Kuzbass (Kuznetsk Basin)
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One of the world's largest coalfields, located in Kemerovo Oblast of southwestern Siberia, in the basin of the Tom River between the Kuznetsk Alatau and Salair mountain ranges. Coal was discovered there in 1721, and after the First Five-Year Plan (1928–32) it developed into the USSR's second-largest coal and heavy-industry base after the Donbass (Ukraine), forming an industrial axis with the Urals through the Ural-Kuznetsk Combine that exchanged Urals iron ore for Kuzbass coking coal. In July 1989 the largest strike in Soviet history began at Mezhdurechensk in the Kuzbass, making the region the epicenter of the perestroika-era labor movement.
Sources
- Wikipedia (RU) Russian Wikipedia: full history, geography, coal grades, Soviet industrialization under Five-Year Plan, 1989 strikes context, and modern production statistics
- Wikipedia (EN) English Wikipedia: overview of the basin's geography, Soviet-era role as second only to Donbass, Ural-Kuznetsk Combine, and 1989 miner strikes
- britannica.com Britannica: description as one of Russia's largest coalfields, 1721 discovery, First Five-Year Plan exploitation, Ural-Kuznetsk iron-and-steel combine, and industrial centers (Novokuznetsk, Kemerovo, etc.)
- Marxists Internet Archive Marxists.org / Against the Current (Sep/Oct 1989): contemporaneous report on the July 1989 strike wave starting in the Kuzbass (Mezhdurechensk, Kemerovo, Prokopyevsk), miners' living conditions, environmental degradation
- urgewald.org Urgewald (2021): pollution statistics, life expectancy 3 years below Russian average in Kuzbass, 75% of Russia's coal exports from the region