Tomsk Polytechnic University, Tomsk, Russia:

G. Yu. Boyarko, Professor, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Candidate of Geological and Mineralogical Sciences, gub@tpu.ru

The article describes the initiation and growth of teamwise gold digging on an industrial scale in Russia. Before the 1950s artels of gold diggers in Russia mostly worked manually and at low output; later on, the high-rate mechanization of production resulted in origination of large industrial artels equipped with high-output mining machines. Industrial artels benefitted from independent management of production and staffing, which allowed them to compete with the public factories in gold production efficiency on a large scale. A distinct problem for the gold mining artels (as well for the public and private gold mining companies) in Russia is the seasonal prevalence of operations at gold placers. The inconstancy of the income (and, consequently, of the circulating assets) was addressed in the planned economy period using the system of prepayment for the expected gold output (up to 80 % money advance), which was a loan free of interest on the side of the government in point of fact. The artels lost the above-mentioned advantages in the time of market relations and mostly transformed to other types of ownership and management. In the modern conditions in Russia, the artel business in gold digging (production cooperatives) is possible both constitutionally and economically, though within some limits. Establishment of large industrial holdings based on the operating crews of free miners is however unrealistic now. Thus, the small crew-based cooperative movement in gold mining with collective leadership in production supported by large industrial artels has no prospects of success at the moment.

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