A series of workmanship contests devoted to Miners’ Day has been finalized at Bogatyr Coal, LLP. The operators of diesel locomotives, those of OPE-1 and PE-2M traction units were the first to match their strength and book knowledge. Then on the 18th and 21st of August the bucket wheel excavator operators and the crew of shovel operators contested to gain the right to be called the best.

In the contest among the bucket wheel operators there were by three representatives from each of four crews of Bogatyr mine participating. The contests were held on Bucket Wheel No. 1144. So, all the participants were provided with alike conditions. Now it was only needed to demonstrate one’s workmanship. The contest lasted several hours. It was intense sometimes with flawless professional work for some of them and sometimes with a few blunders involved for the others. But a competition is a competition, and it never happens that everyone is a winner. It was that way this time as well. But its results were not summarized on the same day. The commission was still to find out the results of car weighing and the quality of their weighing. Only the aggregate of all the indicators would give them an opportunity to recognize the best participants.

For half a day the members of the contest commission traveled on the serpentine road first of the waste dumps and then of Bogatyr mine. They had to travel at least several tens of kilometers in order to visit the sites where shovels and draglines had been operating. The shift crews whose schedule fell on that day participated in the contest to gain the right to be called the best.

In front of the organizers of the contest there was a difficult task: how to define the best if practically all the participants are working on excavators of various modifications and in various conditions. Eventually the decision was made that the main evaluation criterion would be the technical state of the machines, observance of safety engineering rules and correct recording of technical documentation and logbooks. But one element of contentiousness, however, was present: each operator had to answer 10 questions regarding the electrical part of the excavator, and the task was limited by time. Each crew demonstrated its best professional qualities.

…We were leaving the mine in the second half of the day. On the way back to town the commission members discussed the most important moments of the past content. But none of them could even approximately name the winner. It was required to summarize the results of the answers to the test questions.

The results of the contests among the bucket wheel and shovel operators are as follows: the first place in the “Best Bucket Wheel Operator” nomination was won by the trio consisting of the bucket wheel operator Galimzhan Ormanov, the loading operator Alik Sharipov and the operator-electrician Andrey Shundeyev. The second place was taken by the crew headed by the bucket wheel operator Oleg Alyokhin, the loading operator Vladimir Agibalov and the operator-electrician Vladimir Murzin. The third place was taken by the crew consisting of the bucket wheel operator Yuriy Rezhetnikov, the loading operator Sabit Sadykov and the operator-electrician Sergey Yeropkin.

In the “Best Shovel Operator” nomination the first one was Vitaliy Karastoyanov’s crew, which was presented at the competition by the operator Viktor Alexeyev and his assistants Alexander Lyubetskiy and Dmitriy Guschin. The second place was won by Valeriy Gaas’s crew, which consisted of the operator Vitaliy Kharakhorin and his assistant Bakhtiyar Tuleubayev. The third was Pyotr Yakushev’s crew presented by the operator Vladimir Perevoschikov and his assistant Matvey Zapryagayev.

Traditionally the best representatives by profession will be honored at a solemn meeting, which will be held at Bogatyr mine. They will be awarded with appreciation letters, pennants, bunches of flowers and envelopes with cash bonus.