Historical and geographical features of building the Kuzbas's coal-mining industry system

This study observes historical and geographical particular features of building the coal-mining industry system, based on the use of the Kuznetsk coalfield's assets (the Kuzbas). The author dwells on the differentiation of several economical milestones, which impacted on raising the Kuzbas's coal industry. There are 5 certain landmarks. The first one refers to the discovery of coal deposits in 1721, by D.G. Messerschmidt in the south of the Kuzbas (in the area of town Kuznetsk), simultaneously with M. Volkov, in the north. The second landmark is considered to be the start of exploiting the nearest section of the Trans-Siberian Railway (in 1897), heading northward to the Kuznetsk coalfield. The third landmark, influenced on the development of the Kuzbas's coalmining industry, is the foundation of the cooperative association named "Kopikuz" (as known as "Kuznetsk's coal-mines") in 1912. It had exclusive rights for excavation coal deposits within the Kuznetsk district of the Tomsk province. As the fourth landmark, it is the economic crisis in Russia in 1989 that showed up its power in the Kuzbas's industry especially tough. The fifth landmark in the history of the pointed region's development is meant to be the revival of the Kuzbas's coal-mining industry, begun in 1997. Thus, it has been defined that the history of exploiting the Kuznetsk coalfield is spanning almost three hundred years, although its accelerated development origins from the Trans-Siberian Railway having passed through it (in 1897) and the Kopikuz cooperative association having been founded (in 1912). Current industry system of Kemerovo region has been generally built up in a quite a short period of time (generally during the twentieth century). The accelerated development of it, as well as its obvious coal-mining specialization, is caused by the huge deposit of coal, in conjunction with its beneficial spatial location next to common shared natural resources: water supply, forests, mineral and land resources. Modern territorial and functional structure of the coal-mining industry system of the Kuzbas region was finally formed by the middle of 1980s. After that, a crisis period had been occurred in this branch of industry for the next decade. Since late 1990s, a new phase of revival and a new development has happened to the coal-mining industry of the region. Up to this moment, the use of coal assets in the coalfield has reached the peak point ever. Nowadays the pace of mining is still increasing, the measure of output recently got to the point of more than 200 million tons per year. The modern pattern of coal assets' consumption includes following flows: 35% of mined coal rests in Kemerovo region, less than 15% stays inside Russia as for domestic consumption, and more than 50% of mined coal is being exported.

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