Asbest, Russia - With Canada out of the way, given the closure this year of its long-running asbestos mines, Russia is now the largest producer of asbestos in the world, and one Russian town prides itself in being the town where most of the toxic material originates, despite the fact that it’s killing residents left and right.
The New York Times recently penned a profile on the Russian town of Asbest, named for the mineral that allows the town to thrive. The city is at the center of Russia’s asbestos industry and many who were born there or grew up there are content to live in the midst of constant clouds of asbestos dust. Others are aching to leave, recognizing asbestos for the killer it is.
“Every normal person is trying to get out of here,” Boris Balobanov, a former factory employee, now a taxi driver, explained. “People who value their lives leave. But I was born here and have no place else to go.”
The article explains that, each day, asbestos miners set explosions in a strip mine owned by a company called Uralasbest. The explosion sets off a cloud of dust that permeates the air and covers everything within its reach.
“Residents describe layers of it collecting on living room floors. Before they take in the laundry from backyard lines, they first shake out the asbestos,” the author of the article writes.
“When I work in the garden, I notice asbestos dust on my raspberries,” adds Tamara A. Biserova, a retiree. So much dust blows against her windows, she said, that “before I leave in the morning, I have to sweep it out.”
The six individuals interviewed for the article all worked at the factory or mine and all report a persistent cough and other respiratory issues as well as a constant skin ailment that causes welts. Doctors say the skin problems arise from inflammation caused by asbestos exposure.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, a branch of the World Health Organization, is currently involved in a multi-year study of the town of Asbest and those who work in the asbestos industry there. They are trying to determine whether or not exposure to asbestos causes other illnesses and ailments besides lung cancer or mesothelioma. Ovarian cancer, the group says, is a big concern.
Unfortunately, however, the people of the town depend on the jobs supplied by Uralasbest to stay afloat. The industry, in general, employs 38,500 Russians, data shows, and some 400,000 depend on the factories and mines for their livelihoods, including supporting businesses in the mining towns. In Asbest, 17 percent of residents work for Uralasbest.
Russians maintain that the chrysotile form of asbestos is safe. Most other countries disagree but the town of Asbest insists that chrysotile is an important part of its future and even has a motto that proclaims such rhetoric.
“[Others] consider it dangerous but we consider it safe,” says Vladimir A. Galitsyn of the Russian Chrysotile Association. Russia has three research institutes dedicated to studying uses for asbestos.
“As a representative of the industry, I don’t see any problem,” he said. “We are not the enemy of our workers. If they died, then people would be afraid to work for us.”
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