Tursun Mukaramovna ZHAKUPOVA, chairman of the trade union committee of CHPP-1 named after. B. Orazbaeva

“I got a job as a fuel supply mechanic at CHPP-1 in the 80s of the last century. At that time there were still workers here who participated in the construction of the central power station or saw how its construction was going on. One of them is Maria Maksimovna KATAEVA, who saw the construction site with her own eyes as a child.

The Kazakhs have a good custom of “asar”, when people, getting together, provide free assistance to one of their neighbors or fellow villagers. For example, after a fire, or during the construction of a house. And, as Maria Maksimovna recalled, during the construction of the station, Kazakhs came from nearby villages, with their families, in carts, to feed the builders. Everyone was waiting for the station to give light to their homes.

Women prepared food, and men poured the foundation by hand… Even children helped, carrying water. Maria Maksimovna said: “We knew that then everyone would have glass light bulbs hanging! There will be light for everyone, and there will be no need to clean the lanterns. The children were happy about this, because they always had to clean the glass of the kerosene lamp from soot, and their parents explained to them that there would be no more such lamps.”

Maria Maksimovna worked at CHPP-1, even when she was retired, and we often communicated with her. Recalling those times, she said that then coal and ash were transported on carts, and burning coals often fell on horses…

And then the war broke out. During the war they worked continuously, everyone was afraid to leave, because then there was very strict discipline…

I started working on the fuel supply. This is the beginning of the power generation process at the station. At this stage, we supply fuel, fill the bunkers with raw coal… This was the so-called chemical water regime. After such preparation, the chemical shop prepares fuel for the boilers.

From the point of view of physical activity, this was probably the most difficult stage of the work. However, there were older women working here. Their standard was to load 7 tons of coal, but it could have been more. For example, we had Zina, she had very poor eyesight. And in order not to make a mistake with the volume of coal poured into the receiver, she lowered her hand into the receiving sleeves (choke) – a special pipe for filling coal, under which there was a warehouse. The coal fell vertically into one place and then had to be pulled away. So, as soon as the end of Zina’s finger touches the coal, she begins to slow down the backfill. Because if it touched, it means that we have already begun to “fall over.” That is, the pipe is about to clog.

Coal came regardless of the time of year – both in summer and winter. But to unload 43 wagons, women were given 2.5-3 hours. I had to rush along the conveyor belt, because if Aunt Zina or Aunt Sonya missed, then all 120 tons of coal would already be there. And due to untimely response, the estrus was clogged.

There are 5-6 such flows along the conveyor line. In one I have collected the required volume, I need to run and transfer the next heat to coal intake. At this time, the bulldozer begins to pull it away to make room for the next batch of fuel. And while he is pulling it away, you need to run back very quickly. So you jump along the line between the receivers, just so as not to fail the heat.

The work in this fuel supply area was very hard, completely unladylike. But even there we remained women and found good things. I remember we lubricated the rollers on conveyors with grease, after which the skin on our hands became soft. We joked then that this was our first cosmetic product for coal…”