AMBER PLACERS OF ZHYTOMYR REGION ARE OCCUPIED BY CRIMINALITY, LEGALIZATION OF AMBER MINING IS MOVING FROM TALK… TO TALK
The dug-up ground, armed people at checkpoints, exhausted nervous people near them… Sometimes there are clashes with shooting and blood. This is not the long-suffering Donbass. This is the north of the Zhytomyr region, Olevsky district. There are amber placers here. Here you can become rich overnight if you are lucky enough to find amber and if the mined stones are not taken away by the police or bandits.
Here, in deep Polesie, work is very difficult. Agriculture is developing poorly – sand and stones. There is practically no industry. Amber deposits are a salvation from poverty. All stone found can be sold immediately. You have to pay for the opportunity to earn money in this way and for guarantees of security. But the tax representative is not here. Everyone understands that they are paying bandits. The police sometimes conduct raids and only take away the amber they have mined from spontaneous miners. The bandits ruled and continue to rule, say local residents.
In fact, amber in the Zhytomyr region has to be mined illegally, because it cannot be done legally due to a hole in the legislation: using the industrial method, as they do in the neighboring Rivne region, it is unprofitable to extract local amber, but the current law does not provide for other legal methods . The wealth literally lying under your feet does not leave anyone indifferent. Almost everyone who lives near placers digs amber illegally. They also come from neighboring districts and regions. Especially from Rovno. The result is serious clashes, like at the end of January in the village of Sushchany, where more than 300 people on each side fought wall to wall.
The peculiarities of the occurrence of amber in the Zhytomyr region are such that it makes little sense for large companies to start licensing red tape for the exploration and extraction of this stone and pay a lot of money for a license. Amber mining is actually prohibited for amateur prospectors and artisans, since neither artels nor prospectors are prescribed in Ukrainian legislation. So the legislative vacuum is filled with lawlessness. A kind of order has developed: anyone who wants to dig in the ground pays 300 UAH per day to the bandit and gets access to the amber placer.
The reason for the “criminalization” of amber is that it was classified as a precious stone on a par with diamonds
It has long been clear that the extraction of sunstone by prospectors needs to be legalized. But things didn’t go further than talk. And so on December 10, 2014, the bill “On the extraction and sale of amber” (No. 1351) was registered in the Verkhovna Rada, in which the concepts of “mining site” and “mining artel” appeared.
The essence of the document is that amber deposits in the Zhytomyr region should be managed by a specialized municipal enterprise (CP) of regional subordination. KP will be entrusted with resolving all issues of relations with artisanal miners – from land allocation to the sale of mined stone on the amber exchange (which does not yet exist). For the use of a prospector’s subsoil plot, the artel must pay CP 20% of the income from the sale of the mined stone on the exchange.
This bill was submitted for consideration by people’s deputies Borislav Rosenblat, Vladimir Areshonkov, Pavel Dzyublik, Nikolai Tomenko, Vadim Krivenko and Vasily Yanitsky. It is currently being discussed and finalized. For this purpose, a working group of deputies of the regional council, representatives of the regional administration and geological experts has been created in Zhitomir. Leaders of the northern regions of the Zhytomyr region, where there are or may be amber deposits, are also involved in the discussion.
During the first meeting of the working group on February 4 in Zhitomir, an assistant to one of the authors of the bill, Borislav Rosenblat, Maxim Glushanitsa, noted that the goal of the legislative norms being developed is to regulate the relationship between business entities, the state and local governments, as well as to reduce tensions in the regions where spontaneous extraction of amber, and avoid environmental disaster. The bill envisages the participation of so-called artisanal artisans in the extraction of amber. Control over production is assigned to local governments at the regional level. For this purpose, a utility company of the appropriate profile should be created, one of the tasks of which should be to simplify as much as possible all permitting procedures for artisanal artisans. Moreover, they can only be those legal entities or individuals that are registered in a given territory, so that all taxes and fees go to local budgets (and not to gangster “common funds.” – V.K.).
Judging by the presentation of the bill, equipped with flowcharts with comments, meticulous work was carried out on it. However, we cannot yet talk about creating a perfectly working legal mechanism.
The participants in the discussion immediately had a question: why are village councils cut off from participating in the regulation of amber mining, especially since so many excavations are located on demarcated lands? According to information from a fighter against the amber mafia, a young journalist from Olevsk, Alexander Nikolaychuk, more than half of the amber-bearing areas are private property. In addition, as the discussion participants noted, the intended purpose of most of these lands is agriculture. Plus, a significant part of the placers is located on forest lands, including nature reserves and sanctuaries. It is unclear what to do with the amber deposits in these areas, and the bill does not regulate this problem. This means that solar stone mining will not be completely removed from the control of criminals with the adoption of the bill in its current form.
Does the bill exclude corruption schemes? No. On the contrary, they are already embedded in it. In particular, Art. 5 suggests devoting as much as five years to the geological study of amber deposits and 20 years to the actual extraction. As noted by expert, Doctor of Geological Sciences, senior researcher at the Institute of Geological Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Elena Remezova (she is one of the few scientists who described amber deposits in the north of the Zhytomyr region), not in 20 or even five years, but in about a year -one and a half all amber from any site will be scooped up.
Perhaps the authors of the bill did not understand this. But a suspicion arises that such a norm was deliberately included in its text in order to allow full-fledged amber mining under the guise of studying the site and, accordingly, not to show all the mined amber, as well as to save on other payments, as is now done in granite mining.
According to E. Remezova, one of the reasons for the criminalization of amber mining in the Zhytomyr region was the classification of this stone as precious on a par with diamonds. This norm is enshrined in the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of May 18, 1993 (No. 5393) “On State Assay Supervision.” In Poland, for example, amber has the status of just a jewelry ornamental stone. In this country, issuing permits for its extraction and registration of prospecting sites is the responsibility of local authorities.
The expert noted the need to legally determine the maximum depth from which amber can be mined using the artisanal method. It’s one thing to dig it up with a shovel from a meter deep, and quite another thing to extract it from a depth of ten meters using heavy equipment, which is harmful to the environment.
Dr. Remezova also noted that the bill does not clearly state who a “miner” is. In the usual sense, these are those who extract any minerals where it is impossible to mine industrially, or where it is not economically profitable to install heavy equipment. However, the bill under discussion does not say this.
In addition, in her opinion, the future law should define where mineral resources cannot be mined using the artisanal method. For example, in the legislation of some countries, mining activities are prohibited where industrial mining is carried out, and in areas for the development of which special permits have been or may be issued. Finally, the legislation of a number of countries prohibits mining activities in nature reserves. And, of course, it is necessary to prohibit the use of pumps for washing rocks, which cause irreparable damage to the environment.
The expert noted the need for further geological study of amber deposits and their support. The peculiarities of the occurrence of amber in the Zhytomyr region were described by geologists back in the 80s of the last century, but very superficially, “tangentially,” and now further research is necessary. If this is not done, significant volumes of fossils will simply be lost. That is why the Polish authorities are mapping amber ore occurrences and do not skimp on funding this research. “The nation must know what it owns, otherwise we will miss a lot,” stressed Elena Remezova.
The in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the bill by scientists during the hearings apparently tired the deputy head of the Zhytomyr regional state administration Vyacheslav Polishchuk, who chaired the working group meeting, and he invited the scientist to submit his comments in writing by e-mail. As if the purpose of the event was not an exchange of opinions, but an exchange of e-mails…
“The bandits did what the state did not do – they streamlined the extraction of amber.” And they imposed their tax…
The speech of a journalist and human rights activist from Olevsk, Alexander Nikolaychuk, who conducted his own investigation into the illegal mining of amber in the northern regions of the Zhytomyr region, was very harsh. He literally accused law enforcement agencies of inaction. In his opinion, the law needs to be adopted, but even before its adoption the situation should be kept within the legal framework. But this is just not the case. Indeed, how should law enforcement agencies be managed and what kind of bodies are they if tons of illegally mined amber are transported “through them”?!
“The north of the Zhytomyr region and, in particular, the Olevsky district are under criminal occupation,” said the journalist and human rights activist. “The bandits succeeded because they did what the state did not do—they streamlined the extraction and sale of the mined amber. Despite periodic police raids, bandit armed groups still stood at the checkpoints they had equipped, and they still took 300 UAH a day from those who wanted to dig amber. At the same time, they are not hiding from anyone! And in the area of the villages of Sushchany and Khochino (Olevsky district), armed bandits are blocking traffic on the road leading to the border checkpoint on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. The bandits are dictating terms to us! How are they better than the terrorists in Eastern Ukraine?
As A. Nikolaychuk said, the police from time to time conduct raids during which they take away the found amber from ordinary seekers of happiness and local residents, but law enforcement officers do not touch criminals. At the same time, almost all local residents dig amber there and consider it theirs. This belief must be legitimized in order to try to seize the initiative from the criminals.
— Back in 2007, a geography teacher from our school set fire to pieces of amber and said that in the future there could be a war because of it. Honestly, I didn’t believe it then,” the journalist admitted.
So, the deputies have an understanding that spontaneous amber mining in the Zhytomyr region should be streamlined and legalized. But the adoption of the relevant bill is no longer enough – they were late with it, and the initiative is now with the criminals. It needs to be intercepted. But this is another war on the territory of our sovereign state.
Where is Ukrainian amber found?
As Elena Remezova told a ZN.UA correspondent, a large amber geological province stretches along the Dnieper (see map). The highest concentration of amber placers is in the Rivne region, mainly in the Sarnensky and Volodymeretsky districts. There are three “official” deposits located there, which are listed on the state balance sheet: Klyosovskoye, which is developed by the state enterprise “Ukrburshtin”, Volodymyrets-Vostochny, which is developed by the private company “Sonyachne Remeslo”. The third field, Vilne, is not yet being developed. Exploration of other deposits is underway.
In the Zhytomyr region, unlike the Rivne region, most likely there are few or no large deposits. The most interesting are, first of all, the area near the village of Perga (Olevsky district), a small area near the village of Barashi (Emilchinsky district). Only the Viktorovskoye deposit (also Emilchinsky district), which is listed on the balance sheet of PJSC Quartz Gems, has been explored to industrial status. But these deposits need to be further explored. The amber content there is not only uneven, it is in the form of a kind of nest. There may be a lot of stone in the nest itself, but if you step back a little, there’s nothing left. And if in the deposits of the Rivne region some patterns in the distribution of stone can be found, then in Zhytomyrshina no such patterns have yet been discovered.
“Here we need to look for other types of amber “traps” than in the Rivne region, where such traps were created by the ancient sea,” explains E. Remezova. — They could be a spit, a spit, a karst funnel. In the Zhytomyr region, which is higher in relief, all heterogeneities are located in ancient valleys, and they require special methods of study. We can only say with certainty that the Zhytomyr amber deposits are small, but there are many of them. Deposits are known in the Olevsky, Emilchinsky, Korostensky regions. They probably exist in Ovruchsky and Luginsky too. Amber was also found in the Radomyshl region.
According to the scientist, Zhytomyr amber is of high quality, it is no worse than Baltic and Klyosov amber. It has a fairly rich range of colors. Thus, in the area of the village of Perga, rare green amber is found. But the classic, honey-yellow colors prevail.
In terms of the amount of amber mined, Ukraine is second only to Russia (*country sponsor of terrorism). However, the quality is significantly superior. Thus, if Russian deposits produce only 10–15% of amber jewelry, then Ukrainian deposits produce at least 25%.
And finally, about amber prices. The Internet offers to buy unprocessed raw amber from Ukraine at the following prices: fractions from 2 to 5 g – 205 dollars / kg, from 5 to 10 g – 540, from 10 to 20 g – 1160, from 20 to 50 g – 1780, from 50 to 100 g – 1980, from 100 to 200 g – $2420/kg. Larger nuggets – from 200 g to 1 kg – are sold at a special price.
The approximate prices of the world’s largest amber exchange in Gdansk (Poland) are as follows: per kilogram of amber, fractions of 2-5 g give 350-500 dollars (in December 2014 it was 500-600 dollars), fractions 5-10 g – 600- 800 (at $900–1200 in December), 10–20 g — 1300–1700 (2000–2500), 20–50 g — 2200–3200 (4300–4700), 50–100 — 3000–4300 (5000– 5500) and for fractions from 100 to 200 g – $4000–5200 ($6400–6700 in December). These data from the Polish website www.amber.com.pl demonstrate the collapse in prices for solar stone. Perhaps one of the reasons is the supply of illegal amber from Ukraine to the market, but this is a topic for another article.