Representatives of retired miners of Rostov region are seeking for a meeting with Governor Golubev

Representatives of about five thousand former miners of Rostov region are asking the new Governor Vasily Golubev to receive them in order to move forward a request to return the payments cancelled by the local officials.

“We want to ask the new Governor personally to help us solve our problems which the previous authorities failed to do”, Boris Jamalov, a retired miner from the town of Shakhty, said to a reporter of “Caucasian Knot”.

According to Jamalov, the struggle of retired miners from the towns of Zverevo, Shakhty and Gukovo for their benefits, ration coal, heating and other energy resources has been going since local authorities canceled all these referring to the Federal Law No 122 known as “law of monetization” accepted in 2004. 

“Many of us have got judgments from courts, replies from the Ministry of Social Development, lawyers and solicitors running that local authorities must pay us the benefits for consumed energy resources. We think the reason is that the Don authorities are unaware of our problems”, Boris Jamalov said.

As “Caucasian Knot” has formerly reported, retired miners and widows of dead miners are holding piquets, meetings and hunger strikes. Since the beginning of 2009 retired miners have submitted to Strasbourg Court of Human Rights several hundred complaints of violation of their rights. 

Alexander Chumakov, Mayor of Zverev, has formerly stated that “a stalemate situation has emerged for there are no legal ways of satisfying the demands of those expressing protest: the debts for heating had already exceeded 3,5 million rubles and it would be an illegal action to liquidate them at the expense of the budget”. A committee under the regional Legislative Assembly was created to solve the problem, however, according to Deputy Diakonov, it produced no results in fine.