AZERBAIJAN: Salt from Azerbaijan's Apsheron Peninsula a source of income for some of the country's unemployed workers

Record ID: 218363

  • Title: AZERBAIJAN: Salt from Azerbaijan's Apsheron Peninsula a source of income for some of the country's unemployed workers
  • Date: 28th June 2006
  • Summary: (CEEF) BAKU, AZERBAIJAN (FILE) (REUTERS) BAKU WITH OIL FIELDS IN BACKGROUND DERRICKS ON OIL FIELD OIL PUMPS
  • Embargoed: 13th July 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Azerbaijan
  • Country: Azerbaijan
  • Topics: Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVA93H7LGLC99CHH998T5GLHBBP4
  • Story Text: The Apsheron peninsula of Azerbaijan is one of the richest oil regions of the world.
    But just 30 kilometres north of the oil fields that pump out millions of tonnes of black gold every year, labourers will be found mining a more humble natural resource in back-breaking labour for just dollars a day.
    Apershon is named after the Persian word meaning "place of salty water". While Azerbaijan has made a booming industry of the peninsula's salt water lakes, building health spas there for the wealthy, the lakes also provide an eked out living for the country's less fortunate.
    Unable to find work elsewhere, hundreds of unemployed seasonal workers flock to the lakes each spring and summer to mine the salt.
    They spend long days digging in the lake's warm waters, their arms, legs and faces crusted with a thick white layer.
    Some don't even call it work, describing it instead as 'self-torture', and few can stand it for long.
    But Idris Bairamov is a long-timer. After nearly a decade of working on the lake, he dreams of an easier life.
    "What have I lost here? Everything, because of the unemployment. If I just had a piece of land, I would be a farmer. I could easily take care of about 2 hectares of land. But now I have lost all my strength to this lake," he said.
    The salt miners work from dawn until dusk collecting salt to sell on to local traders.
    If they are hard-working and fill 100 or so large sacks, they can expect to take home 2 to 3 U.S. dollars that day.
    But it could be worse, says Idris.
    "Salt is not bad for you, for human health. We all grew up on salt," he said.
    But Idris is not telling the whole truth -- mining salt has taken its toll on him and the hundreds of others who work the lake.
    Hours of standing knee-deep in the salty water leaves their legs and arms peeling raggedly. Every few weeks, they shed their skins like the snakes they share the lake with, and which have bitten Idris seven times in the past nine years.
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