The People of the Pit
November 19, 2013 in Latest News
ASBEST, Russia — On a chilly afternoon earlier this week, an SUV parked at the edge of an enormous hole in the ground in the town of Asbest, Russia. Over six miles long and one thousand feet deep, it is the world’s largest open-pit asbestos mine. Two young women in brightly-colored down jackets stepped out of the car to have a smoke and enjoy a panoramic view of what had been the town of Asbest’s main industry and biggest source of pride for more than a century. Delighted, the women watched from afar as trucks and bulldozers, tiny as toys in the distance, excavated the mineral on the bottom of the mine, which was then loaded into wagons and transported along railroads. Stairs carved into the pit’s earthy sides and layer after layer of roads and rails stretched towards the horizon, almost replicating, on a much larger scale, the striated look of asbestos fiber itself.