Eastern Ukrainian miners yearn for Russia, bygone Soviet era

SHAKHTARSK, Ukraine — Off a dirt road in the outskirts of this eastern Ukrainian town, Valeriy stands outside his house and cuddles his wife, Tanya. She wears a blue bathrobe and slippers, and Valeriy says the fading bruise high on her left cheek was caused by a fall at a party while they were both drunk.

Valeriy is a miner but has not been employed as one since completing his fifth prison sentence for theft. Previously, he risked his life working at an illegal coal mine in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s industrial heartland now roiled by political unrest.

Despite the epic contest between forces, mostly Russian speakers aligned with Moscow against Ukrainian speakers loyal to Kyiv, he is more concerned with the daily struggle to get by and the desperate hope for some improvement in his life. Valeriy, who identifies as Russian, hopes for a better future if Donetsk becomes part of Russia — with a catch. “I don’t want it to be like Russia,” he says. “I want it to be like the past, the USSR.”

The future of the mines and the miners is at the center of the political battle being waged by pro-Russian separatists who have occupied public buildings and set up barricades in response to the overthrow of pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych in February. The resulting crisis has cast a rare global media spotlight on this corner of Ukraine, with Western powers fearing that Moscow plans to annex eastern Ukraine — as it did with the Russian-dominated Crimean Peninsula.

Valeriy’s sentiments are fairly commonplace in this hardscrabble region, which maintains close economic links to Russia. Donetsk and its residents paid a heavy price for the collapse of communism as free market reforms swept away jobs, cut the value of state benefits and sharply reduced living standards.

For Valeriy, who started training to be a miner in 1990, right before the fall of the Soviet Union, there was just the briefest glimpse of a more secure time. “I was getting payment even for my learning,” he says. “That’s why I appreciate that time.”

He has two young children and remembers a summer camp during the Soviet era that was free for workers. Despite his nostalgia for the USSR, he does not support the pro-Russian militia movement because, he says, it has brought instability to the region.

“I want to be Russian, but I do not want a war. I want to live in peace, so that’s why I don’t support their activities. I want to be part of Russia with peace. Nobody needs the war,” he says. “I am afraid that [ordinary] people will be threatened.”

Illegal mines can be easy to spot. At one visited by Al Jazeera, the contrast with a legal operation were obvious. It was shallower, and there was no elevator into the pit. Instead, workers walk down to the coal face. A dirt-covered picture of Jesus hung off the wooden entryway, where an empty hopper stood, attached to a rope the workers use to pull the coal to the surface.

An outhouse and a place to shower were in nearby shacks.

Vadim has just finished his shift. He says he was 15 when he started working at the illegal mines. That was 17 years ago. Today he knows of boys that young in the mines.

Asked if his colleagues go to work drunk in the illegal mines, he pauses and grins, then answers, “Yes, it happens. It happens.” According to him, that happens about twice a month, normally when the men get paid. He says he does not mind that so much because he does it himself and feels it is normal.

Valeriy, Andrey and Vadim have become close friends while working at these illegal mines. For one, though, there is hope of a break.

The chairman of a local legal mine has promised Andrey the opportunity to take a test this week for a job. Getting that job is far more important to him than the outcome of the conflict between Kyiv and pro-Russian militias. A regular, legal and relatively well-paid job would change his life. He says, imagining it, “It’s another world.”