According to the operational headquarters, more than 1.1 thousand employees of "Intaugol" have already received notice of a reduction. The process of releasing the staff will last until October 9, after which the work on the mine conservation
will begin. A small group of former specialists will be engaged in liquidation activities.
The company's employees were offered 1,500 vacancies. Miners are offered to move to Vorkuta or to other cities with divisions of "Severstal",
to Yakutia, where they could get a job at a coal mining company "Kolmar", to the Belgorod region. 159 people have already chosen a further career, filling in questionnaires and writing applications. Of these, 89 are going to work on "Vorkutaugol"
and the Northern Diamond Company, eight at the Yakovlevsky Ore Mining and Processing Enterprise in the Belgorod Region, seven in the Intinsky Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, three in the extractive company "Bauxite of Timan",
one in the SIBENCO-Kuzbass. Another 51 people plan to find a job in Inta, other Komi cities or go to the middle zone of Russia.
"Every time it's a personal strategy, a personal trajectory. People express different opinions.
"Vorkutaugol" is only one of the scenarios. Someone wants to move to another place, to another subject of Russia, but on the same specialization. Someone just wants to move, looking for another job. Someone wants to stay in Inta. Someone
is ready to stay in the republic. Now the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Protection of the Komi is working on all applications," says Ivan Kostornov.
According to him, "Vorkutaugol" will be able to employ 300 people
— the operational headquarter looks up to such a minimum amount, but it is sure that more people can be helped. The company and the republic promise that all those who wish to change the city will help to solve the problems with moving
and housing.
This year, Inta plans to obtain the status of the territory of advanced socio-economic development. The government of Komi and the town hall hope that this will help attract investment in the town's economy. The
Komi socio-economic development project until 2035 states that it is possible to extract and process gas in the Inta district, convert coal into liquid fuel, produce manganese alloys, fused phosphates, open an asphalt plant, a dietary
center of the North, create a poultry complex, a meat and dairy farm, department of a deep meat processing.
Officials expect that, according to the federal draft of the Northern latitudinal route, a transport hub will appear
in Inta in 2019-2022, which will give approximately 700 new jobs.
They also do not give up the idea of gold mining at the Chudnoye deposit, the territory of which is part of the national park "Yugyd va". This project was actively
promoted by the previous Mayor Pavel Smirnov, but he faced opposition of environmentalists.
"In those places, gold was extracted in the 1970s and 1980s, after which a lunar landscape remained there — huge areas of dug up land.
And this territory was specially included in the national park, so that others did not covet it. Left for better times. Smirnov wanted to separate these sites from the national park and give "Yugyd va" the sites two or three times larger
in another place to start mining gold and rock crystal. But it did not work — the court banned. And there is a whole mountain of gold, 500 meters deep. Reserves are still not explored to the end," says the local ethnographer.
He believes that it is possible to expand mining of rock crystal. It was actively developed during the Soviet era. Citizens tell that portholes in the ship of Yury Gagarin were made of rock crystal. The local historian believes the
Inta quartz deposit to be one of the best in the world.
According to the director of the station of the young naturalists station Vasily Petrov, now everyone bet on oil and gas, and coal is taking a back seat. But burning
coal, in his opinion, is a crime, because you can do more with it than with oil.
"They started with oil refining, it was more important than production. And what about coal? The most important thing is to get it, not to recycle
it. So, if there were a couple of processing plants, then the miners' general directors would just hang themselves — they would not allow it. The entire chemical industry sits on the coal. But what will the government do? It is now engaged
in gas and oil, because it's easier to get money right away," he explains.
Vasily Petrov is sure that the coal industry in Inta is not over. This is what other interlocutors hope for. According to one of the workers of the
city administration, "Intinskaya", of course, is conserved, and the groundwater will flood the mine, but when a new investor, perhaps, even a foreign investor comes, he will build a new mine and resume the extraction of the Inta coal.