Where is Crimean pink salt mined? Crimean salt

Near Sak, not far from the sea, one can see white mountains. From a distance, they seem to be covered with snow, but in fact they are mounds of ordinary salt (!), and even with a pink tint. Anyone can admire them, it is not forbidden. There are huge pools around where the mineral is mined. They hunt manually developed over the years. Healthy tanned workers work from morning to night.
“The more salt in the air, the less microbes around, so we don’t even get sick with the flu,” people in robes cheerfully answer.

Special equipment and a unique harvester, which has no analogues in the world, work nearby. A narrow-gauge railway was laid to it, and carts take turns bringing large, irregularly shaped crystals. Here they are "stacked", dumped into a pile, the height of two tall men. This is about 10 thousand tons of salt, which are stored in the open air.

The technological process lasts all year, - Andrey Styupan, chairman of the Saki production cooperative "Galit", explained to us. - We dry the pools, prepare the brine ( saturated solution salt lakes - Approx. ed.), which passes the path of evaporation in the same place where salts of heavy metals, gypsum and other insoluble impurities fall out. At the end of May, beginning of June, the brine is pumped into the cage pools. The water evaporates and as a result, a layer of salt up to 11 centimeters remains at the bottom, containing almost all the elements of the periodic table. Moreover, we periodically monitor the density of the brine and ensure that sulfate magnesium chloride does not fall out. Salt settles to the bottom, evaporating under the influence of the sun and wind. In Crimea, it is harvested on salt lakes in the Saki region and on the Arabat Spit once a year, in autumn. The water from the lake is diverted to a pool system.

Artemovskaya is cheaper, but ours is better
The development of the famous healing silt near Sak began as early as the Scythians and Greeks. In 1858, the first crafts appeared on the lake. They belonged to a large industrialist Count Ivan Balashov. He paid 10 thousand rubles in gold for rent to the treasury and, producing salt, had up to 1 million rubles profit. A well-known Russian scientist, Professor Ilyinsky, worked for Balashov, who was the first to obtain 100 kilograms of magnesium from brine through magnesium hydroxide and produced the first bromine. - By the way, during the First World War, the Germans made chemical warfare agents based on chlorine, - Andrey Vitalievich said. - And the Saki bromine plant developed all the salt deposits. The salt industry produced up to 37 thousand tons of fine salt per year. At one time he fed the whole of Russia. And then, when cheaper Artemovskaya rock salt appeared, they began to buy it. Today, salt is mined in the Crimea three times less. This year, there was a lot of rainfall in June, and the salt harvest was in jeopardy. He, as in agriculture directly depends on the weather.

She is alive
The pink color of the salt is due to the microalgae Dunaliella Salina, which lives in sea water in only four places. the globe- in the southern part of San Francisco Bay, in some areas of the Red Sea, in Patagonia - parts South America, and in the salt lakes of the Crimea. Algae produce natural beta-carotene (provitamin A), which also, for example, colors carrots.

Our salt is unique in chemical composition and the content of microelements, - Andrey Vitalievich noted. - It is enriched with magnesium salts, which give a little bitterness, but it is very good for the cores. The Germans release salt from high content magnesium, but reduced content Sodium Chlorine. We do not have this, since the Crimean salt meets the most complex state standards, which not even all the salt mines of the world comply with. It does not undergo any chemical treatment, which is why it is called “live”, moreover, it is grown on natural silt, and not on a concrete base as in Korea or on synthetic film as in the USA. Such salt has always been more expensive. Now Crimean pink salt costs up to about 15 hryvnia per kilogram. It stimulates oxygen metabolism, cleanses the body of toxins, better supplies the skin with blood. “Living” salt is also necessary for a person as Fresh air, pure water. Any person who is looking for natural and healthy products can afford it.

By the way, "Extra - poison!"
It turns out that you need to be able to recognize the correct salt. In stores, it is sold in three types: stone, sea and Extra salt, which is especially popular with housewives.
- Stone - large, gray, the cheapest, - says Andrei Styupan. - This is a crushed mineral halite (in the Middle Ages, salt was called just that - Approx. ed.), Formed on the site of the seas. "Extra" - salt evaporated by thermal power methods from salt brines, which are formed when water is pumped under pressure into underground salt mines. Technologically, it is the cleanest. It is her that some salt producers call poison, because it is refined, contains 99.9% sodium chloride, does not have iodine, magnesium, bromine, potassium, etc. Such salt burns food, fish cannot be salted with it, because when pure sodium chloride, which is contained in salt, is combined, the fish begins to “burn”.

In general, table salt (sodium chloride) is a unique mineral, without which organic life on Earth would be impossible. Salt completely dissolves in the human body, chlorine is an element of which a person is constantly lacking. At 60, a person produces 5 times less hydrochloric acid than at 20. Sea salt should be consumed in between meals in a small crystal to improve digestion. There are no quantitative restrictions in the use of salt for a person. Table salt is never deposited in the human body, this is a myth. Only other insoluble salts can be deposited, such as urates, phosphates, oxalates, etc., which can be formed when the gastrointestinal tract is disturbed.

10 interesting facts about salt
1. Salt is red, brown, pink and even black.
2. White salt is the most harmful.
3. The most expensive lilac salt in the world, it costs 40 euros per kilogram.
4. There is no salt in plants.
5. Nutritionists advise salting food only after cooking.
6. Since ancient times, oaths of allegiance have been taken on salt, because salt is unchanged, it can be dissolved in water indefinitely, and when the water evaporates, salt crystals will appear again.
7. Salt is the only food product, which does not deteriorate itself and protects everything else from damage.
8. Salt draws out moisture, and without moisture, bacteria cannot grow.
9. Salt is the only edible mineral in the world.
10. It is impossible to artificially repeat the shape and color of a salt crystal. In it, Sodium ions and Chlorine ions are located strictly in the form of an inverted prism at an angle of 90 degrees.

A solution of sea salt in distilled water is close in composition to human blood plasma. This was used by doctors during the war during operations when there was not enough blood plasma.

Probably many who drove along the Simferopol-Evpatoria highway in Crimea saw the Sasyk-Sivash salt lake, which starts behind Sakami and ends in front of Evpatoria itself. But not everyone knows that the lake is quite unique: pink sea salt is mined here, or, as it is also called, “live”. There are only three such lakes in the world: in the vicinity of Patagonia, San Francisco and the Red Sea. What is the uniqueness of this lake, as well as a little about how mining is going on useful mineral We find out in today's report.

Sasyk-Sivash is the largest lake and salt lake on the Crimean peninsula, with an area of 75 sq. km. The average depth of the lake is only 0.5 m, the largest is 1.2 m. The name of the lake means “stinking mud” in Crimean Tatar.

1. Once upon a time, this place was a shallow sea bay. But years later, under the influence of wind and frequent winter storms, a sandbar formed, separating the sea from the bay, which led to the formation of the Sasyk-Sivash salt lake. Unique Features lakes are hidden at its bottom, which is a therapeutic mud and contains many beneficial trace elements, which give the salt "grown" here so valuable properties. One of the most notable and useful substances, which are part of the local salt, is BETA-carotene, it is he who gives it such an unusual pink shade and provides a high level of vital activity of the human body.

The Chumaks began to extract salt here, who were then supplanted by the dynasty of the Geraev khans. In Soviet times, they decided to raise production to a new level and built a whole production complex here, called Solprom. During perestroika, part of the former power, of course, was lost, and out of 8 working salt pools, only 4 remained in operation. But they are more than enough to provide quality product not only neighboring countries, but also European consumers.

Salt production starts at winter period from filling special preparation pools sea water. In them, it goes through a series of purifications, gains its density and turns into brine or by rap.

2. Then, the already prepared brine is pumped into the main production pool, where in the summer, under the influence of the scorching sun and strong wind, the water will evaporate, and the same reddish layer of salt, 4 to 12 centimeters thick, is formed at the bottom.

3. After the salt is "ripe", and this happens at the end of August, the salt harvester goes to work. The age of this outlandish technique is almost 50 years, and the weight is about 25 tons. This machine has no analogues, as local salt workers say, so it is closely monitored and protected like the apple of an eye.

4. Special knives, the harvester cuts off a layer of salt, which is immediately crushed and fed to the trolleys along the conveyor belt.

5. Having filled the trolleys to the brim with a slide, the salt is transported to the shore along the laid narrow gauge railway.

6. Trolleys are pulled by such interesting locomotives, somewhat reminiscent of steam locomotives.

7. The extracted salt is stored in the form of huge trapezoidal pyramids, called piles. This is done so that the salt dries out a little and becomes covered with a crust that will protect it from external influences.

8. After the trolleys are unloaded, the process is repeated again. And so, layer by layer, salt is mined throughout the autumn. During the year, if the weather does not interfere, the salt works give out about 20 thousand tons of the mineral.

9. The work of the salt plant is not easy. You have to work in the harsh conditions of a hot summer, under the scorching rays of the sun. A miniature narrow-gauge railway for trolleys is assembled manually, without the help of equipment. During the working day, it has to be shifted several times in order to keep up with the moving combine.

10. Life is not easy for technology either: an aggressive salt environment literally eats metal to dust in a few years.

11. In total, about 20 team members work in the fishery. Basically, these are old-timers who have remained since the founding of Solprom. And once there was a village with more than 200 people. Near Solprom, the Saki Chemical Plant also worked, producing from salt finished products. Now only walls remain in its place.

12. Pink sea salt is now actively buying up in Europe, since the Dead Sea has practically become “dead”, and table salt cannot be compared with this. In the west, common salt is used only for technical purposes, while sea salt is used for food. With us, the opposite is true: sea salt is packed in expensive packaging and sold in the form of exclusive bath salts, and we often eat table salt.

13. Therefore, the next time you go for salt, I recommend looking for our living pink salt from Lake Sasyk-Sivash. It is much more useful, more pleasant and tastier, although for some reason it costs more.

Now we're moving to places where salt mining is already closed.

15. Now, in place of the former salt pools, there are only wooden posts and dry land, strongly reminiscent of the desert, but it was this combination that attracted my attention.

16. Here you can walk for a long time noticing interesting details, collecting various artifacts, if not for some nasty insects - huge black clouds of mosquitoes, ready to drink all your blood without a trace. Saves from these bloodsuckers, only coating with a protective cream from head to toe and complete silence, because as soon as you open your mouth, all this vile mass will immediately rush into it.

The air temperature has exceeded plus thirty. Hot Crimean afternoon. Feet reluctantly step on the white surface of the earth, with each step destroying millions of crystals, crunchy, like snow in the cold. This is sea pink salt, which is mined in the only salt mine in the Crimea. Now the salt miners have begun a hot time - harvesting.

Water, sun and wind

Once in the Crimea there were 15 salt mines, because on the territory of the peninsula there are several salt lakes, the waters of which are the main raw material for the production of sea garden salt. Now there is only one left.

To obtain a unique pink salt, we use natural evaporation technology: first, we pump 120 cubic meters of sea water into the preparation system. When water evaporates from it, six cubes of brine are obtained - a saturated saline solution, - says Valery Starodubtsev, production director of Solprom. - Under certain conditions, the brine is cleaned of slags, reaching the desired density, after which it is fed into the preparatory pools. Of the 366 hectares of salt production area, we extract salt only on 32 hectares, the rest is a preparatory evaporation system.

The territory is divided into even, as if drawn by a ruler, squares - these are special cages, in which at first sea water, and then brine spend three summer months. They settle, under the influence of the sun, unnecessary impurities settle, excess moisture evaporates, and salt is obtained.

Salt falls at night at a temperature of 25-26 degrees, and if it is over 40, then the brine cools for a long time, and it falls less, - he continues. - Every day the salt layer in the cages increases by 2-3 millimeters, growing up to 13 centimeters during the season, depending on the weather conditions of the year.

Further, nature gives way to man - at the end of August, a special harvester enters the dried-up pools, workers manually cut into the layer so that the knives can be lifted pure salt separating it from the bottom gley. The equipment is unique: the harvester, one of a kind, left the walls of the manufacturing plant back in 1934. He has been in service for more than 80 years, although he works in an aggressive environment. Therefore, every year it is sorted out to the screw and cleaned. Last winter at the Sevastopol enterprise they made a major overhaul of the chassis.

The repair cost six million, and to make such a combine to order will cost 15 million, - says Valery Starodubtsev. - Our youngest equipment is more than 50 years old, but it is holding up so far.

salt mountains

The collected salt for food can be consumed after 3.5 months, after the brine with magnesium drains from it, the concentration of which is raw salt 10 times higher than normal.

We have grown a salt layer of 80 millimeters, the harvest should be no worse than last year, when we mined 10,000 tons. Unless, of course, the rain, which "removes" 800 tons, does not interfere, - he continues.

The harvest raised from the pools is loaded into wooden trolleys, which are transported by motor trucks along a collapsible narrow-gauge railway to the bead-laying machine.

A 700-meter narrow-gauge railway has to be laid by hand to each pool, - says laborer Vladislav Samokhin. - The locomotive carries four trolleys of 10 tons. It turns out 30-35 walkers per day. The work is physically hard, all the work is manual, but I like it.

With the help of a bead-laying machine, the salt will be folded into a trapezoid, and the crust formed during the first rain, like slate, will protect the crop. These huge salt hills, or piles, can be seen from the Simferopol-Evpatoria highway.

From Sultan to Supermarket

In the mines of Lake Sasyk-Sivash, salt has been mined for more than 2.5 thousand years - since the time when the ancient Greeks founded colonies in the Crimea. Much later, the Chumaks bought salt here and brought it to Ukraine, delivered it to the table of the Turkish sultan and Russian tsars in the Kremlin. The main development of the salt industry was in 1864, when the courtier of Catherine II, Count Balashov, bought the embankment between the Black Sea and Lake Sasyk-Sivash, hired a German engineer and built pools. After that, the industrial production of salt began, the process of production and collection of which has not changed for thousands of years.

Until 2014, the enterprise supplied Crimean salt to Poland, Germany, Estonia, Finland, Austria, Romania, Moldova. Now, while Crimea is under sanctions, the main volumes of the product go to Russian shelves: entrepreneurs from Rostov, Krasnodar, St. Petersburg buy salt, contracts have been concluded with federal retail chains. A small part of the products is supplied to Belarus and Kazakhstan. Pink salt is of interest to the Chinese, who are negotiating a contract for the supply of salt to China. There is also demand from former European partners.

To meet the growing demand, large volumes of products are needed, - says Valery Starodubtsev. - Therefore, we plan to make two or three more garden pools. We have large-scale plans - we want to feed all of Russia with high-quality Crimean salt. And European consumers who used to buy Crimean salt will still come back to us, because our product is unique and useful. We salt cucumbers and tomatoes at home only with pink salt - it is much softer than mine stone, and completely dissolves in water.

By the way

pink salt owes its color to the beta-carotene-rich unicellular alga Dunaliella Sallina, the only microorganism that lives in strong brine. When strong fog or rain hits it, the algae blooms in two days, coloring the pools in pink color. And under sunbeams the color disappears in two hours, remaining only in the lower layers of the salt layer in the pool.

In my own way mineral composition Crimean salt is significantly different from rock salt from the mines: she has more soft taste, it is 100% soluble in the human body, unlike rock salt, where 1.5 percent is an insoluble precipitate deposited by kidney stones. Plus, sea salt contains 74 beneficial trace elements. Doctors say that the Crimean pink salt is close in chemical composition to human blood, therefore it normalizes the metabolism in the body, promotes blood circulation and strengthens the immune system.

In addition, salty pools ionize the air, healing the residents and guests of Evpatoria and Sak.

Salt mine workers, indeed, practically do not get sick, because they constantly breathe salt air, - says Anton Antonenko, assistant combine operator. - It is no coincidence that I returned to production after several years of work at another company. Health is the most important thing.

Help "RG"

In 1912, pink Crimean salt was recognized at the world level, having won "gold" at the Paris Exhibition. Since then, product manufacturers have tried to preserve the technology for extracting an amazing mineral. in a natural way Evaporation salt is grown in Spain, France, Japan and some other maritime countries, but there, unlike the Crimea, it matures in cement basins, and not in vivo when it absorbs beneficial trace elements from the gley.

Few people know that salt is not only mined in Crimea, but also grown. And one of these Crimean salt enterprises is located in the Saki region, where they grow a special, pink sea salt. Why did the Crimeans not buy the Saki mineral before, who is “to blame” for the pink color of the salt and how much they get at the salt mines, the Crimean Telegraph weekly found out.

salt mines

“Wow, technology is on the verge of fantasy!” - I look fascinated at a small steam locomotive with four trolleys, as if inherited from the last century - they look so decrepit. Each trailer holds about two and a half tons of crystalline salt sparkling in the sun, like rare gems.

And so that the train could ply through the pink desert from the place of production and back for the cargo, workers with the help of a tractor drag the entire track to a new place - along with sleepers (or rather, pieces of wood different sizes) and rails.

- You probably didn’t imagine everything like that? We have the eighteenth century here,” the men grin, sitting down to rest, while another brigade fills the wagons of the freight train. - There is no other way! Maybe there are some new technologies, but we don’t know anything about them, so we have to drag them like this. Imagine, but before salt was collected by hand, loaded with shovels, but now the technique does it for people, they add.

But you work in such beauty! - admiring the unusual landscape.

- Yes, I'm sick of this beauty! one of the interlocutors waves indifferently, shivering from the cold.

The weather on this day is clearly not flying - it rained all night, so the salt melted and there were puddles in some places, besides, in this salt field there is nowhere to hide from the piercing wind.

- Well, we - to work - the brigade again hurries to the clumsy railway. The crowded trolleys were unloaded, which means that the workers again need to drag the rails.

The management assures that, of course, they are thinking about buying new equipment, but so far this is only a prospect.

“You need to understand that the salt industry is a production in which any equipment, no matter how expensive and modern it may be, is short-lived,” explains Alexei Turchenko, commercial director of the salt industry. “Besides, it is impossible to just buy new equipment, it must be made to order.”

pink salt field

During the day, the workers of the Crimean enterprise collect from 200 to 400 tons of salt, which can be called "pink pearls". And "collect" in this case- this is the most appropriate word, because the salt mining enterprise on Lake Sasyk-Sivash is really unique. Salt is... grown here.

“Our salt is sedimentary, it is also called living salt, because we don’t dig it out of the ground, we don’t evaporate it from salt water, but we grow them,” says Alexey Turchenko. - It contains great amount useful elements, almost the entire periodic table is presented here!”

Today, the salt industry is located on an area of 370 hectares, but at the same time, most of the pools are preparatory, where salty water- brine, and only four so-called sedimentary basins are used directly for growing salt - eight hectares each.

“First of all, the bottom is important here, it should be so even,” Alexei Turchenko runs his palm across the table. - When harvesting, salt should be removed in one cake. Before each landing, these pools are smoothed out. special equipment. After that, brine is poured there, this happens at the end of April, and in May a pink color appears.

The amazing shade of salt is the work of a single-celled alga with beautiful name Dunaliella saline, which produces carotene in large quantities. True, the pink color of salt is unstable - it quickly disappears in the sun, but that's all. useful elements are saved.

Salt is grown throughout the summer. At high temperature layer grows. An industrial layer is considered to be from four centimeters. At the beginning of autumn, harvesting begins - the upper part of the brine is pumped out with the help of pumps, and a pink field of salt remains. Moreover, it is impossible to predict in advance how much salt will be collected in a year.

“In the last pool, we collected 3.5 thousand tons of salt,” says Nikolai Nikitin, chief engineer of the enterprise. - And where we are now working, there are already 2.5 thousand. But it is difficult to predict the result in advance, because the salt layer depends on weather conditions, that is, it is different every year.”

Cleaning one pool takes about two weeks - under favorable weather conditions (by the way, it takes at least a year and a half to prepare one sedimentary pool). Last year, work ended on November 25. But the workers remember that there were years when they had to get salt even in December!

For one such pool, a worker of the enterprise receives 35 thousand rubles. That is, ideally, for eight weeks of work, 140 thousand rubles come out. Needless to say, by local standards (and residents of Yevpatoria and the Saki district work at the enterprise) this is a solid salary, but you need to keep in mind that work here is seasonal. In the rest of the year, the salary of workers is small - 13-15 thousand rubles.

Crimean salt for Vladivostok and... Crimea

Interestingly, in Lately the Saka salt industry is developing an almost new market for it - the Crimea! The fact is that until recently, local salt was practically not sold on the peninsula. Before the referendum, about ninety percent of the salt went to Ukraine, there were practically no supplies to Russia. Now the situation has changed dramatically - the product is not sold to the neighboring state at all. Although there are orders from there, problems at the border do not allow trading in this direction.

Meanwhile, before that, only raw materials went to Ukraine, and there they were already processed and finished products were produced. Crimean salt used in Food Industry, in cosmetology, even in washing powders she was added. Now the company's policy has changed - salt is processed directly on site, so there is an opportunity to sell the product own production: edible salt, bath salt and so on.

“I think that in the near future we will completely stop selling raw materials and will sell exclusively finished products”, — specifies Alexey Turchenko.

By the way, deliveries to the mainland of Russia are still in full are not organized, negotiations are underway, but the management of the enterprise is sure that there will definitely be a demand for products - after all, now this is the only production of sedimentary salt in the country.

“One of these days we will ship the first trial volume to Vladivostok,” says the management of the salt industry. “Our salt hasn’t gone that far yet.”

There are requests for the supply of pink salt from Belarus and Kazakhstan, and negotiations are underway. But the directorate says that for the time being they will focus primarily on the domestic buyer.

Besides

In Crimea, in addition to the Saka salt industry, another historical mine is known - Lake Chokrak, which is located 15 kilometers from Kerch. Academician Simon Pallas wrote back in 1784: “Chokrak, also called Messir, is a large salt lake, more than ten miles in circumference, round look with many bays, one of them is separated from the Sea of Azov only by a narrow low bay. Salt good quality sits in it annually; only a quarter of it is chosen for shipment to Anatolia, and they are also loaded onto Don boats delivering salt to the Novorossiysk province.

However, in the vicinity of Kerch, salt was mined in ancient times, on Lake Koyash. By the way, Koyashskoye Lake is now the most salty in the Crimea.

To the point

Sasyk-Sivash is the largest lake on the Crimean Peninsula in terms of area - the area of \u200b\u200bthe mirror is 75.3 square meters. km. Once upon a time there was a shallow Black Sea bay in this place, but as a result of winter storms and winds carrying tons of sand, a sandy barrier formed over time, which separated Lake Sasyk-Sivash from the Black Sea.

In addition to the local salt, from ancient times known beneficial features local brine and mud (under the layer of crystalline salt in Lake Sasyk-Sivash there is dark gray and black silt, the so-called therapeutic mud). Mud is used in the treatment of diseases associated with metabolic processes in the body, cardiovascular diseases, as well as for the treatment of diseases of the musculoskeletal system, etc.

By the way, at least since the 16th century, Chumaks went to these places for salt and brought the Crimean product to the territory of present-day Ukraine. Now the descendants of these Chumaks are engaged in such a "productive" business as the food blockade of the Crimea.

Pride of the Republic

It is curious that in Soviet time there were about fifteen different salt mines on the peninsula. Needless to say, then this direction experienced its heyday. After the collapse of the USSR, salt production desperately tried to survive, but only one enterprise for the production of sedimentary salt survived.

True, even now the situation has not yet fully stabilized. And this despite the fact that in the world there are only a few salt mines for the extraction of pink salt.

- During the Great Patriotic War, brine from the lakes was administered to the wounded as a blood substitute - in its composition it is close to plasma.

- In 1975, a real record was set on Lake Sasyk-Sivash - five tons (!) of salt were collected in one of the pools in January.

Evgeniya KOROLYOVA
Photo Archive "KT"
The material was published in the newspaper "Crimean Telegraph" No. 350 dated October 16, 2015

aslan wrote on November 13th, 2015

Probably many who drove along the Simferopol-Evpatoria highway in Crimea saw the Sasyk-Sivash salt lake, which starts behind Sakami and ends in front of Evpatoria itself. But not everyone knows that the lake is quite unique: pink sea salt is mined here, or, as it is also called, “live”. There are only three such lakes in the world: in the vicinity of Patagonia, San Francisco and the Red Sea. What is the uniqueness of this lake, as well as a little about how the useful mineral is being mined, we will learn in today's report.

1. Once upon a time, this place was a shallow sea bay. But years later, under the influence of wind and frequent winter storms, a sandbar formed, separating the sea from the bay, which led to the formation of the Sasyk-Sivash salt lake. The unique characteristics of the lake are hidden at its bottom, which is a therapeutic mud and contains many useful trace elements that give the salt "grown" here such valuable properties. One of the most noticeable and useful substances that make up the local salt is BETA-carotene, it is he who gives it such an unusual pink tint and ensures a high level of vital activity of the human body.

The Chumaks began to extract salt here, who were then supplanted by the dynasty of the Geraev khans. In Soviet times, they decided to raise production to a new level and built a whole production complex here, called Solprom. During perestroika, part of the former power, of course, was lost and only 4 out of 8 working salt pools remained in operation. But they are more than enough to provide a quality product not only to neighboring countries, but also to European consumers.

Salt production begins in winter with the filling of special preparation pools with sea water. In them, it goes through a series of purifications, gains its density and turns into a saline solution or brine.

4. With special knives, the harvester cuts off a layer of salt, which immediately crushes and feeds into the trolleys along the conveyor belt.

5. Having filled the trolleys to the brim with a slide, the salt is transported to the shore along the laid narrow gauge railway.

6. Trolleys are pulled by such interesting motor locomotives, somewhat reminiscent of children's railway locomotives.

10. Life is not easy for technology either: an aggressive salt environment literally eats metal to dust in a few years.

11. In total, about 20 team members work in the fishery. Basically, these are old-timers who have remained since the founding of Solprom. And once there was a village with more than 200 people. Next to Solprom, the Saki Chemical Plant also worked, producing finished products from salt. Now only walls remain in its place.

Now we are moving to places where salt mining is already closed.

15. Now, in place of the former salt pools, there are only wooden posts and dry land, strongly reminiscent of the desert, but it was this combination that attracted my attention.

If you have a production or service that you want to tell our readers about, write to me - Aslan ( [email protected] ) Lera Volkova ( [email protected] ) and Sasha Kuksa ( [email protected] ) and we will make the best report, which will be seen not only by readers of the community, but also by the site http://bigpicture.ru/ and http://ikaketosdelano.ru

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Where is Crimean pink salt mined? Crimean salt

Water, sun and wind

salt mountains