THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE NORTHERN TERRITORIES - THE GOLD OF YAKUTIA: KОCHULUKAN AND YNYKCHAN IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD (MEMOIRS OF THE OWNER)

Abstract

The paper is devoted to a part of A. M. Ozhigov‟s memoirs, recently found in the family archives of the authors. The memoirs describe the working conditions at the gold mines of the Dzhugdzhurzoloto trust in 1947. The post-war period required an urgent replenishment of the state gold reserves, which was reflected in the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1946) on increasing the production of gold and platinum in the country. As a result, the Special Main Directorate of the USSR Ministry of Internal Affairs (Glavspetstsvetmet) has been created. The activity of this Directorate was focused on the search and exploration of new deposits, technical modernization and improvement of working conditions in mines This period of profound post-war crisis of gold industry, entirely determined by the war efforts, was characterized by a high share of manual labor, labor of prisoners and special settlers, low qualifications of workers and arduous living conditions. Here, we have evaluated reliability of the above memoirs using a comparative historical method. The factual knowledge of the memoirs was confirmed in open official sources. However, these sources are rather scarce in terms of human relations directly in gold mines and newly discovered areas. New names and circumstances of the everyday life of gold prospectors developing the deposit of the Kоchulyukan spring, brightly presented in the memoirs of A. M. Ozhigov, reveal the unknown details of the Soviet history of the industrial development of the northern territories. The psychological aspect of the recollections, expressed in the author's vivid subjectivism in relation to the organizers of the works (managers), also brightly show the opposition of the "worker-boss" type. Scanned copies of A. M. Ozhigov‟s memoirs are kept in the V. F. Vereshchagin Museum of Local Lore, Bodaibo town, Irkutsk region.