The art of working with metal: a 45-year career at the lathe

The story of a lathe operator at the Electric Machine Shop of the Cascade of HPPs Askar Konarbayev, who has been working in his profession for 45 years

The first time Askar Konarbayev entered the workshop when he was in 9th grade, time stood still. “I saw a lathe operator in oil-soaked overalls standing in front of me, his hands were dancing around the machine. Out of a rough iron billet, as if by magic, there was born a detail – smooth, shiny, perfect. It wasn’t just a lesson in Machine Science – it was an initiation. I was walking back to school, and I could hear it ringing in my head: “I want to create the same thing!’ At that time I did not know that this spark would define my destiny”.

The career of Askar Lazatevich started in Semipalatinsk Mechanical College as an apprentice leading to becoming a master. Then the army service. And then – the armature factory, where he first felt the real weight of the profession. “A lathe operator is not just “sharpening parts”. It’s an alchemist who turns blueprints into reality. In the “80s, we worked with machine tools that required not only skill, but flair. Adjusting the cutter, selecting the speed, controlling every microroughness – you couldn’t trust a computer here. If you made a mistake in the tolerance, the part would go to waste, and hours of labor would go with it”, says Askar Konarbayev.

When experience was shared from one to another, the secrets of the masters of the USSR were passed on. “My mentors – Vitaly Dukart, Ivan Keller, Volodya Spirleng – were as strict as surgeons. “A lathe operator is all about brains and patience,” they used to say”. I remember how Vitaly made me redo a bushing ten times until I realized that precision is not about numbers, it’s about respect for the metal. And in 1986, I attended the Young Specialists Conference in Moscow. There, among enthusiasts like me, I realized: we are the backbone of the industry. Not the heroes of posters, but those who keep the country progressing”.

A lathe operator used to be both an engineer and a mathematician. Today, CNC (numerical program control) machines have simplified the job, but not the soul of the craft. “I first saw in Kursk, at the GeoMash plant, how a program replaces the hand. But even now, looking at our machine-tool fleet (sometimes dating back to 1947!), I am sure: the craftsman is more important than the machine. Modern technologies are tools, but without the ability to “feel metal” they are as good as dead”.

Askar Lazatevich is retiring this year. In his opinion, the Year of Working Professions is a chance to regain what has been lost. Today, young people are fleeing from workshops to offices, and machines are aging without apprentices. He believes that schools need to return work lessons not as a “second-rate subject” but as the art of creation. “Let children see: a lathe is the 3D printer of the past that built the world.” Secondly, in his opinion, we should open training centers at factories. Not theory, but practice: let veterans teach young people on real machines.