The ancients said: you are what you eat. And modern scientists add: you are what you breathe, what you drink and what land you walk on.
In their voluminous report (more than 800 pages), experts from the Ministry of Nature explain in detail in which cities in Russia breathing, drinking and walking can be dangerous for your health.
10. Shelekhov
The list of Russian cities with the dirtiest air opens a small (over 47 thousand people) city in the Irkutsk region. And although it has green spaces - several alleys, a couple of parks, long and tree-lined boulevards - they are unable to cope with massive air pollution.
One of its culprits is the federal highway "Baikal" passing in the immediate vicinity of the city. It is part of a gigantic Asian route that stretches from Moscow to China.
The second source of pollution is the aluminum smelter, which is located twenty minutes walk from the city limits. Once it was he who served as the reason for the founding of Shelekhov, and now he is slowly killing him, its inhabitants and the surrounding nature.
9. Svirsk
Another Siberian city is next in terms of the number of hazardous emissions into the air. It is also located in the Irkutsk region, where many large industrial enterprises are concentrated (around which, in fact, cities arose).
Svirsk could boast of two highly toxic enterprises - an arsenic plant and a battery plant. And although the first stopped releasing poison in 1949, its ruins have poisoned the soil for over 60 years. Children played in the arsenic dusty ruins. Poisonous substances gradually penetrated everywhere - into the soil, into vegetation, into the milk of cows. And only in 2013 they were finally buried in a specially made sarcophagus.
And the second, battery plant, continues to exist, although since then, of course, it has changed a lot. However, he is mainly to blame for air pollution in Svirsk.
8. Usolye-Sibirskoe
Although there are several industrial enterprises in this settlement, it got its place among the dirtiest cities in Russia in 2019 thanks to an accident that happened just a year ago.
One June evening, at a chemical plant located within the city limits, a tank overturned. It contained a chemical compound dangerous to human life and health. As a result of the impact, the cistern cracked, and the poisonous cloud broke free. And only thanks to the emergency measures taken by the Russian Emergencies Ministry, it was possible to minimize the damage to the health of residents.
Let's add that a year before the events described, the culprit enterprise, Usoliekhimprom, was declared bankrupt. And the perpetrators have not yet been found.
7. Barnaul
The largest city in the Altai Territory has long been suffering from air pollution. The main reason is poor location coupled with banal human greed.
As for the first, Barnaul is located on a slope, its surface descends to the Ob River. Many pollutants are heavier than clean air, so they linger and, as it were, "slide" downhill, where the old buildings are located.
As a result, the townspeople who live in the city center are shrouded in smog during the cold season in calm weather.
And the second reason is associated with the location within the city of several large enterprises, including thermal power plants. Once upon a time, back in Soviet times, under unfavorable weather conditions (that is, calm weather), the CHPP stopped work so as not to pollute the air and not to cover Barnaul residents with a smoky cloud. Now, of course, no one does that.
And if to add to the poisonous cocktail also car exhaust and smoke from chimneys (there are many private houses in Barnaul), it becomes clear why the city is on the list of the most ecologically unfavorable cities in Russia.
6. Angarsk
And from the Altai Territory we return to the Irkutsk Region. This time we are talking about the relatively prosperous from the economic point of view, the southern part of the region.
Like many Siberian cities, Angarsk emerged from a workers' settlement at a large industrial enterprise. Now he is holding on to two large oil refining companies - the Angarsk Petrochemical Company and the Electrolysis Plant - as well as a number of others, smaller, but also related to the chemical industry. They simultaneously keep the city afloat, give its inhabitants jobs, but also poison the air and soil.
It is not possible to attribute air pollution to cars (a common tactic of the industrial lobby), since the total number of car exhaust emissions in the smog that covered the city is only 4.6%. And even installing high quality modern filters helps a little. For 35 years of activity of chemical enterprises, the soil and air in the city have already been poisoned.
5. Chita
As usual, the industry is to blame for the hard life of Chita residents and the sad ecological state of the city. There is one of the subsidiaries of the company, which appeared as a result of the reform of the industrial magnate RAO UES of Russia. In addition to him, the townspeople are still "pleased" by emissions from a machine-building plant, a silicate plant, a reinforced concrete plant, a furniture factory and many others. With a population of only 350 thousand people, you see, this is a lot.
Perhaps, if the geographical location of the city were different, it would be relatively comfortable to live there. However, Petr Beketov, the founder of the city, decided to create it in the basin. As a result, Chita residents often remember him with an unkind word, because their city is practically not blown, the air in it is stagnant, in summer residents suffer from dust and stench from garbage cans and sewers, and in winter - from poisonous smog. Little snow falls there, and the fallen quickly turns black from industrial emissions.
4. Lesosibirsk
A small town with a population of only 60 thousand people has several large enterprises, mainly engaged in wood processing.
The city-forming enterprise of the city is a sawmill and woodworking plant, which is considered one of the largest not only in Russia but throughout the world. In general, there are as many as 3 industrial zones per 40 km of the city, whose enterprises emit an astronomical amount of harmful substances into the air (according to some estimates, this number is 142 kg per city resident).
In addition to harmful substances (especially formaldehyde), wood dust is also dispersed in the air.
By the way, woodworking enterprises influence Lesosibirsk not only by emissions. The townspeople also suffer from the invasion of beetles, which love to eat coniferous wood. And, of course, there is plenty of it at the woodworking enterprises.
3. Minusinsk
Another industrial center of the Krasnoyarsk Territory is in third place in the rating of the cities of Russia with the dirtiest air in 2019. It is located in the very center of a gigantic basin and is closed from the winds by mountains on all sides.
It is clear that this has a negative effect on air quality. Even despite the fact that food and light industry enterprises are mainly concentrated in Minusinsk, which are not as dangerous for the health of the townspeople as the heavy one.
Smog hangs in a dense canopy over the city almost constantly in the cold season, because the wind is closed to the tightly closed basin. Pain in the lungs of local residents is also added by car exhaust and stove heating of old private houses.
2. Winter
Did you think Irkutsk Oblast disappeared from the “dirty” rating? But no. In second place in the sad list of Russian cities with the most polluted air is the city with the beautiful name Zima. About 30 thousand people live there, most of whom serve the railway passing through the city.
There are also several private timber processing enterprises and one remnant of the Soviet era - a chemical plant. Winter's trouble lies in the poor ventilation of the city, stove heating and burning forest waste in private enterprises. All this produces a huge amount of soot, which the inhabitants of the city then breathe.
1. Kyzyl
And in the first place among Russian cities with the most polluted air is the capital of Tuva. From the point of view of ventilation, the city is located extremely poorly. Like many of the “dirty” ten, it is located in a hollow, which is covered by hills on all sides.
Winters are long here, spring is short, and in summer the heat reaches 40 degrees. As a result, the dust in the city is a pillar; Moreover, with the change of seasons, real dust storms are frequent, as in some Sahara.
The main source of emissions is CHP, stove heating (and they will not stop using it, since it is cheaper than electricity) and, of course, cars. A mixture of emissions from thermal power plants, gasoline stench and soot and soot from coal and wood burned in stoves turns into a dangerous cocktail that can cause dangerous respiratory diseases.