Prosiana. The Kaolin Quarry 2020. A Monument to the Mining Industry and Other Sights
The rapid development of the mining industry brought with it the working of quarries, which after exploitation now stand abandoned, harming the surrounding environment, polluting water and air, and destroying the soil-and-vegetation layer.
An industrial landscape has formed on the chaotic surface of the abandoned Prosiana kaolin quarry.
The kaolin quarry. Prosiana, Dnipropetrovsk region.
In 1882 the prospector Medvedev discovered a deposit of kaolin, and in 1892 the first kaolin-enrichment works in tsarist Russia was built here. Three years later a plant producing refractory materials turned out its first output.
A view of the quarry from the spoil heap.
The enterprise experienced an economic upswing in the 1960s-1970s: new deposits were opened and powerful equipment was put into operation. In Prosiana, workshops were built for making glassware, ceramic tableware, crystal goods, and ceramic facing tiles. The manufacture of these popular consumer goods ceased in 1992.
Turquoise water, snow-white banks
The Vershyna section of the kaolin deposit was opened in 1965.
The peaks of the kaolin deposit
The white hills of the quarry
Deposits of the useful clay were found in the gullies at a depth of 14-23 metres.
A kaolin desert
The natural mineral riches of Prosiana
The tops of the spoil heaps have in time become covered with ravine woodland, and the fallen leaves helped form a soil and vegetation cover.
The Vershyna reserve on the territory of the worked-out quarry
The green masses of the Vershyna reserve
Nature seems to have covered over the wounds inflicted on it by human activity.
Artificial mountains in the Ukrainian steppe
The green tints of the vegetation add a note of positivity
In order to preserve this unusual relief in the steppe zone, the Vershyna landscape reserve was created. Entry to the protected area is open, but tourists must observe good order and the rules of fire safety.
Conquering a summit in the Vershyna reserve
Maples, silver oleaster, dog rose, and wild pear have covered the wounded land
On the reclaimed lands an agricultural field has been ploughed.
Hollows alternate with heights and ditches
In recent years kaolin extraction has stopped, and the machinery on the site has fallen still.
The turquoise shade of the water comes from the white clay and the reflection of the sky
An alluring blue expanse
Evidently, the production of porcelain, faience, paper, rubber, roofing materials, and pharmaceutical products no longer needs natural raw material in large quantities.
Scatterings of kaolin
A white ridge
The belt conveyor is stopped, but among the enterprise's workers hope for a revival of the mining works still smoulders.
A halted conveyor
The snow-white mountains of kaolin contain semi-transparent crystals, and the wind and water carry to the surface samples of feldspar with patterns resembling the lunar surface.
Kaolin wealth
Nature's gifts
The worked-out hollows have filled with groundwater and come to resemble fairy-tale lakes of a blue colour.
White islands
This is not a beach
Swimming in industrial reservoirs with a viscous bottom is forbidden; deceptive beauty can be treacherous.
To admire, not to swim in
This deserted place has been favoured by ducks, which have settled among the reed thickets. The industrial landscape is best admired from the southern side of the cut, where a splendid panorama of the quarry opens up from the high slope.
The kaolin quarry in Prosiana
From here to stopping point No. 23 the distance is 2.5 kilometres, and to Prosiana station about 7 kilometres. On the eastern side of the quarry lies the highest point of the Dnipropetrovshchyna — the Vasiukova Mohyla mound with an absolute height of 211 metres and its own height of 5 metres. A large part of the archaeological monuments of this mound group were ploughed up during the years of collective farming.
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