This is a translation of the article about illegal miners that Inga posted on the Russian version of NewEurasia.

Could you ever imagine that thousands of people with their spades can work in radioactive hole where the radiation level skyrockets as high as 1500-2000? This is not a narration from a horror movie. This is Kyrgyz Klondike where local miners search for their “gold”.

Currently there are about 100 abandoned industrial dumps in Kyrgyzstan, one third of them are uranium tails. They are all dispersed in different regions, though one of the most popular places of public “hunting” is in the village Orlovka ocated in the Kemin district of Chui oblast. Several years ago some enterprising “businessmen” started involving locals into the process of excavation of the dumps with industrial wastes in search of monosilicon that Chinese businessmen value and enthusiastically buy in Kyrgyzstan. This trade is so widespread in the country that some experts insist that even some high officials keep lobbying this process.

If you go to Orlovka you will discover that the people of all ages are involved into this excavation. They work 10 to 12 hours a day. Mainly these are unemployed villagers and their kids as young as 7 years old. There is a real battle in this radioactive hole because if you are lucky in your search you can earn up to $ 100. Dealers pay per kilo. In case of big success you can get these money for an hour. If worse comes to worse you’ll spend 2-3 days collecting wastes.

Toktayim Umetalieva chairing an association of NGOs in Kyrgyzstan says:

“The most teriibble thing is that one third of such miners are children. You can easily see that the number of them increases during school breaks. Moreover I know that there are 18 pregnant women who also work in Orlovka. Don’t you think that the whole nations can be endangered in the future when the number of “radioactive” kids delivered will increase?”

It may, indeed, be the case. The medical data that was recently presented is really shocking. 100 examined children-miners were diagnosed with pathologies of liver, kidneys as well as mental retardation. According to one of the representatives of Kyrgyz NGO “Positive Help” parents of these children before sending them to doctors would ask coach their kids on not saying doctors about any health problem. The main concern of locals in Orlovka is their dump. They assume that if it is closed there will not be a place where they can earn any money at all.

Now the practice of dump excavations becomes more widespread in Kyrgyzstan. As it turned out 300 people in Issykkul district already started illegal excavation of monosilicon at the dump in Kadgisay village. “Since such mining has never been prosecuted yet they feel free doing whatever they want not paying attention at the fact that their work can simply kill them”, - says Toktayim Umetalieva. According to this NGO leader the situation is getting more criminal flavor. As she states before the fall 2005 some armed policemen would appear at the site where illegal mining took place to stop people from doing this deadly work. Though later one official in the White House started patronizing this business and the police was curbed.

Kyrgyz government recently was considering a suggestion to ban dump mining. Nothing though has been done by far. There is also an idea to start licensing such activities. But while the government is engrossed in deep thoughts people keep excavating dumps. There is a feeling that soon the government won’t have much to do in this situation. Whether it’s imposing a ban or licensing it will be too late. There will be another challenge for the state to provide pensions for new disabled people who are currently trying to make ends meet working at radioactive dumps.