Video: Who in the USSR was sent to uranium mines
2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55
Surely everyone has heard that a career in a face at uranium mines does not add longevity to a person. There are even specific dark jokes on this score. Likewise, everyone has probably heard that after the start of the nuclear race between the United States and the USSR, mostly prisoners of the camps were sent to work at the uranium mines. Is it really?
Let's break the mold right away and say: working at a uranium mine is not a punishment, but a high level of prestige. Needless to say that in this particular case, "prestige" implies such things as secrecy, crystal clearness before the law, high labor discipline? Well, the "prestige" is paid accordingly.
In the case of the Soviet past, he was encouraged not only by the ruble, but also by all kinds of "socialist bonuses", such as trips to the best sanatoriums and the opportunity to get a car in turn in a couple of years.
As for the hazard level of working in a uranium mine. Of course, constantly being near radioactive elements does not add health to a person. However, among people ignorant of the issue, the danger of uranium production is usually greatly overestimated.
This is because in order to obtain at least 1 kg of a pure element, many tons of ore have to be mined and processed. In other words, the content of a radioactive element per 1 kg of ore in the vast majority of cases is extremely small. That did not prevent the Soviet Union in its best years from issuing 18 thousand tons of the "secret first", when the rest of the world produced about 25 thousand tons per year.
Most of the dangers of a uranium mine are no different from those of most other face mines.
In this regard, methane emissions, the threat of landslides and dustiness in the air for miners are incredibly dangerous than potential radiation. This is confirmed by the fact that the premium for work at the uranium mine, although it was, was still not huge - 20% to the size of wages.
Allegations that uranium in the Soviet Union was mined by convicts is mostly a myth. The prisoners never worked directly in the face, in the mines or in the uranium production.
This is due to the fact that this is a high-tech production that requires appropriate education and qualifications. Most likely, another propaganda myth under the heading “half the country sat, half the country guarded” appeared due to the fact that in the early years of the nuclear program, uranium mining (as well as the nuclear program itself) was supervised by Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria.
Prisoners in the USSR could participate in the "extraction" only in the sense that they were involved in the construction of industrial facilities. Zeks were sent to the construction of mines, plant buildings, infrastructure and housing in mining villages and cities.
Contrary to popular prejudice, prisoners (as well as exiles and prisoners of war after the 1940s) were paid salaries in the USSR. In addition, convicts could become shock workers for labor, for which they had the opportunity to knock off their term for several years. Quite often, reformed prisoners, who showed themselves well at work, were recruited by the administration of the facilities for permanent work after their release.
For participation in the most important and difficult construction projects, a year of work for prisoners was counted as three years of imprisonment. However, the prisoner could not get into the face, processing, or even geological exploration.
For those who are interested in the true scale of the repressive actions of the Soviet law enforcement agencies, it remains to recommend reading the book by the Soviet and Russian historian Viktor Zemskov “Stalin and the People. Why there was no uprising. Viktor Nikolaevich devoted his entire life to the study of demography and repression in the Soviet Union. Today he is the most cited researcher in Western Sovietology.
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