The uniquely beautiful landscapes of the Krasnoyarsk Territory under the onslaught of the Sibzoloto holding are turning into dull dumps. Neither the protests of local residents, nor the instructions of the prosecutor’s office help. Even the catastrophe that claimed two dozen human lives at one of the mines in the Krasnoyarsk Territory did not seem to teach anyone anything.
The tragedy did not become a lesson
Meanwhile, last summer, Russian Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, after numerous appeals from local residents, the public and environmental organizations, ordered additional inspections of the activities of gold mining enterprises in a number of regions of the Urals, Siberia and the Far East.
For the Krasnoyarsk Territory, where a terrible tragedy broke out at one of the gold mines three years ago, this was especially true.
Recall that everything happened in the remote taiga, 200 kilometers from the regional center: on a rainy autumn night, the waters of the Seiba river scattered a cascade of dams erected by the Sisim gold mining company, and the flow of dirty water washed away several wooden barracks with workers sleeping in them. During the audit, it turned out that the dams were built by order of the company’s management without any permits, projects and approvals. Moreover, their construction, by order of the “bosses”, was carried out by the miners themselves, that is, people who had no idea about the construction of hydraulic structures.
Rosprirodnadzor “counted” Sisim LLC 323 million rubles. It is this damage, according to the supervisory authority, that was caused by the company to the “environment”. The owner of the company Alexei Guryanov and other co-founders did not agree with this amount: after lengthy litigation, the amount was reduced to 181 million. But the owners of Sisim did not want to pay this money either. The bailiffs had to intervene, who seized the debtor’s accounts and equipment.
For comparison: in the Irkutsk region, the Usolekhimprom enterprise was fined 1.3 billion rubles for improper storage of chemically hazardous substances on its territory; which, instead of disposing of industrial waste, arranged a landfill on a rented site in the tundra.
And, finally, the most famous story about how the company “Norilsk Nickel” after the accident at the city CHP – 3, for the damage caused to Lake Pyasino and the rivers Dyldykan and Ambarnaya, “Rosrybolovstvo” “presented” 58.65 billion rubles! And this is in addition to 145.4 billion rubles in fines paid to the state for environmental damage. At the same time, fortunately, there were no human casualties in the polar environmental catastrophe.
Against this background, the “loyalty” of the Krasnoyarsk Themis to the “pranks” of the gold miners is surprising. After all, LLC “Sisim” and other gold mining companies of Guryanov “operate” not in the deserted tundra. They not only destroy the Siberian taiga, but also make life unbearable for people in villages and towns located in the area of gold mines.
But neither the authorities nor the environmental services react to their indignation and complaints. But it would seem that one tragedy at Sisim is more than enough to permanently revoke the company’s license to mine gold. But the license was revoked only for the field where human lives were ruined. The channels of other taiga rivers of the Yenisei basin LLC “Sisim” and other companies of Alexei Guryanov, as if nothing had happened, continue to crush, turning them into muddy mud streams.
The judge did not believe the prosecutor
Judging by the abundance of gross violations of mining technology and disregard for environmental legislation, it can be assumed that Aleksey Guryanov “knows how to negotiate” with “who needs to be.”
So, last year, the gold miners of “Sisima” actually destroyed the lovely forest river Tuksha, once rich in lenok, grayling and other species of valuable commercial fish.
This fact was recorded during the audit of the Krasnoyarsk environmental prosecutor’s office, which was carried out jointly with specialists from the Ministry of Ecology of the Territory and the Yenisei Department of the Federal Agency for Fishery. During the aviation survey, it was revealed that the cause of pollution of the water body was the discharge of polluted effluents into the Tuksha River from a sump located at the site of Sisim LLC in the Sayansky region of the region. It also turned out that the company is mining alluvial gold without the consent of the Yenisei Territorial Administration of the Federal Agency for Fishery.
The dead waters of Tuksha, in turn, poison the Kan River, on the banks of which there are many villages and cities, whose inhabitants actively use its water and biological resources.
Based on the results of the audit, the regional prosecutor’s office prepared a submission on the ban on gold mining in the Mansky and Sayansky regions by Sisim LLC. However, even the petition of the prosecutor’s office to suspend gold mining activities had no effect on the Leninsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk. The requirement of environmental and law enforcement agencies to stop this disgrace was denied by the court. Only in the appellate instance, the Krasnoyarsk Regional Court, did they agree with the prosecutor’s arguments.
Questions from environmentalists and the public have accumulated not only to Sisim, but also to other gold mining companies that are part of the Sibzoloto holding, the main beneficiary of which is Alexei Guryanov.
From Angara to Sayan
Artels of prospectors “Khakassia” and “Angara-North” are also actively destroying Siberian forests and rivers in the south and in the north of “Yenisei Siberia”. But local authorities are very loyal to this.
There are three cases under the proceedings of the Leninsky District Court on the suit of the environmental prosecutor’s office against the Angara-Sever Mining Artel LLC.
In two cases, the supervisory authority requires the suspension of the enterprise’s activities until the necessary approval of the Federal Agency for Fishery for gold mining is obtained. In one case, the court has already satisfied the statement of claim, and in the second case, as interim measures, it has imposed a ban on the performance of work until the court decision comes into force.
One of the leaders in the “Artel Prospectors” Khakassia “, according to the publication of RIA Novosti and the post in the “telegram channel” of the head of Rosprirodnadzor of Russia Svetlana Radionova, one of the leaders of the Artel Prospectors Khakassia LLC, is the father of the Minister of Property and Land Relations of Khakassia Evgeny Tarasov Boris Tarasov and this fact allows the “artels” to destroy the unique nature of the Sayans with impunity. Local residents complain that all their complaints and appeals remain unanswered.
The “golden empire” of businessman Alexei Guryanov is quite extensive – he is the beneficiary of 12 companies, including the Agat mining company, the exploration companies Ishimba LLC, Sirius LLC and Shaargan LLC, the Borey security company. Several LLCs are in liquidation or have already ceased to exist…
But Guryanov’s main asset is still Sisim LLC. The company, which wrote one of the most tragic pages in the history of Russian gold mining, continues to pursue profits, increasing volumes and assets.
The zeal of Alexei Guryanov is quite understandable. He is a loving father, and his daughter Natalia was educated in London and has long settled there. Life in “Foggy Albion” requires a lot of expenses, and she is used to living in a big way and not denying herself anything.
Reference
According to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities, Sisim LLC was established in March 2005. Its director is still Maxim Kovalkov, who also owns a 20% stake. Among the owners are Sergey Kovalkov, Alexey Guryanov and Angara-Sever Artel Prospectors. At the time of the tragedy, Sisim was part of a division of the Sibzoloto holding, which is one of the largest gold mining companies in Russia.