Donetsk miners dream of peace amid din of airport battle

“We have a saying,” declares Zhenya Romanov, raising his voice above a brutal cacophony at Donetsk’s Oktyabrskaya coal mine.

"If Ukraine looks after coal, coal will look after Ukraine. I hope it's still true."

The state of Oktyabrskaya, where Romanov has worked for 36 years, suggests the old maxim may no longer hold.

The sounds echoing around the huge complex come not from its towering lift-shafts or ranks of trucks and bulldozers, the soaring conveyor belts or the rail tracks which for decades have led cargo trains into loading bays groaning with coal.

The entire facility is at a standstill, with countless windows smashed, roofs and doors ripped off, and walls punctured and gouged by rockets that lie scattered around, amid shattered glass and tinkling shards of deadly shrapnel.

But it is still deafening at Oktyarbrskaya.

Sniper rifles

From across scrubland and scattered trees beyond the mine come long crunching coils of heavy machine gun fire, the crack of sniper rifles and hungry chatter of Kalashnikovs, and thudding, gut-churning mortar strikes.

Donetsk’s Sergei Prokofiev international airport is barely a kilometre away, and there Ukrainian troops have for months fought off unrelenting attacks by Russian-backed separatists, for whom the airfield would be a strategic asset and propaganda prize.

Kiev’s soldiers are nearly surrounded, but use the airport’s tunnels and subterranean bunkers to survive fierce artillery fire. They receive support and supplies from national guard units in the nearby village of Pisky.

Their apparent indestructibility has made them heroes of Ukraine’s often-hapless military campaign, and seen national media dub them “cyborgs”.

The mine sits between the airport and Pisky, and has been hit countless times by both sides.

“The last shift was May 26th, when they bombed the airport and the battle began,” says Alexander Rodichev (50), who worked his first shift here in 1982.

“I wouldn’t say we were scared, but we couldn’t believe what was happening. What were we, one people, doing to each other? I can’t say who is right or wrong, who is telling the truth, or who is good or bad – but it has to stop.”

Dozens of rebels were killed – including fighters from Chechnya – when Ukraine used military helicopters and jets to dislodge them from the airport.

“We used to have 1,500 staff here, and workers underground around the clock,” says Rodichev, opening the door to a long hall where hundreds of miners’ overalls hang waiting for the next shift. In the adjoining room, plastic bags of miners’ belongings still dangle from numbered hooks.

“They didn’t even take their stuff!” he exclaims.

“They’re all ready to come back as soon as the fighting stops. They haven’t been paid for months, and they want to get going. They want to come in, clean the place up, get it working. We just need peace!”

“There are dozens of years’ worth of coal under here. It’s easy to extract and the quality is good. Give us a month and enough money, and we’ll get it going.”

Rodichev, the head of surface transport at Oktyabrskaya, estimates it would cost more than €10 million to repair and relaunch the facility.

"But coal is our history, our work, our pride. Coal is Donbas," says Romanov, using the local name for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are now largely under rebel control.

In a region not overly endowed with money, natural beauty or cultural treasures, work is indeed the people’s pride.

Many towns and villages rely on a single factory or mine for survival, and there is no one more powerful in such places than the people who control that life-giving business.

Viktor Yanukovich, who was ousted as president in an anti-corruption, pro-western revolution last February, hails from the mining and metals town of Yenakievo, 50km from Donetsk.

Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man and Yanukovich’s chief financial backer for many years, was actually born a few streets from the Oktyabrskaya mine, in a district of the same name; in 2011, the oligarch paid the equivalent of €173 million for One Hyde Park in London, Britain’s most expensive residence.

Local elite

Ukraine’s revolution attracted little support in Donbas, partly because Yanukovich was “their man” and the local elite was closely linked to him, but also due to a deep political apathy in the region and weak civil society.

It is also common to hear easterners insist that they are too busy working to attend protests, and many believe their vast Soviet-era factories and dangerous and decrepit mines fund the country; in fact, Donbas is heavily subsidised by Kiev.

“My grandfather, father and me, and now my son – we’re a dynasty of miners,” declares Rodichev, who insists few miners have joined the militants.

He is pinning his hopes for Oktyabrskaya on Sunday’s rebel leadership election. “I’ll vote for peace,” he says. “That’s all we need.”