Residents of Maraldy village in the East Kazakhstan region continue to protest the ‘VSAM Production’ company, which is mining gold in the area. People fear harmful consequences for the environment. VSAM Production, in turn, claims that they crossed the path of artisanal ‘shadow’ miners.
Gold Instead of Honey
The small Maraldy village in the Kurchum district in the Altai Mountains of East Kazakhstan used to be known only for its honey. Almost half of the approximately four hundred villagers were engaged in beekeeping. Every year, a tonne of the 70 extracted tonnes of honey was exported. However, as early as 2023, the village began appearing on social media due to conflicts between residents and VSAM Production LLP, a company that had started mining gold at a mountain mine close to the village.
The confrontation escalated on May 8, 2024. The authorities claim that on that day, “an unauthorised meeting of a group of individuals and a representative of the Baitak party opposing the construction of the gold-producing plant” took place in Maraldy village.
“After the meeting, about 100 residents of Maraldy arrived at the construction site to film a video message to suspend the construction of the plant,” the press service of the local akimat [local administration – Tr.] told the media.
Authorities say locals broke into the plant, beat up workers, and damaged property.
“Police officers and Special Rapid Deployment Force called the gathered people to law and order and explained the legislation while not applying forceful actions to them,” the akimat said.
The East Kazakhstan region’s Police Department is conducting investigative actions as part of a pre-trial investigation. It is reported that residents of neighbouring villages joined the protests to show support.
At the same time, villagers who had gathered for a protest that day denied the violence attributed to them.
A year earlier, in July, employees of VSAM Production LLP, the company responsible for gold mining, also accused Maraldy residents, totalling up to 150 people, of allegedly breaking into the plant, beating a security guard, and throwing stones at the plant. However, the residents say the plant’s guards attacked them first.
The criminal case initiated against six Maraldy residents for the ‘entry’ and ‘use of force’ on May 8 was closed due to the reconciliation of the parties. During the confrontation, only one villager received a 10-day administrative arrest for foul language on the territory of the plant.
Investors Are Welcomed Everywhere and Protected in Everything
At a joint press conference with activists and villagers following his visit to Maraldy, Meirkhan Abdumanapov, a civil activist from Almaty, said that local authorities were trying to hide the owner of the VSAM Production LLP.
“When locals tried to find it out, they were told as if there was a foreign investor there,” Meirkhan Abdumanapov said.
VSAM Production LLP was registered on April 6, 2021, with the office located in Maraldy village.
According to the media, this plant belongs to Aidyn Ramazanov, a business partner of Talgat Akhmetov. Talgat’s father, Danial Akhmetov, was the akim of East Kazakhstan region when the plant construction started.
Timur Yeleusizov, an environmental expert from Almaty and head of the Kaz Eco Patrol public organisation, said that in May of this year, he and other experts arrived to attend a meeting with Maraldy residents announced by the local authorities. However, upon arrival at the airport of the regional centre of Ust-Kamenogorsk, the delegation was approached by police officers. According to Timur Yeleusizov, the policemen told the delegation members that they urgently needed to read through some materials.
“They wanted to get us out of there. I told them to show the prosecution attorney’s authorisation, but they did not. They could not explain what they were doing there. What is this? Is this a state governed by the rule of law?” Timur Yeleusizov says in anger.
He is a current deputy of the maslikhat [city council – Ed.] of Almaty. According to him, after the experts went to Maraldy village, the authorities cancelled the meeting.
In June 2023, the akimat of the Kurchum district issued a decree cancelling the right to lease land granted to the gold miners. In response, the VSAM Production company filed a lawsuit, and in September 2023, the Economic Court of the East Kazakhstan region recognised the akimat’s decree as unlawful.
In this case, the Department of Land Management of the East Kazakhstan region supported the akimat.
Aigul Isina, an activist from Maraldy who has participated in various court hearings, told CABAR.asia that “the akimat played some kind of game, maybe, to calm the people down”.
She said there have been several lawsuits for various violations filed by Maraldy residents, but none of them have either been accepted or the decisions have not been in favour of the suitors.
In January of this year, the court refused to consider the claim of Maraldy residents against VSAM Production LLP for the ‘illegal’ construction of a gold-producing plant. According to Aigul Isina, at the main hearing on January 29, “17 people were present, but none of them was a resident of Maraldy”.
“But later, an eighteenth person – a Maraldy resident – appeared in the protocol, and the hearing was recognised as valid. We filed a report with the police, but they told us that this person came at the very end of the hearing…,” she says.
Previously, she said, buses full of officials were brought to such events and registered as meeting participants.
Maraldy Residents’ Fears: Where Will Waste and Chemicals Go?
What are the residents of Maraldy so afraid of, given that gold has been mined here since the Soviet Union period?
According to Abdumanapov, back in the Soviet Union, the ore was mined there using the shaft method.
“And where there were poor reservoirs of ore, mining was not even considered because it was unprofitable. Anything below 4 grams per tonne of ore is considered unprofitable,” he says.
However, he said, businessmen have calculated that if logistics and transport costs are excluded, the production can become profitable.
“So, they decided to build the plant there in the mountains where the ore is mined,” Abdumanapov explained.
However, open-pit gold mining at the top of the mountain, from where two rivers flow into the village, creates risks for the residents. Especially since this mining method actively uses cyanide (ore is ground to flour and then soaked in a reagent to separate gold particles). Where the chemicals and waste will be disposed of is an important question.
In his Instagram post after the visit, Yeleusizov suggested that there is pollution of spring water, which flows into the Maraldy River, from there – into the Kurchum River, and from there – into the Irtysh River.
“Several million people are at risk if precipitation washes cyanide out of the ground,” he believes.
He believes that when a project involves cyanide use, open-pit mining, and on-site processing, it poses risks to people.
“Also, we are violating the Water Convention that Kazakhstan has signed; we are violating the Paris Agreement on Carbon Neutrality because there is open-pit mining and on-site production,” Yeleusizov notes.
Speaking to CABAR.asia, he said that “now, there are other solutions, there are new technologies to address this issue”.
The residents’ fear of possible environmental disasters is reinforced by the condition of the only bridge over the Maralikha (Maraldy) River in the district. Built in 1986, it was designed for a maximum of 20 tonnes of load capacity.
Now, according to locals, 40-tonne (and even more) trucks are constantly driving across the bridge. According to the residents, the company’s management allegedly changed the figures on the sign for the maximum permissible load capacity from 20 tonnes to 70 tonnes. The cracks have already started to appear in the bridge structure. Now, there are fears of what will happen if a truck with cyanide falls into the river.
Artisanal ‘Shadow’ miners and Honest Gold Miners
CABAR.asia called the deputy director of VSAM Production LLP, but he said he was not authorised to comment, and the director of the company was out of the country for some time.
In several media and bloggers’ reports, the company has previously said that artisanal ‘shadow’ miners are the main opponents of constructing the gold-producing plant.
A similar to Maraldy situation previously occurred in Bestobe, a village in Akmola region, where local residents opposed the activities of Kazakhaltyn Technology, a gold mining company. Two eco-activists were prosecuted for ‘inciting social discord’ at the lawsuit of the company’s management but were eventually sentenced to one year of imprisonment for ‘spreading deliberately false information’.
In both cases, gold-producing companies executives claim that organised criminal groups of ‘shadow’ miners are behind the protests and the media reports. In turn, they also use popular media outlets and bloggers with controversial reputations to present their points of view.
“For more than a year, lawlessness prevails in Maraldy. I would call it a rural-scale Kantar: the crowd, like marionettes, is controlled by certain people with their own goals. They definitely have nothing to do with environmental issues,” wrote Denis Krivosheev, a popular blogger.
Major officials openly take the side of investors and businessmen, adhering to similar positions with the companies’ management.
“Unfortunately, it turned out that a responsible foreign investor has fallen victim to the activity of a very small group of people who, under the pretext of environmental concerns, are restricting the development of Maraldy village,” Minister of Industry and Construction Kanat Sharlapayev said.
Serik Zhenisov, head of the East Kazakhstan region’s social development department, said the Maraldy plant “plans to employ 295 people, 19 of whom are already working”. Regional authorities expect 7.3 billion tenge (or about $15 million) in tax payments in 2024-2029.
An activist Aigul Isina recalled that members of the Parliament came to Maraldy in the summer, and the village akim informed them that two families of Maraldy residents work at the plant. A total of six villagers are employed at enterprises related to VSAM Production.
Now, residents of six villages in Almaty region are asking local authorities not to allow the previously closed gold mine to reopen for fear of poisoning the river that provides water to 50,000 people.
In the East Kazakhstan region, according to RFE/RL service, Aksu Resources company, owned by the previously mentioned Aidyn Ramazanov, intends to explore a deposit in the village of Kyzyltas.