27.07.2006

The Orlov Kumtor is IN THE PRICE

Author Olga Finkova and Julia SHITOVa

the village Orlovka leaves under ground more deeply. People which died on dump excavation, totaled already about eleven. Many from them, suffering skin diseases, hide ulcers on the person under a mask...

Conditions of poverty and a high rate of unemployment among the population of settlement Orlovki of Kemin region have led to that people have started excavation on an industrial invalid dump. Both adults, and children from 8 to 16 years search for one - defective silicon. In the beginning of excavation its initial cost made 50 soms, for today has reached 100 dollars for kg.

- In total on «Orlov Kumtor» about five thousand person from all republic today works, - There take silicon from the ground, in the same place sell it. Local self-management in the person of aiyl okmotu Leonid Evko close eyes on it, perfectly knowing thus, what is dangerous ecological situation on dump range. Moreover, pursuing personal benefit, mister Evko began to look for rich tenants and to give to private hands the ground on which go excavation.

One of such contracts, made between aiyl okomtu and certain businessman Kasymbek Dzhunushev to catch, as a material evidence. In the document it is in black and white written: «mister Dzhunushev rents the ground on the invalid dump located on northeast surburb Orlovka». Term of rent - two months. Payment - 5466 soms per month.

- already 50 tons of silicon dug out, - chairman of the center asserts. - If earlier were only two places of acceptance, now they are totaled more than forty. Between inspectors begin criminal disassemblies. At night in village even shooting is heard - terribly from a house to leave. Once the unfair workers, not troubled to bury waste products in one place, have scattered silicon on all territory of Orlovka. Today mad from a smell of money people start to drip already inside settlement…

On the data the garbage dump has carried away eleven lives of young people. Skin diseases with which «black diggers» send in Tokmok hospital have been revealed also. For three months the percent of oncological diseases has sharply increased.

But nobody pays to this attention. The assistant of aiyl okomtu on all accusations answers one phrase: «You have exaggerated data».

Unique exit, consider people of Orlovka to whom the destiny of settlement is not yet indifferent - to close receivers of silicon. If not then to improve working conditions on a dump: to give out to people respirators, protective clothes, to put toilets and shower cabins. And to forbid to children to dig in waste products. Small assistants, by results of research of doctors, suffer most . They are "trailblazers": dig out a tunnel, make platforms. Only then under the ground adults get.

Overwhelming number of working children on a question: «whom you would want to become in the future?», answer: «To be engaged in work on a dump». The majority of them already for a long time do not go to schools, do not pass examinations. At working teenagers pathological defeats of internal bodies, headaches, dizzinesses, pains in a back, in a stomach, nervousness come to light. To this result weight of the carried out work, unpleasant smells on a dump, intense conditions (struggle for the site, pressure on the part of parents, uncertainty in tomorrow's day).

- Studying a radioecological situation on a dump has shown, that the maximal value of radiation makes 41 mkR/hour, - speaks local inhabitants. - Especially the level of scale - radiation is high in holes which are dug out by people. How then, tell on favour, it is possible to count work safe not only for children, but also adults?