Eleven people freed from labour slavery in Kuban

Volunteers, with the help of the police, freed eleven people who were kept at an enterprise in the Slavyansky District of the Krasnodar Territory. The Prosecutor’s Office of the Krasnodar Territory has launched an inspection.

In the village of Pribrezhny in the Slavyansky District of the Krasnodar Territory, volunteers of the “Alternative” movement succeeded in freeing eleven people who worked in apple orchards. According to the sign placed on the fence of the organization, this is the “Sad-Gigant” (Giant Garden) agricultural enterprise. Volunteers called the police. “However, security guards of the enterprise were in no hurry to let the police into the territory. As a result, the number of law enforcers accumulated in the place, and in the chaos of what was happening, there appeared the one who quietly gave the workers their passports which the enterprise took away from the people earlier, and the one who managed to pay 15,000 roubles to some of the workers,” the “Alternative” movement’s Telegram channel reports.

Eleven people asked for help to get out of the enterprise, activists of the “Alternative” movement reports. “The people told the activists that they were invited to the so-called work near metro and train stations. The people were promised good living conditions, work in the gardens in the fresh air, payment of up to 3000 roubles per shift to paid on a daily basis. As the workers have claimed, any independent movement outside the fenced area and even within it is prohibited, and they were supposed to move around only with permission and accompaniment of security guards. The workers were beaten for breaking the enterprise’s rules, and their attempts to escape were suppressed by the security guards. Among the workers, there are people who worked from several days to a year and a half. None of them had ever received money for their work before the day when the volunteers called the police,” the “Alternative” movement reports.

The Prosecutor’s Office of the Krasnodar Territory has launched an inspection to check the compliance with labour rights at the “Sad-Gigant” (Giant Garden) agricultural enterprise in the city of Slavyansk-on-Kuban, the “Kommersant” reports today with reference to the press service for the Prosecutor’s Office of the Krasnodar Territory.

This was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on June 13, 2025 at 06:54 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.