Waste heaps. Soligorsk mountains. Space landscapes of Belarus

Anna Ivanova says: “A step back: just starting to hitchhike seven years ago, on the way along the Minsk-Gomel highway, I first saw strange mountains that aroused curiosity and did not fit into the Belarusian landscape in any way. The driver said that this is toxic production waste, which the state allows itself to leave without a twinge of conscience. This spring, with a colleague from BelaPAN, we discussed interesting places where you can drive, and agreed that we should conquer the top of the waste heaps, unique in their beauty.

At the entrance to Soligorsk, the flat terrain begins to resemble the Carpathians: real mountains are visible on the horizon. It is a traditional practice to dump empty ore left over from processing into such mountains. Terrikon is a dump, an artificial embankment made of waste rocks extracted during underground mining.

(Total 61 photos)

Source: JJournal/voolchitza

1.

2.

3. Leaving Minsk at the beginning of the fourth, in order to be in time for dawn, we managed to admire the waste heap under the starry sky.

4. Vasya studies the watchman's behavior.

5. Having made a dashing feint, we climb the first slope.

6. And it started like in a song: “Maybe there, behind a steep pass, a sip, fresh as the wind, will flare up, the most fabulous and unprecedented ...”

7.

8. Plant.

9. A great place to meet the dawn, I'll tell you, sometimes man-made landscapes are incomparable.

10.

eleven.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

thirty.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59.

60.

61.