“One of the main requirements – a responsible attitude”: Sergey Subbotin on working as a motor driver at HPPs
Sergey Subbotin, a 62-year-old from Almaty, works as a motorist at the head unit of the local hydroelectric power plant of HPP-1. The accident-free operation of the plant depends on his vigilance at his post. Baigenews.kz correspondent met with a representative of the working profession and learnt about why not everyone can be a motorist at the HPP, despite the convenient work schedule.
Sergey Subbotin has been working as a motor driver at the head unit of HPP-1 since 1997. The specifics of this position require not only professional knowledge, but also psychological endurance. After all, it is necessary to be practically alone in the mountains for a week without a break, performing important work on monitoring the situation at the locks and hydroelectric units of the Cascade of HPP on the Big Almaty Lake. However, let’s talk about everything in turn.
After graduating from Moscow Institute with a specialization in hydraulic engineering construction, Sergey Subbotin returned to his native Kazakhstan and worked as a foreman for 6 years in the trust “Issykvodstroy PMK-130” in Issyk in Almaty region, also as a shift worker worked on different water objects, including settling ponds and canals. His father, being the chief engineer of the trust “Kazkhimremstroymontazh”, chief mechanic of the Shymkent phosphorus plant, prophesied a bright future for him, no less than his experience. But in the end, a number of factors played their part, and Sergey made his choice to be a simple worker rather than a manager.
“After graduating from the institute in Moscow, I had a choice: to stay there for postgraduate studies, or to work somewhere in the Moscow region as a foreman for a construction organisation, or to return to my native Kazakhstan. In the end, my heart, not my head, told me: go back to where I was born, where the climate is familiar, where my homeland is, and where, as they say, I will be useful. Working as a foreman, I could go higher up the ranks, but I liked the live work at the site more. When the USSR collapsed, it turned out that nobody needed my knowledge and my work, the Ministry of Water Management of the Republic of Kazakhstan was liquidated at the dawn of Independence, of course, there was no funding, everything fell apart”, – recalled Sergey Subbotin.
He noted that at the dawn of the 90s, he had to be on his own bread and spent about a year looking for options to continue his career. His head and time forced our hero to follow the market paths, he tried himself in other professions, was even a broker, but soon realized that these occupations were not for him. One day he saw an advertisement about an opportunity to work at the Big Almaty Lake, but not in his specialty. In the process of 3-year work Sergey got acquainted with the staff of Cascade HPP, which was also presented at Big Almaty Lake. Having learnt about Sergei’s education, the Kaskad people approached him with a job offer in the hydro shop. At the interview, they approved Subbotin’s candidature and today he has been working in his current position for 27 years, although there were opportunities to move to other staff units of the enterprise in the city.
The peculiarity of work as a motorist of the head unit of HPP-1 is that it is necessary to be on duty one week a month high up in the mountains at the Big Almaty Lake, when receiving a command from the management to maneuver the gates – open and close, flush, clean, also during the duty to conduct 3-times observation of the water level in the lake, the equipment. There is an infiltration station pumping filtration water at the site, and the motorist also needs to be close by, because there are different nuances and you need to react quickly, especially in winter to avoid freezing of pipes and equipment.
“One of the main requirements is a responsible attitude to one’s job duties. Because some mistake can lead to closing of the throttle valve, causing the pressure pipeline to empty, which can lead to an emergency shutdown of HPP-1. There are places where you need to be especially careful, and there are nuances where you just need to regularly observe, take notes and send information down to the engineering staff”, Subbotin explained.
He is alone at the post for a week, the other 3 weeks 3 other motorists are on duty. Sergey said that in the old days, when there were no mobile phones, in their free time shift workers read books, did self-development, sports, even yoga. Now there is an opportunity to watch satellite TV and phone, but cellular communication and mobile internet are practically unavailable.
To be alone in the mountains, when there is practically nobody around, and wild animals are hiding behind the slopes – not everyone can withstand such an environment. And that is why not only certain professional skills, but also human qualities are important for such work.
“It’s not really a social kind of work. That is, it’s self-provided. In the winter time, there are only two or three people on duty from different organizations in the upper settlement at Big Almaty Lake, and we don’t meet, we only see each other’s footprints. These are basically “lone wolves”. Although, in the Soviet times it was crowded here, there were about 20 people on watch – from snow avalanche station, hydrological station, meteorologists, cascade of hydroelectric power plants, there were competitions. Nowadays the minimum number of people on duty is 2-3 people, in winter there is not always a road, sometimes it gets snowy. I am not a psychologist to explain how we are selected for such work, but I think that the management somehow reads the psychotype of candidates to understand in advance whether they are able to work in such a mode and at the same time be responsible in their work. Fortunately, we have not had any cases of nervous breakdowns or suicides, it is the merit of the management, which can understand a person in advance and hire the candidate who will be calm in such conditions”, Subbotin said.
During his work in the mountains, the motorist has accumulated many stories about how he met with predators, saw fresh tracks of bears, lynxes and snow leopards. But not once did wild animals attack him or other shift workers.
“Man – such a creature who thinks he is the king of nature, which is not true at all. Man is not sensitive and not attentive, so even predators – leopards, wolves, bears, know that man is the most predatory animal, and bypass him, and they have a little bit I have enough, so they see in advance, man has not yet thought, has not had time to see the traces, just maybe, maybe, and basically all these animals bypass man. For these 30-odd years that I have been working there, I have seen a lot of tracks, even met a lynx. But they are not aggressive, if they are not sick, they move aside and retreat in front of humans”, Subbotin explained.
He added that modern technologies are gradually reaching remote corners of nature as well. For example, some time ago, an automated system appeared at the HPP-1 headworks at Big Almaty Lake, with the help of which a motorist can, without leaving his cabin, track readings from sensors on monitors, watch video from video cameras, assessing the need to go to the sluice for adjustments. The facility has also added a security guard.
“Our mode of operation during a shift is 21 hours a day with the right to sleep. I remember, there were different moments – and emergency, and working weeks, when, as they say, trotting, sweating, but we are ready for it. Everyone has enough both psychological and physical preparation, moreover, during the shift we have to go 600 metres down from there to the first HPP, go back and forth through the pipeline, check the condition. In other words, we have a rather active lifestyle”, said Sergey Subbotin.
During his work, Subbotin developed his own ritual, which originated from practice. At the beginning of his work on the node watch during Sergei’s shift, work was carried out with the opening of the throttle valve. The young specialist Subbotin after such a visit to the facility by the personnel who performed repair work, closed the room, reported on the completion of work, went to bed. But in the middle of the night (and it was winter) he hesitated whether he had removed the safety cheque or not.
“It should have been removed, because in emergency situations, if suddenly the pipeline breaks, it should be properly arranged. Doubting this, I quickly packed up, ran indoors – and it’s 500 metres in the snow from the lodge, I look, the cheque has been removed. And since then I have had a ritual to say out loud to myself: put the cheque in, don’t forget to remove it. When I leave, when I close it, I put it away. That is, I check myself not only with my eyes and hands, but also with my ears. That is, automatism also needs to be fixed, so I have taught myself that if there is a responsible moment, I need to say it out loud”, said Sergey Subbotin.
Subbotin admitted that the technical mindset helps him in life as well, thanks to his knowledge and skills he can orientate himself on the spot, install, for example, a mixer at home, even if the parts and dimensions are not suitable.
Time flies inexorably, and young people like Sergei are already breathing down the necks of specialists like him. He believes that it is more difficult for today’s generation to get access to knowledge in the field of working professions, despite the availability of the Internet. Sergei states this through the example of his children.
“I regret that their opportunities are different. I had free education at the institute, and I remember my student years as the most golden time. Not only my youth, but also the Komsomol committee at the institute, construction teams in Andijan and Hungary. Now my children do not have and will not have that, it is much more difficult to survive, and even more difficult to find oneself. I try to show my children without words what I am really like, in deeds, not in words”, our hero said.
As for Sergey’s successors in this position, they still have to adopt the experience, knowledge and coolness inherent in the older generation. Besides, the work of the motor operator of HPP-1 hydroelectric power station at Big Almaty Lake is not only the duty, rounds and response to current situations, but also the ability to carry out planned repair works, to offer solutions to the management in crisis situations.