#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The new heroine of the Severny Gorod media company project A Completely Different Thing was the intellectual club’s experts team captain Alena Povysheva. She had to master the profession of an underground shaft for a while, and for this we went to the Skalisty mine.
During the trip we talked with Alena and got to know her better. According to her, back in school she tried to play in the local club What? Where? When? With friends, and this hobby captivated her for more than twenty years. At first she played in Belarus, and later moved to St. Petersburg, and then she was invited to become a member of the Moscow club of experts.
Bright, spanking fine woman, she can always find the right solution in any situation, and this is the quality that the TV show What? Where? When? directors noticed.
“The program’s backstage is very multifaceted, the directors themselves often offer this or that participant to lead the team, based on how he or she behaves in the games, they noticed that I was ready and able to take responsibility, and offered me to become the captain”, Alena shared.
Alena always attracts the attention of TV viewers not only with stylish images that she thinks up herself, but also with a decent game. In 2023, she was awarded the club’s high award – the Crystal Owl. She is regularly invited to participate in projects in different cities, so, as a rule, she is often on the road.
“Over the past three weeks, I have been to so many places: Hanty-Mansiysk, Uhta, Kaliningrad and other cities. My subscribers are surprised why I travel mainly to the North? But indeed, I can note that the interest in intellectual games in the North is much greater than in the South. Maybe this is influenced by climatic conditions”, she suggests.
Meanwhile, we drove up to the mine. The first thing a mine worker must do before going down into the mine is to undergo an ESMO (electronic medical examination system). Thanks to modern equipment, such a medical examination takes no more than two minutes. With the help of a special device, data on blood pressure, temperature and general condition of a person is sent to the computer. If the employee is healthy, then a notification will be sent and he will be able to go down underground.
After the medical examination, Alena was given a briefing on labor protection and industrial safety, which is also a mandatory condition for admission to work underground. In addition to watching a film, an industrial safety specialist clearly demonstrated how to properly use a self-rescuer and emphasized that all regulations must be followed in the mine.
Then Alena put on special clothing, put on all the necessary personal protective equipment and went to the lamp room, where she was given a flashlight with a built-in positioning system, a self-rescuer and a gas analyzer.
As soon as our newly-minted employee was ready, the next step was a descent more than a kilometer underground, where she had to try herself in the role of an underground shaft worker. After a few minutes of rapid descent to the designated horizon, Alena was met by two shaft workers. One of them, Nelly Fattahova, became a mentor for the girl. She told her what exactly a shaft worker does and showed Alena what and how to do.
“My responsibilities include lowering and raising people and wagon exchange: we raise empty wagons to the surface, and with material – we lower them into the mine. I have been working as a shaft worker since 2007 – you could say that my life is spent here, there is a lot of communication, always new situations”, Nelly explained.
In order to feel like a mine worker, Alena had to load an empty wagon into a cage and give a signal for its raising to the surface, which she did perfectly.
“I really liked Alena as a student, she is a very nice person, positive, I was glad to meet her”, noted Nelly Fattahova.
Alena herself was impressed by her transformation, she had never been in a mine, and everything that happened to her caused her a lot of emotions.
“For me, everything was new, I had never seen anything like this before, an amazing experience. It was a little scary: you press the buttons, something big is moving. I feel responsible, although I understand that there are knowledgeable people nearby to insure me. The sensations reminded me of when you sit down at a mirror table in Neskuchny Sad and understand that something grandiose is about to happen, although there is a team nearby to insure you, but overall, everyone is responsible. The descent underground, almost a kilometer, also left an impression”, she shared.
The captain of the expert team admitted that she liked the trip and was glad to discover something new and try herself in a different profession. Perhaps what she learned and experienced will be useful to her in the next games of What? Where? When?.
Earlier, Severny Gorod reported that Alexandra Ursulyak mastered the profession of a mine’s lamp room attendant.
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Text: Polina Bardik, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
