Veronika Melkozerova
KLESIV, Ukraine – Illegal amber mining is not an easy way to make money. Miners have irregular working hours and can be digging or washing out amber in the forests of Rivne Oblast day and night, in any weather.
“Our profit always depends on luck,” says Oleksandr Abramchuk, an amber miner and an activist in the Polissya civic organization, which was created by amber miners from the village of Klesiv in Rivne Oblast. “You spend money every day on fuel, bribes for the police and food for diggers. But that doesn’t mean you’ll find any amber.”
An illegal amber mining team needs to have a pump, or several pumps (each costs around $2,000), a firehose ($150) a drill ($350), a net and a team of six diggers. According to Abramchuk, the work day of a team starts with a text message to the local police informing them of the exact time and place (forest area) they are going to start digging.
The scheme is called a “ticket,” and means the team gets the green light to work and will have no problems with the police for one working day. The average price of a ticket per team is $500. Miners claim corrupt police officers in Rivne Oblast collect bribes from miners at the end of every working week.
The miners who the Kyiv Post spoke with wouldn’t reveal their income, saying revenue is hard to calculate because the quality and quantity of the amber they find is entirely a matter of luck. But for some, the element of chance is actually one of the few perks of the job.
“You can dig for, or wash out amber with the pump for a whole day, and find nothing or just small pieces that aren’t worth much. But the feelings you get can be compared to the rush from gambling,” Vasyl Pihotin, the director of a local construction company based in Klesiv, told the Kyiv Post.
Other miners agreed with Pihotin, saying that because of the hope of a lucky find, miners would stand up to their waists in cold water for hours, reluctant to stop digging because “the stone of your dreams could be so close.”
The prices for amber pieces start from $100 per kilogram (for pieces from 2 grams in weight) up to $4,000 per kilo for large chunks of amber. A large chunk could be worth $2,000. But the miners themselves always get the thinnest cut from the scheme -- about 10 percent of each deal.
Moreover, the costs on miners’ health from their work can be severe. Standing as they do in cold water in all weathers, miners are frequently stricken with colds, flu,arthritis and other ailments.
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