Coalland – Faces of Donetsk

COAL LAND Faces of Donetsk Coalland – Faces of Donetsk Copyright © 2011, Zoï Environment Network and UNEP/GRID-Arendal ISBN: 978-82-7701-090-8 Printed by Graphi 4 – Global Publishing Services, France This report is also available at http://en- Disclaimer: The views expressed in this report rin.grida.no/donetsk together with more are those of the authors and do not necessarily materials produced within Assessment and reflect the views of UNEP, ENVSEC partner organizations or their member-countries. The capacity-building for managing environment designations employed and the presentations do and security risks in Donbas and Salihorsk not imply the expression of any opinion on the regions, a project by the Environment and part of the organizations concerning the legal Security Initiative implemented by UNEP/ status of any country, territory, city or area of GRID-Arendal and Zoï Environment Net- its authority, or delineation of its frontiers and boundaries. Mention of a commercial company work with the financial support from Cana- or product does not imply endorsement by the UNEP promotes da, Sweden, Norway and UNEP’s GEO Cit- cooperating partners. We regret any errors or ies programme. www.envsec.org omissions that may unwittingly have been made. environmentally sound practices globally and in its own activities. This report is printed on 100% recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks and other eco- friendly practices. Our distribution policy aims to reduce UNEP’s carbon footprint. COAL LAND Faces of Donetsk TEXT MAPS AND GRAPHICS TRANSLATION CONTRIBUTIONS AND REVIEW Alex Kirby Matthias Beilstein Irina Melnikova Nickolai Denisov Christina Stuhlberger Nadya Kopatko Otto Simonett MEDIA FEATURES Irina Melnikova Oleg Lystopad ILLUSTRATIONS COPYEDITING Dmytro Averin Karen Gambaryan Maria Libert Harry Foster Philip Peck Alesya Chumakova Elena Santer Julia Maklyuk PHOTOGRAPHY PRODUCTION Laura Rio Alban Kakulya Christina Stuhlberger Foreword by Nickolai Denisov, ENVSEC regional desk officer for Eastern Europe, Geneva As a doctoral student in Moscow, I business and political elite. In the re- did not see much of my university gion itself the environment remains advisor. One of Russia’s first envi- both a bottleneck and a solution for ronmental ministers and the deputy improving people’s lives: not an un- prime-minister of the Soviet Union important concern given Donetsk’s after the 1991 coup d’état, he sud- special place on Ukraine’s agenda. denly had to deal with a mountain of problems with the decaying union. In this publication we have tried to Among the first were angry miners collect data, thoughts and impressions from Donbas banging their helmets from several years of cooperation be- in the centre of Moscow. As in many tween the Environment and Security other places, miners were seen as initiative and the people and authori- the vanguard of political aspirations ties of Donetsk. Through this coop- – and the reflection of growing des- eration we wanted to bring solutions, peration in the industrial badlands. which have worked in other parts of Europe, ranging from the Mining for Readers interested in history may Closure approach to providing citi- remember Alexey Stakhanov and Ni- zens and decision-makers with under- kita Kruschev, who both started their standable and timely information. We careers in Donetsk. Football fans wit- are also determined to make this infor- nessed the spectacular appearance of mation clear and visible through maps, Shakhtar Donetsk in the 2009 UEFA photographs, art and journalism. Cup Final. Today the coal-producing and industrial region of Donetsk is Not least, we want to reveal Donetsk Ukraine’s major centre of gravity, in all its diversity, with different faces, supplying the country with industrial seen from the inside and the outside, output, tax revenue, pollution, and its beyond just coal and football. 4 Contents 4 Foreword 6 Donetsk at first sight 11 Four minutes past midnight 12 The nature of Donbas 14 The other face of Donbas 17 Photographs by Alban Kakulya This publication was initiated by the Environment and Security Initiative (ENV- 29 Industry and its footprint SEC), a partnership between UNDP, UNEP, OSCE, NATO, UNECE and REC. 34 Death by suffocation 36 There is coal but no happiness 40 Waste tips need flowers This report was produced within the who participated in the media train- framework of Assessment and Capacity- ing organized by ENVSEC. The articles 41 Mining for a better environment Building for Managing Environment and featured here were produced during the Security Risks in Donbas and Salihorsk workshops and have been published in 43 References regions, a UNEP-led ENV SEC project various media across the region. implemented in Ukraine and Belarus to address environmental risk from In addition, this report presents the hazardous activities, and improve envi- findings of the ENVSEC risk assess- ronmental management and awareness. ment analysis, Risk Assessment Consid- Project activities included technical as- erations in the Donetsk Basin – Mine sessments, training and analysis of min- Closure and Spoil Dumps, highlighting ing sites, but also workshops and train- the need for solid risk assessment and ing sessions for journalists to build up the potential sources of risk associ- their communication skills on environ- ated with mining activities in Donetsk. mental topics relevant to their region. Based on these findings, an action plan This publication presents the findings is proposed suggesting how these issues and results of both parts of the project. It can be addressed by decision-makers offers an introduction to the issues fac- and practitioners alike. ing the Donetsk region, mainly focusing on environmental challenges. The text is This publication uses original pho- complemented by media stories written tographs by Alban Kakulya taken in by journalists from Belarus and Ukraine Donetsk in May 2010. 5 Donetsk at first sight Close to the centre of Donetsk stands Soligorsk a huge steelworks, Donetsk Metallur- Warsaw B E L A R U S Gomel R U S S I A gical Plant, known locally as Donet- V Brest is Pinsk Pripyat tu Mozyr Voronezh skstal. In a brave attempt to make la Kursk this industrial behemoth less of an P O L A N D Chernihiv Kovel Don B a outrage to the senses the plant’s own- Lublin u n h s Kyiv Res. e Sumy ers have built a small pleasure gar- D Belgorod Rivne Rossosh den at the entrance, complete with a Rzeszow Zhytomyr Kyiv D Kharkiv y n k k pond on which live two swans. The s ie s Lviv p r t e e e v r n e swans’ plumage is black. The local o S U K R A I N E D humorists enjoy telling credulous Ternopil Kremenchuk Res. Khmelnytsky Cherkasy visitors that the birds were snowy Ivano- Vinnitsia Kremenchuk Frankivsk Slovyansk white when they arrived, but quickly Uzhhorod Luhansk D nie Dnipropetrovsk D o n b a s changed colour as the dust and pollu- isza ste Kirovohrad T Chernivtsi r Donetsk P Kryvyy Rih Donetsk Oblast tion of the plant enveloped them. In r S Debrecen u o t Balti u Baia Mare th Zaporizhzhia fact they are Australian black swans, e Suceava M O L D O V A rn Rostov-on-Don Oradea B Kakhovka Res. designed that way by nature. But eve- uh Iasi Chisinau Mariupol ryone agrees it would be a shame to Cluj-Napoca Melitopol Mykolaiv Berdyansk Bacau Tiraspol spoil a good story. S Kherson i Mu re res R O M A N I A t Odesa S e a o f A z o v The city of Donetsk has a long pedi- Sibiu Brasov Kerch gree. It began life as a Cossack village Kuban Krasnodar C r i m e a Drobeta-Turnu D late in the 17th century, and by 1820 anub Simferopol Severin O Pitesti e l small-scale coal mining had start- t Sevastopol Novorossiysk Bucharest ed. The city proper was originally Yalta Craiova Constanta B l a c k S e a called Yuzovka, after John Hughes, the Welshman who is credited with founding it in 1869. In time more The Soviet Union later developed the population falling from 507,000 to years meant that for every German skilled workers and technicians ar- steel industry enormously. In the sec- 175,000 as the Nazi invaders came soldier killed 100 inhabitants were rived from Britain to expand the ond world war the city (then known close to destroying it entirely. Col- put to death, and one for every po- mines and build a steel mill. as Stalino) suffered grievously, the lective responsibility in those grim liceman killed. 6 The death of Stalin and the gradual of driving home their demands for a move towards less totalitarian rule better life: health care, accommoda- from Moscow saw yet another name- tion, recreation and leisure facilities, change, this time to Donetsk (Nikita pensions – and of course more pay. Khrushchev was a local boy). Peace The more the miners were owed in brought gradual improvements for back pay, the oftener they gathered in the miners, the industrial elite of Red Square. Nor was Moscow their Donbas* (the coal-mining region only target, as Oleg Varfolomeyev round Donetsk, along the Donets riv- wrote in 2002:* er). They became one of the highest- paid categories in the USSR. When “Miners’ marches on Kyiv have almost the 1990s dawned they were influ- become a tradition of the Ukrainian ential actors in the social turmoil summer. They block the main streets, which was engulfing the dying Soviet sit down in front of the government Union, travelling to Moscow to bang building, bang their helmets and their safety helmets on the pavement plastic bottles on the pavement, get outside the Kremlin as a vivid way promised their wages, and then return home.

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