Lermontovsky mine 1

In 1944 , the specialized party Koltsovskaya Expedition of the first main geological department of the Mingeo of the USSR discovered industrial uranium reserves on Mount Beshtau ^[1] . By order of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 1949, it was decided to begin development of the Lermontovskoye field. Already in August 1950 , the “Western” and “Eastern” mines were created at a rapid pace, which conducted additional exploration of deposits and the sinking of the main adits . In 1952 , the mines were combined into the Lermontov Mine No. 1. Construction continued for another two years. In the first quarter of 1954 , Mine No. 1 was officially commissioned. All the Mining and Chemical Mining Directorate (HCSU) of Lermontov has fully earned, work has begun on sinking the adits at Mine No. 2 on Mount Bull . A few months later, at the foot of Mount Beshtau, a working Village No. 1 is being built ^[2] . Not only miners, but also many other specialists who arrived at the distribution company received a residence permit in it. The extracted ore was delivered from the haulage horizon to the Almaz hydrometallurgical plant, where uranium concentrate was obtained from it ^[3] . In 1958, Mine No. 1 reached its design capacity; a complete reconstruction of ventilation was carried out. In this mode, the company worked until 1975. Beginning in 1972, the production plan began to decline. On August 31, 1975 , the last trolley with uranium ore was issued, after which the mine was closed and mothballed ^[4] . The main equipment was dismantled in the next two months. Primary reclamation lasted until 1986 . The adits were closed, dumps were ennobled, the day surface of the mountain was decontaminated . The main reason for the closure of Mine No. 1 was the exhaustion of ore reserves, which made it economically unprofitable to continue further development of the Beshtaugorsk uranium deposit. During the operation of the enterprise, over 200 km of vertical and horizontal mine workings were covered ^[5] .

Company Management

During the entire period of its existence, the mine has changed 8 chiefs and 8 chief engineers. Heads of Mine No. 1 at one time worked ^[4] :

• Prigogine E.I. - 1952-1953 years.
• Khetagurov G.V. - 1953-1955
• Tretyakov I.N. - 1955-1957 years.
• Popov V.I. - 1957-1959 years.
• Ulyanov V.S. - 1959-1962
• Krapivin S.V. - 1962-1968
• Lazarevich K.G. - 1968-1970
• Volkhin N.A. - 1970-1973
• Klimov M.F. - 1973-1975

The company employed both visiting specialists and ordinary local workers. There is a misconception that in the mines they used the labor of death row prisoners, but this is not so, the prisoners participated only in the tunneling of adit 32 and in the construction of the working village of Lermontovsky (now the city of Lermontov). Salary at the enterprise was quite high. It was salaries that attracted people to such a dangerous job. A lot of workers undermined their health at the mine, and there were extraordinary incidents. Many miners suffered from occupational diseases. The most common of these are silicosis , punch disease, and lung cancer . At the first symptoms, workers were immediately sent for treatment at the expense of the enterprise ^[4] . The staff lived either in the temporary Village No. 1, located at the foot of Mount Beshtau, or in Pyatigorsk . Miners "strayed" into brigades, the team included 10 people. In 1951, construction began on the village of Lermontovsky. New technologies were introduced, modern equipment was supplied. Many workshops were opened: a drilling, construction, chemical laboratory, mine rescue station, and a household plant. Working conditions have improved significantly. The total number of workers in the mine reached 1,500. The mining was classified as "secret . " Documents, plans for the mine surface and mine workings are now stored in archives marked "for official use". Safety at the mine was provided by specialized departmental armed units of the paramilitary guard . Security posts were located in all areas. A round-the-clock duty was conducted near the mouths of the adits. The administrative building of the mine administration has long been under the supervision of the NKVD staff.

The mine included 43 adits located at 13 horizons, the distance between which is about 25-30 meters. The lowest was at 720 m above sea level, the highest - 1085 m ^[4] . The horizons were connected by two shafts of the mines “East” and “Central”. The Vostochny tunnel was launched in 1951, and the trunk served the northeast wing of the mine. Working height 720 - 1013 m. In parallel, the Central shaft of the Western mine was erected. The mining process was carried out according to the following method: a cross-cutter connects adits, cross-cutters walked along empty rock to the cross of the stretching of the ore body, drifts along the ore bodies. Ore from the upper horizons was lowered by trunks to the haul-off (adit 16, 720 m.), Later they broke through the "capital ore launch " ^[4] . From below, ore was collected in bunkers, loaded into trolleys. The composition usually consisted of 15 trolleys. By electric locomotive, ore was transported to the surface through a 32 adit, after which the contents were loaded onto open platforms and delivered by locomotive to the Almaz processing plant. Initially, ore was transported from the mountain by trucks, after the construction of a railway line between the 32 adits and the plant , the need for trucking disappeared. Dumps were at the mouth of almost every adit. In Village No. 1 there was a reserve diesel substation , the remains of which can still be seen on Mount Beshtau. In the first years of the mine’s operation, a technical “Mine No. 1” was passed from the lower horizon to the surface, through which an underground high-voltage cable power line was laid for the village. After the construction of the overhead power line , Mine No. 1 was liquidated. The ventilation of the mine was carried out by supplying fresh air to the mine with two main ventilation fans from the 880th horizon. The upper horizons were forcibly ventilated through the Vostochny trunk. Track gauge - 750 mm. Trolleys are diverse, from deaf VG 1.0, to small dump cars . Mostly battery-powered electric locomotives were used, contact ones worked on the haulage horizon and in adit No. 31 ^[4] .

The Beshtaugorsk deposit is of the vein type by the nature of the occurrence of ore bodies and consists of intrusive rocks of the trachyliparite and liparite composition composing laccolite . The composition is dominated by oxides and aqueous phosphates (mica) of uranium. Less commonly found is a uranium-containing titanium-rare-earth mineral davidite and aqueous phosphate of uranium , cerium, and calcium — Lermontovite — found only in Beshtau ^[6] . The industrial reserves of uranium were in the Skala (99% of reserves in 60 ore bodies) and Gremuchka (0.8% of reserves) vein systems. The main source of uranium in the ores of the deposit is uranium mobiles , which are especially widespread in the cementation zone (below the oxidation zone, from where uranium is almost completely removed). According to mining and geological conditions, the field is considered complex. It is represented by a series of ore-bearing veins with a thickness of 0.5 to 60 meters. Ores of various strengths are prone to self-collapse. The ore content coefficient of some bodies was extremely low ^[4] . The deposit is considered worked out.

After the closure of the enterprise and the collapse of the USSR , open adits attracted "metal hunters." In subsequent years, locals actively removed colored scrap from an abandoned mine, despite the increased radiation background inside the adits ^[7] . In the late 90s, the first attempts were made to completely close access to underground workings, but the mouths of the adits continued to open. In the period from 1990 to 2010, almost all non-ferrous and ferrous metal was stolen from the mine. Now the Beshtau adits are caves with bare concrete mounts and the remains of rails not yet stolen. Since 2005, diggers became interested in dungeons ^[8] , who regularly visited abandoned adits for the thrill, beautiful photographs and learning about the once-secret enterprise. In 2012, more than 300 million rubles ^[9] were allocated from the federal budget for the restoration of the facilities of the hydrometallurgical plant and uranium mines No. 1 and No. 2 of the former Almaz enterprise within the framework of the implementation of the federal target program “OJARB 2008-2015” ^[10] . During the course of the restoration, areas with an increased radiation background were deactivated and some outstanding adits were concreted. As of 2018, there are still open entrances to the mine in Beshtau, the condition of the workings is satisfactory. Well No. 113 operates in adit No. 16; the Upper Radon Clinic of Pyatigorsk operates on its base. Radon water from a mark of 722 m automatically flows through a 8.5 km long radon conduit to the storage tanks, and from them to the hospital. The concentration of radon-222 in the water of the Beshtaugskoye field is quite high - up to 5.0-6.5 kBq / l (or up to 180-240 nCi / l) ^[11] .

Ecological environment

The uranium industry of the Lermontov Mining and Chemical Mine Administration has left a very negative imprint on the ecology of the Caucasian Mineral Waters ^[12] . During the operation of the Lermontov mine on the surface of Mount Beshtau, many rock dumps formed, with a total area of ​​365 thousand square meters. meters. Gangue contains radioactive isotopes of uranium , thorium and radium . During the large-scale restoration of 2012–2015 ^[13] , most dumps were ennobled, the soil contaminated with radionuclides was removed, and young plants were planted. However, in some places on the surface of the mountain, the dose rate of gamma radiation is still several times higher than the norm. Where great danger is the outstanding mouth of the adits. Inside the workings, the concentration of radon reaches a volumetric activity of 60,000 Bq / m ^{3 [14]} . Exhalation of radon from adits also contributes to the annual dose for residents of Lermontov ^[14] .

Visiting abandoned adits

An abandoned uranium mine attracts not only metal hunters, but also extreme lovers ^[15] . Despite the futile attempts of the regulatory authorities to completely block access to the mine, as of 2018 at least 5 tunnels remain open for public access. The main health hazard is the inhalation of the radioactive gas of radon and its daughter products. Immediately after the mine was decommissioned, the mine ventilation system completely stopped working, in summer radon concentrations can reach very dangerous values ​​in deadlock and not ventilated mine workings. In June 2018, an initiative group of diggers, together with the local radiation control laboratory, conducted a radon survey on the open mouths of the adits. According to the results of the analysis, the average equivalent equilibrium volumetric activity of the radon daughter products was 200 kBq / m ³ (safe according to "NRB-99/2009" is considered OA not exceeding the value of 0.2 kB / m ³ ). Regular visits to an abandoned uranium mine significantly affect the internal radiation of the body, especially the respiratory tract ^[16] . The question of the complete elimination of the mouths of the adits is still open.

• Lermontovsky mine 2
• Beshtau

• Ulyanov V. S. Memoirs of a mining engineer. - Lermontov. - 135 p.
• Sleptsov F.M. Pages of the Century. - Mineral waters, 2005 .-- 159 p.

• Lermontovsky mine number 1
• Pyatigorsk radon mineral waters
• Lermontov uranium deposit
• Monitoring the status of the subsoil at the facilities of the former LPO Almaz
• Reclamation of the tailings, hydrometallurgical plant and uranium mines