During the last few days, near Tomino village in the Chelyabinsk region, the atmosphere is seriously warming up. There the residents of Chelyabinsk and the region come in whole families - with children and tents. They are opponents of the construction of Tominsky GOK, which are going to start round the clock on fears that the construction of the plant will begin in the near future. If, of course, it has not already begun.

However, already on the approaches to the object the local residents were met, to put it mildly, inhospitable. Between the opponents of construction in one direction and the guards employed by the structures of businessman Igor Altushkin, the first skirmishes have already occurred. The news "from the fields" is more and more like military chronicles.

The license for the development of the deposit belongs to the company Tominsky GOK, a member of the Russian Copper Company (RMK) businessman Igor Altushkin. Note that the permission for the construction of Tominsky GOK, which caused a wave of protests in the Chelyabinsk region, is still in the hands of RMK. This follows from the answer of the prosecutor's office given to activist Svetlana Knyazeva.

At the same time, according to the information of the environmental human rights organization Belonna, hearings on consideration of draft planning and surveying the territory of the GOK will be held only on June 23. Separately, it should be noted that the hearing on this day will be all in a hurry - just 7 pieces!

Nevertheless, a few days ago at the site of the future GOK there was a construction equipment and a fence. What happens behind it is almost impossible to know. The main problem that worries residents is whether illegal construction has already begun.

To block the way for the arrival of heavy construction equipment, the activists of the Stop-GOK movement began to break a tent camp in the forest, on the territory of the industrial site. The installation of the camp, as witnesses say, is quite firmly countered by the ChOPs. One of the tents guards simply cut and carried to the territory of construction.

One of the leaders of the protesters, Sergei Belogorokhov, said that the matter has already come to a fight. Some activists were injured, beatings were fixed.

According to the activist, on June 13, "the militants, apparently, the security company RKK-Security (at least two of them had corporate badges) again attacked the South Ural people." One of our women was thrown to the ground, wrung their hands, there is a suspicion of a fracture Finger, Sergei Belogorokhov from the back hit the kidney. "

In addition, all arriving local residents were waiting for a surprise. "Unidentified persons", presumably the employees of the RMK or young people hired by the company in sports suits, dug all the trips to the territory of the future GOK. Approaches were blocked thoroughly: the ground was blown up even in narrow aisles between the trees.

Experts say that the clashes between the RMK and the protesters and the refusal to allow them on the fenced territory in order to make sure that the construction has not yet begun only warms up both the bad suspicions about the RMK and the protest itself.

The protest movement has already recorded a video appeal to President Vladimir Putin, in which the head of state was asked to respond to a letter signed by more than 100,000 residents of the region who demanded the banning of the construction of Tominsky GOK. Today, a straight line with the Russian leader should be held, and the opponents of construction are going to ask Putin the appropriate question.

That's just whether Vladimir Vladimirovich protects the Chelyabinsk people from the appetites of Altushkin? It was only in May that the President personally awarded the businessman the Order of Friendship.

Fears are not groundless?

Most of the Chelyabinsk people, even earlier, recall that they opposed the development of the field. The VTsIOM survey showed that 73% of Chelyabinsk residents favor the abolition of construction. In addition, according to preliminary estimates of construction opponents, in 25 years of operation, Altushkin's plant may damage the region in the amount of 675.8 billion rubles.

And those residents of Chelyabinsk and the region who preferred to remain indifferent to the construction, there is something to fear. GOK will be built only 15 kilometers from the capital of the region. The tailings pond was previously planned to be located in close proximity to the only drinking source in Chelyabinsk - the Shershin reservoir.

In the autumn of last year, unknown people tried to disrupt the holding of single pickets against the construction of the GOK. At the same time, at hearings on laying a railway to the facility, eyewitnesses say, about 80 employees of the RMK were brought to http://bellona.ru/2017/06/13/gok-battle/, so that there is no room left for the opponents of erecting the plant.

"But since the Chelyabinsk region had only one zone of environmental disaster, the authorities decided to organize a second, and right at their side." Russian Copper Company "(by the way, it belongs to" Karabashmed "CJSC) is going to build a mining and concentration plant, known as Tominskiy GOK, just 15 kilometers from Chelyabinsk.This will not be a compact quarry, but a giant enterprise, "write the opponents of the construction of the plant publicly known as" Stop GOK "in social networks.

Chelyabinsk, in their own words, want to prevent the "second Karabash" in the region. This town is considered the most dirty in Russia and almost all over the world. Familiar with the situation connect a deplorable ecological situation in the village with the work of the Karabashmed enterprise, which is under the management of the same RMK Igor Altushkin!

Blogger Igor Varlamov writes that in his time he personally managed to visit Karabash. What did he see: "Water is poisoned in the city and its environs, the soil is contaminated, vegetation has died out, and precipitation of artificial origin is continually falling from the sky."

But by the end of 2015, the net profit of "Karabashmedi" was more than 2.5 billion rubles.

Is it worth waiting for the opponents of the "second Karabash" help from the governor of the region, Boris Dubrovsky? Hardly. Earlier this year, the head of the region said that he would like to introduce Karabash into the Guinness Book of Records as the most beautiful city. "The head of RMK heard me, he traveled around some cities with a similar history, he liked this idea, he got carried away and started investing," Dubrovsky said. But judging by the events surrounding the construction in Tomino, Altushkin is likely to invest, for the time being, only to further kill the ecology of the Chelyabinsk region.

But in the vicinity of Tomino, where the GOK is supposed to be built, the most fertile soils are located. And some experts say that agriculture will give the region over 30 years of the plant's work almost three times more income than tax revenues from the Tominsky Combine!

True, there is a snag: in this case, Mr. Altushkin will not profit. And on the ecology and health of the residents of the Chelyabinsk region, he is assured by opponents of the construction of the facility, simply do not care.

The criminals say that the consent of the authorities for the construction of the GOK in Tomino may have not been without "kickbacks." And to consolidate success, as they say, Igor Altushkin began to recruit a "team" of high-level lobbyists of their interests at the federal level.

But the residents of the Chelyabinsk region are more than determined. Therefore, the question is: will the Kremlin find the appropriate political risks justified on the eve of the presidential election to be justified?