Documentary photographer and storyteller Valeriy Miloserdov (b. 1961) recounts the fall of the once lucrative and well-reputed work of the miner in the industry’s initial days in the 1950s to a workforce left in the shadows in the early nineties and first years of the country’s independence. The black and white photographic series titled Abandoned People enters into the pits, protests and private home life of the mine workers from the years 1994 to 1999. Miloserdov, who worked as a photojournalist for a newspaper at the time of this series, captured and covered critical moments in political history such as in Vilnius and the Soviet Coup of 1991, the demolition of the Lenin statue in Lviv, the Crimean Tatar rally in Simferopol, amongst other key events. Initially motivated to witness the Donbas region in the years following the Soviet collapse, the visit evolved into a five-year project, gaining the trust of the workers and their families. This series demonstrates intimacy, whereas in other works there remains a distance between the photographer and the subject. The miners are captured as both a collective and as individuals, demonstrating physical and determined strength, yet at the same time a human vulnerability: people with crutches, wives kneeling on the floor in tears, and the preparation of coffins. The downfall of the mining industry by the early 1990s had an effect on all, the coal mines were the focal point of the communities; without the mines, there was no livelihood and no money.

In addition to the images of heavy labour, Miloserdov captures the surrounding moments in the mining community’s day-to-day life. From a day trip to the beach with the children to the participation in religious ceremonies to a cup of tea in the home, we are given 360-degree access to the lives of these people. There are also images of priests, funeral processions and men ill in bed, which are references to the short life expectancy of these workers and the occupational diseases that slowly began to emerge over the years; a safer workplace, equipment and guarantee of housing for their families were protagonists of the protests.

Mining has been an oft-depicted subject starting in the industrial revolution by anonymous photographers of the 1880s, George Bretz, or the adaptly named John Charles Burrow, an English photographer who was commissioned to document the work in four of Cornwall’s deepest mines, resulting in creating an archive of man’s capability and awe of technology. The industry’s destructive and transformative impact on the earth is depicted in the photographs of the Anthropocene project by Edward Burtynsky, and Josef Koudelka’s The Black Triangle.

Along with the technology and the landscape, mining photography more often than not delves into the people. From Lewis Hine’s documentation of child labour in America in the early 20th century to several projects by Sebastião Salgado, who denounces the working conditions of mines and oil fields. Three Generations of Welsh Miners (1950) by W. Eugene Smith shows the importance of a mine in one family in a country where mining became the topic of heated discussion, protests, strikes and later forced closures by the Thatcher government. In 2011, Song Chao presented the work Miners; a series of portraits of Chinese workers photographed as they finish their shift against a white background, highlighting their personalities and their similarities. Pierre Gonnord presented a similar work of portraits concentrating on the last miners of a dying industry in present-day Spain.

A particular shot by Miloserdov, taken in July 1995 at the Partyzanska mine in the city of Antratsyt, Luhansk Oblast, consists of a miner in the showers washing the coal soot off his face and body, Miloserdov aimed to capture the moment in which the outer shell comes off, and the man re-appears. This image, captured in a private moment, recalls the work of Arsen Savadov (b. 1962), where he photographs miners post-shift in the showers with an almost theatrical feel. Photographs selfdefined as a Dadaist practice, Savadov’s soot-covered miners dressed in ballet tutus play with the pre-conceived notions of class definition and the ability to overlap the two sides of the spectrum. The series Donbas Chocolate (1997), taken from the Deepinsider project, brings together high culture and manual labour to create a collage-esque portrait of clashing stereotypes and their relevance to political propaganda in the late-nineties.

Almost in continuation of Miloserdov’s project, Dreamland Donbas (2002-2003) by Viktor Marushchenko delves into the lives of those who continue to look and dig for hope within the abandoned mines located in the cities and towns of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. As the years have passed, mining on an industrial level has become cost inefficient and therefore the structures have been forced to close down, regardless of the communities which have grown in the vicinity. Marushchenko photographed individual figures who are dwarfed by the industrial landscapes that have morphed and consumed the land around them.

Glesni Trefor Williams