovezhskaya Pushcha in 1991 and those who voted for this beacon of reason, an example of decency and a repository of geographical knowledge had to think about such a possible turn in the fate of future victims of Russian lameness. But it had to be done then. What about modern conditions?
And in modern conditions, it is generally pointless to have any conversation about the security of Russia (both chrome and in general), if we assume that in a future military conflict Kazakhstan will be on the hostile side. Between Russia and Kazakhstan is the longest border in the world, almost nowhere protected by natural boundaries. It is impossible to imagine that the current Russian Federation will be able to maintain such a front in its current state. Take a compass and a ruler - measure the length of the border with Kazakhstan and the length of the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War. Compare lengths. So, if the territory of Kazakhstan (and it is gradually moving towards this) becomes the base of forces hostile to us (no matter who - the Chinese, NATO, Genghis Khan, the Taliban), the pink and blue stripes will need to be immediately torn off from the tricolor that has faded under the South Ural sun and waved the remaining one. Chrome from the Polar Urals will no longer help here.
Even if Kazakhstan does not become a direct opposing party, but only takes a position of “hostile neutrality,” Russia will have to maintain huge forces along the border, and then it is not realistic to think about any victory in a major world-class armed conflict (remember the story with the same Turkey in World War II: it did not enter the war, but it diverted how many preventive forces. And that was only distant Turkey, which had a very short border with the USSR, fenced off by powerful natural boundaries). Not really - with or without chrome.
So if you really think about Russia’s security, then the first thing you should be concerned about is bringing Kazakhstan under Russian control. If you use market methods for this, then tie this territory to yourself as tightly as possible with economic ties. And in any case, don’t push him away. The impulsive decision of the owner of CHEMK (“Oh, well, then we’ll go somewhere else”) and the accompanying angry rhetoric of his party comrades contributed to only one thing - further pushing the Kazakh economy away from the Russian one.
Russian politicians and businessmen who are offended by the “Kazakhs,” who regularly celebrate Russia’s independence in June and sing praises to the market, in this situation resemble a spouse who insisted on a divorce, and the next day is innocently surprised that his ex-wife does not serve lunch at the appointed hour. And it would be good if she didn’t cook, otherwise she cooks, but for some reason she takes it to the next apartment.
What does Türkiye have to do with it?
The Chelyabinsk plant went to the Polar Urals for cheap raw materials. Its main competitor, the second Russian ferrochrome producer, the Serov Ferroalloy Plant (SZF), did not do this. In a difficult situation, during confusion with supplies from Kazakhstan, he partially switched to Turkish chromites (the same ones that Roosevelt asked the Turks not to sell to Hitler - see “Geography”, No. 14/2008, p. 32), partially used Perm chromites Sarana under his control, and after the crisis with supplies from Kazakhstan was “resolved” he again returned to raw materials from the Donskoy GOK.
The romance between Serov and Khromtau later received a further, albeit somewhat perverse, continuation (see in the following issues).
Space topsy-turvy
It’s amazing: it turned out to be profitable to transport raw materials from Turkey to Serov in the North Ural, but not from Kazakhstan to Chelyabinsk in the South Ural - not!
The created configurations of CHEMK - "Kongor-Chrome" and SZF - Donskoy GOK - live geographical paradox, or rather, geographical absurdity. The Chelyabinsk plant is the closest Russian consumer of chromites to Khromtau. From Chelyabinsk to Khromtau is only 600 km, but Chelyabinsk carries chromites from Kharp, which is 1300 km in a straight line and almost 2500 km along existing railways. Serov, located much closer to Kharp (in a straight line to the deposits of the Polar Urals is a little more than 800 km, if a road is built), does not pay any attention to the Rayiz chromites and transports ore from Kazakhstan, from which it is almost twice as far away as Chelyabinsk ( from Khromtau to Serov - more than 1000 km).
Here they are, manifestations of different decision making"a. This cannot be explained by rationality and objectivity. Rather, by the character and analytical abilities of the people who made the corresponding decisions.
After all, Chelyabinsk is not Israel, after all, Kazakhs are not Arabs
According to normal economic and geographical logic, any processing enterprise searches for and ultimately finds the closest source of raw materials of satisfactory quality. There are deviations from this rule in the world, but they are always considered temporary oddities. They acquire a chronic nature only in extraordinary circumstances associated with non-economic irreconcilable hatred. For example, the oil refineries of Israel, located next to the world's main oil production region, do not use a single barrel of close and different Arabian raw materials, but import oil from God knows where - from Mexico, Norway, etc. But here the situation really breaks all the norms - the parties are in protracted insoluble conflict, Arabian oil producers do not recognize the very right of the state of Israel to exist. Therefore, in principle, there can be no talk of any cross-border supplies of raw materials (no matter what its quality and price). But doesn’t the Russian Federation recognize Kazakhstan or Does Kazakhstan not recognize Russia? Yes, relations between the parties are not developing in the best way - in particular, due to the inability of Russian politicians to find the right tone in communicating with our recent subalterns, who were so mediocrely dismissed from service.
After the death of I.V. Stalin, the construction of the highway (and a lot had already been built) was mediocrely abandoned. Nowadays there is more and more talk about the need to rebuild this road.
There are currently five such colonies in the Russian Federation:
1) on Ognenny Island, on Lake Novy southwest of the city of Belozersk, Vologda region. (where the Kirillov Novozersky Monastery once was);
2) in the village. Lozvinsky, in the Ivdelsky district in the north of the Sverdlovsk region;
3) in the city of Sol-Iletsk, in the south of the Orenburg region. (the so-called “Black Dolphin”; it is called so because in the courtyard of the colony there is a sculpture of a dolphin made of black stone, made, as they say, by one of the former prisoners);
4) in the city of Solikamsk, Perm Territory (the so-called “White Swan”);
5) in the village. Kharp (“Kharp”, as they call it in prison language).
He recently transferred his shares to one of his relatives so that capital would not become an aggravating circumstance in the 2008 State Duma elections. This, however, did not help: after their party was headed by the former president, Ural political observers explain, the Duma faction of the United Russia found it inconvenient to recruit former criminals.
The assumption of some malicious observers that Aristov was imprisoned in Kharp, and now he was drawn to be present at the old places - only not as a prisoner, but as a host, has not been confirmed.
That is why among well-known figures of the current Russian establishment there is such a high proportion of people with a criminal past, present and future. Therefore, in particular, the ex-world chess champion G. Kasparov, professionally accustomed to calculating the development of combinations many moves ahead, cannot help but demonstrate a strong rejection of the current Kindermat grandmasters.
In this context, we put the word “Kazakhs” in quotation marks, because Kazakhs themselves by nationality have only an indirect relation to the Don Mining and Processing Plant in Khromtau. The enterprise was designed and built 70 years ago mainly by Russians (as well as Ukrainians, Jews, etc.). Even the region itself, in which Khromtau is located, is eloquently called Novorossiysk. Now DGOK is owned not by Kazakhs by nationality and not even by Kazakh citizens. Corporation "Eurasian Natural resources"(ENRC), which includes Donskoy GOK, is registered in the UK. It belongs to a certain “trio” - Patokh (Fatakh) Shodiev, Alexander Mashkevich, Alizhan Ibragimov. By place of birth, they are all from Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan); By nationality, apparently, Uzbek (Bukhara), Jew (Ukrainian origin) and either Kyrgyz or Uzbek (Tashkent). By citizenship - one of them seems to be a citizen of Belgium, another - of Israel, the third - perhaps of Kyrgyzstan, but it is not really known whose. The case against all three was investigated by Belgian law enforcement agencies, but it seems that they were never investigated.
It seems that they are trying to establish a small mining of chromites in Bashkiria - on the border of the Beloretsky and Burzyansky districts, as well as in the Abzelilovsky district (near the village of Khamitovo). Some attempts are being made at the old Alapaevskoye field, abandoned in the mid-twentieth century, in the Sverdlovsk region.
In the 90s, at the time of the most severe raw material crisis, chromites for ChEMK were mined in the Upper Ufaley region, but now mining seems to have been stopped due to the small number of reserves and the unprofitability of their development.
Some hopes were placed on deposits in Karelia and the Murmansk region. But the chromites there turned out to be unimportant and have not yet come into use.
Recently, it was also reported about the future production of chromites at the Zhizhinsko-Sharomskoye deposit, 40 km from Pervouralsk in the Sverdlovsk region. (“Geography”, No. 8/2008, p. 47). This raw material, having undergone preliminary preparation at Khrompik (chemical plant) in Pervouralsk, will then go to the Klyuchevskoy Ferroalloy Plant (KZF) in Dvurechensk in the south of the Sverdlovsk region. KZF is very small in comparison with the giant Chelyabinsk (CHEMK) and large Serov (SZF) plants. It does, however, have one important property. KZF is the only one in Russia that produces not only ferrochrome alloy, but also pure chromium metal. They say that this metal chromium is used in the nuclear industry, but they don’t say for what: classified information.
“Ariant” is a combination of the first three letters of the surnames of the two owners of the company (Aristov + Antipov), a popular vodka brand in the Chelyabinsk region.
On this - on the urgent purchase of raw materials within the territory of the USSR at domestic low, and sometimes junk (due to general confusion) prices and sales abroad at prices close to world prices (then an order of magnitude higher) - the accumulation of many of the first capitals was built in the 90s.
Kazakhstan’s tendency to sell more and more raw materials to China at the expense of supplies to Russia applies not only to chromites, but also to other ores. In particular, the iron ore of the famous Sokolovsko-Sarbaiskoye deposit (Rudny town, Kustanay, or Kostanay region) is becoming less and less accessible to the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. Sokolovka, by the way, now belongs to the same “British” corporation “Eurasian Natural Resources” as the Donskoy Mining and Processing Plant.
Out of frustration, out of spite ( French.). - Note ed.
Sometimes, when talking about the potential of Chinese expansion to the northwest, they understand it too straightforwardly: here will come, they say, the Chinese. Maybe they won’t come: what haven’t they seen in the taiga? Meanwhile, the expansion of a particular people does not necessarily manifest itself in the form of displacement. One nation can, without moving, simply “eat away” the raw material base “from under” another. In the natural history of the Earth, this is how some species disappeared - not because they were eaten by another, predatory species, but because a very cute herbivorous competitor species simply consumed all the vegetation that the extinct species previously fed on.
Of course, we all hope that there will never be war again. All generations who have lived on Earth so far have relied on this.
The village of Kharp is a secure village, formed in 1961 during the construction of the 501st Stalinist construction site.
It is located in the spurs of the Polar Urals mountains. The name translates as "Northern Lights". Sometimes these names are combined and pronounced together - Kharp (Northern Lights).
To some extent, the village of Kharp can be called a prison. It houses 2 prisons for especially dangerous criminals.
One of them is called "Polar Owl". Now such criminals as Alexander Pichushkin (Bitsevsky maniac) and Nurpashi Kulaev, the only surviving terrorist from Beslan, are serving their sentences there.
There is nothing criminal in the village - there are just 2 prisons and that’s it.
Photo taken on the platform near the train station.
Ordinary houses, ordinary people
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What I liked here were the mountains and very unusual clouds.
In the middle of the village there is a small mountain, which, as I understand it, I use as a helipad. Unfortunately, very few photographs were taken, because a terrible wind was blowing that day and it was not possible to somehow fix the camera.
And here is the prison itself - "Polar Owl". I didn’t come close, so I only zoomed.
In general, people in the north are very friendly and talkative. I wanted to go to Kharp myself, but a local resident whom I met in Salekhard also offered to help me. He works at a chromite mine and offered to take me on trucks to the mountains, where they actually mine everything. I was already ready, but after getting on the minibus, local residents dissuaded me from climbing the mountains, because these mines are quite dangerous for the respiratory system and they have been poisoning the health of local residents for many years, bringing them various diseases. Very often you could see loaded trucks driving by, leaving dust flying in a column.
This is how Harp is. This is the only village so far where I felt trembling in my body while moving around. There doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, but psychologically it’s not very comfortable.
Polar Owl Colony - This is a special regime correctional facility. Serial killers, state criminals, and dangerous repeat offenders serve their sentences here. The colony is designed for 1014 places, including a settlement area for 100 places and a maximum security zone for 450 people. The correctional facility is considered one of the most remote places of detention; it is surrounded by countless hills and the Sob River.
Polar Owl Colony
Where is the correctional facility located? The colony is located in the village of Kharp in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The correctional facility is located beyond the Arctic Circle on the border of the Northern Urals and the tundra, surrounded by hills, near the bank of the Sob River. The closest city to the colony is 1920 kilometers from Labytnanga.
The village of Kharp was formed in 1961. Originally there was a prison camp here. The convicts were engaged in the construction of the railway. Later the camp was converted into a place for especially dangerous repeat offenders. Starting from the 70s of the twentieth century, it received the code name YATs-34/18. Since 1981, the institution was renamed and from that time began to function as Correctional Colony No. 18. Those convicted of serious crimes continued to be admitted here. Since 2005, the institution has been called “FKU IK-18 Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.” It is now a special security penal colony for the "Snowy Owl" - an unofficial name that was given in honor of the bird monument located on the territory.
How to get to the correctional facility
Prisoners are transported from Moscow in two ways - by train and by plane. The first is long, takes two days. You only need to fly three hours by plane to the airport in Salekhard. Then, using a passing vehicle, you need to get to the ferry crossing and transport it to the city of Labytnangi, from where you can take transport to the village of Kharp.
Life within the walls of the institution
The Polar Owl colony is a unit that can operate autonomously using its own communal facilities. The correctional facility has a boiler room, a bakery, a diesel power plant, a canteen, a car repair shop, and production departments for crushed stone and crushed stone. There are also marble, sewing, turning, carpentry shops, and a boot sewing workshop. Prisoners working at these facilities not only provide themselves with the necessary items, but also fulfill orders from the population and enterprises. The facility breeds poultry and pigs. There is a chapel on the territory, which was consecrated by Archbishop of the Tobolsk-Tyumen diocese Dimitri.
Convicts are allowed to receive a parcel once a year. You can go for a walk once a day for 1.5 hours. Prisoners are walking in a small cage. Visiting the bathhouse is limited to a ten-minute shower once a week. During the day there is a radio in the colony. The cells contain a bed, a table, a bedside table, a closed shelf where food is stored, a shelf for toiletries, as well as a water tank and a hanger for outerwear, and a toilet.
Rules for staying in the institution
The Polar Owl special regime colony includes single and double cells. Relatives of prisoners write that they are not allowed to lie down on their beds during the day and can only talk to their cellmates in a whisper. When leaving the cell, convicts are searched. To all staff commands, prisoners must respond: “Yes, citizen chief.” All movement within the territory of the institution is carried out only in handcuffs, in a bent position. Convicts are not allowed to communicate while walking or visiting the bathhouse or toilet. Visits with relatives are allowed (no longer than 2 hours), but the possibility of personal meetings is excluded. Sporting events and movies are prohibited, as are opportunities to further your education.
General information about the institution
The Polar Owl colony accepts prisoners who have committed particularly serious crimes. Alexander Pichushkin (Bitsevsky maniac), (former police major), and Sergei Pomazun, guilty of the mass shooting, are serving his sentence in this institution. There are many convicted Muslims in the IK who were accused of terrorism. Thus, the Polar Owl colony received Nikolai Korolev, the head of the neo-Nazi terrorist organization Spas, and the former terrorist Kulaev Nur-Pasha.
The correctional facility is located beyond the Arctic Circle, where the climate is harsh; full summer lasts only one month. The Polar Owl colony, photos of which are rarely seen in the media, is a hard-to-reach place of detention. The curator is the Federal Security Service of Russia. FSB officers often come to correctional institutions, carry out inspections, and study the lives of convicts. Prisoners can write complaints about staff misconduct and requests for a reduction in their sentence.
