MTW’s employee: Over 20 thousand tractors are hidden in plant’s territory

Over 20 000 tractors are hidden in the territory of MTW and the plant’s testing station in Abchak settlement.

Charter97.org’s editorial office received an emotional letter about the state of affair at Minsk Tractor Works from one of the employees of the capital’s largest enterprise. The MTW’s employee supported his words with pictures.

We decided to publish the entire letter, since it is not possible to verify the facts stated in the letter, the editorial office has been receiving similar information for two last months, all attempts to specify facts and details with MTW’s administration saw shameless lies. We will not provide the author’s name for obvious reasons:

“Having read Charter’97’s article on the increased stockpiles at enterprises, I decided to support it with facts. I work at MTW and see the actual picture daily. Currently there are over 20 000 tractors hidden in the plant’s territory and beyond that in Abchak settlement. The plant’s territory alone is ALL covered with tractors, including pedestrian walks. People literally make their way through the unmarketable equipment. The Google.Maps shot, recently published on the web-site are a year old and are no longer accurate. Now the WHOLE plant is crammed with tractors! Even old-timer do not remember anything like that, even in the wild 90-ies the situation was better. The funniest thing is that all the Saturdays are working days. And the plan keeps growing, now it accounts for 5800-6000 machines a month. Although there are rumors that there will be a four-day working week in June… It is easy to calculate: MTW’s stockpile equals to 3-4 months of intensive production. ”

Average salary at the plant is around 4-6 million roubles, which is not bad on the country’s scale. Working conditions are not a lot different from the soviet ones: professional gatherings, where everything and everyone is unanimous, voluntary-coercive days of unpaid work, subscription to the local very major-positive newspaper and even socialist emulations between workshops. And the populist Lukashenka’s words on modernization in the background sound like a squeaky door in the wind: 80% of the equipment is from 50-60-ies, the territory is dirty, not taken care of, there are holes in the asphalt, puddles. Renovations were only carried out in administrative buildings, they even deliver water in coolers there, but workers can drink tap water with the taste of iron, they are no earls or anything. In summer is terribly hot in the workshops – over 40 degrees – and very cold in winter. The conditions are more or less acceptable only at the main conveyor and the limited edition workshop, this is where all the delegations are taken and throw dust in their eyes!

P.S. By the way, the workers were very confused by the latest statement by the so-called president about actual giving tractors away for free. Everyone is confused and filled with indignation, saying that this will bring no profit and the plant had rather started making tanks so the demand would have been higher!”

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According to the information by the statistics committee, the stockpile of tractors for agriculture and timber industry accounted to 10.1 thousand items.

April photos: