A recent independent survey conducted by Josimar, an independent Norwegian newspaper, in St. Petersburg, found that at least 110 North Koreans had worked in the Zenit Stadium, which will be the venue for the 2018 World Cup final. It has become a systematic “coolie camp” devouring migrant workers.
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Out of the KrestovskyOstrov metro station, there is a huge park. Follow the paved road from the central axis through the park to the end, about two kilometers, to Zenit Stadium. The $1.5 billion, 11-year project is still unfinished.
Along the park is a ring of newsstands, kiosks and merry-go-rounds. Strong winds swept away the winter fog from the sea. In February St. Petersburg was bitterly cold and the parks were empty.
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How much money has gone missing and how many people have enriched themselves
In 2006, before Russia had a chance to bid to host the 2018 World Cup, local soccer club boss Zenit Fc Decided to build a new home from an old 1920s field and needed a new city to accommodate its rising international status.
The zenit Stadium was originally scheduled to open in December 2008, but now it seems unlikely.
The stadium was not completed until mid-to-late March 2017. The circuit is paved with hidden dangers, cracks in the cement giant can be seen everywhere, and the situation of rain and water leakage is not optimistic.
Standing on the pitch, I could feel the shaking from beneath the ground, presumably because the subway was nearby. In January 2017, Russia’s State security service (FSO) conducted an inspection of the project and issued a total of 22 notices, according to media reports. How it was implemented after that, no one knows.
According to the Russian government website, the project started with a budget of $220 million in 2006, but 11 years later that figure has risen to $1.5 billion. Of course, the $1.5 billion does not include the stadium’s infrastructure, such as nearby roads and parks.
“If we had controlled for the normal cost and quality of the project, we would have estimated the total budget to be about a third, or less.” “The only reasonable explanation is that such a huge budget increase is corruption,” said the st. Petersburg anti-corruption office of Transparency International. Or the proposal for the project, or something like that, was submitted after the stadium was covered. So of course their budget has to add to that what has already been spent.”
No one knows how many dollars have disappeared or how many people have enriched themselves. But how much of the project is still in arrears, how many workers have not received their due wages, this is certain.
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At a construction site made up of illegal immigrants, one person dies in a month
Workers have been working here almost every day for 11 years.
The workers came from all the former Soviet republics — Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine. They are the “migrant workers” of the post-Soviet era.
Of course, many of the 1,500 or so workers are from North Korea.
“Migrant labor” has been a big problem in Russia since the late Soviet Union. They do physical work on sites large and small in Russia, and nobody cares about the law, nobody cares about the contract, so they don’t have any rights.
“Eighty percent of the workforce here are migrant workers. Most of them have been duped by small overseers and contractors and haven’t received a penny in years. I’ve been doing this for 20 years and I’ve never seen a project as chaotic as Zenit stadium. Pavel, a project manager for one of the many contractors working on the stadium project, who is based in Moscow and is from one of Russia’s largest construction companies, told reporters.
In his account, zenit Stadium was a safe place to work until the summer of 2016. After that, everything was in chaos.
“Serious engineering accidents are calculated on a weekly basis and never stop. From August to Christmas 2016, a total of four workers died, some from falling from heights to the cement floor, and some from electrocution.”
Sergey Kagermazov, a journalist for the independent Russian media MR7, had previously visited the zenit Stadium construction site disguised as a migrant worker.
“The biggest problem at the venue was the leak. The construction team of 20 workers was divided into two teams. One team was responsible for plugging the leak and the other team was responsible for cleaning out the rubbish and debris. According to labor law, a maximum of eight hours a day is required. But our foreman said there would be extra pay if we worked a few more hours, so some people would stay up late at night. People who did not live on the site would take the last train home. I didn’t see the contract until I left, but the foreman said, don’t worry about it, it will happen.”
On February 11, 2017, zenit Stadium was completed. It’s kind of open to the public. There was singing, dancing and gymnastics at the ceremony.
“Even if the stadium is not actually finished, it has to be built and open because the president has asked for it.”
Signs can be seen at the venue reminding people to call a number if they see a leak or other unsafe conditions.
For the 10,000 people who attended that day, it was more of a “private test” than an opening. See if the stadium can hold so many people and hold them safely until they leave.
There was also a bear show. A real bear, riding his bike in style. Yes, this is Russia, and bears are everywhere.
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The most efficient worker at the best price
In the summer of 2016 St. Petersburg’s deputy mayor, Albin, decided to kick out Transstroi, the biggest contractor on the project, and instead came up with the idea of “encouraging” other construction companies, large and small, to work on zenit Stadium for free. In exchange, the government will give them more orders in the future and reduce the number of reviews.
After all, the project is eight years late, and time is the biggest problem pressing on everyone. President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, deputy Prime Minister and World Cup organizing committee chairman Mutko, all started in St. Petersburg and are Zenit fans.
For the city of St Petersburg, it would be a disaster if The zenit stadium, or the opening and closing stadiums of the World Cup, did not work properly.
It is hard for companies to respond to the government’s call and work for free. But “luckily,” they also have migrant laborers from North Korea — the best, most efficient workers, none of them.
Two months after the deputy mayor’s speech, a construction company called Dalpiterstroi, with 60 North Korean workers, set to work. Soon, companies were finding foremen and intermediaries who could transport North Korean workers and setting up their own North Korean construction teams.
Construction firms could squeeze Labour from the former Soviet republics, but they had to pay north Korean workers enough, since most of their money was not collected but handed over to the state.
North Korean workers worked day in and day out from summer to the end of the year. They live in containers off the site and feed and shelter themselves. One hundred North Korean workers pay only 6 million rubles, or about 720,000 yuan; Of that, 4 million was given to the state, with workers and foremen sharing the remaining 2 million rubles (240,000 yuan).
In November, a North Korean worker died of a heart attack in a shipping container, local media reported, and soon the story spread to FIFA. When western media called for an investigation into the use of North Korean sweatworkers in Russia’s preparations for the World Cup, FIFA accepted, but has not since.
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Sweatshops, contractors and evil schemes
Korean immigration to the Russian Far East began in the early 1850s and 1860s, and increased dramatically in the 1920s as the Korean ethnic group gradually became one of the largest border minorities in the Soviet Union.
In 1937, the Soviet central government forced the mass migration of Koreans. As many as 170,000 Koreans were driven by train and bus to Central Asia (mainly Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan). In 2007, an American Korean also made a documentary, KoryoSaram: Unreliable Person /KoryoSaram: The Unreliable People. It told this story that Gori was transported in Soviet Union.
The Koreans have existed as a subordinate, passive group to the Soviets for decades. North Koreans want to escape to Russia for a new life, but they have to put up with unfair treatment and arbitrary manipulation by the Russians.
Like their predecessors, who were forced to breed in Central Asia, these North Koreans, considered “working slaves”, are political survivers. No life, no personal time, no rest, nothing but work.
A Russian foreman told reporters that It was common for North Korean workers to work in Russia, and that he knew of many construction sites in St. Petersburg where North Korean workers were working themselves to death. They are usually confined to a small plot of land next to the construction site, crammed with old-fashioned shipping containers, wrapped in wire and fencing to keep workers from escaping. You have to be guarded when you work, and you have to be guarded when you sleep. They don’t interact with other people, they don’t communicate with other people, they don’t have any chance to communicate with the outside world except to buy cigarettes and water nearby.
The concentration camp-like model of worker management is reminiscent of the Soviet Gulag.
International sanctions have kept north Korea financially afloat for decades, with its previously secretive drug business supporting military spending and nuclear tests. In recent years, labor exports have become an important part of North Korea’s foreign exchange. In particular, the export of labor services to Russia can generate considerable profits.
According to one United Nations estimate, north Korean workers overseas earn $2 billion in income from their labor. North Koreans who work on Russian construction sites earn money for the country that ends up being spent on military and nuclear weapons development. Sweatshops, contractors, evil schemes, it’s all tied together.
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Work and you will live. This is heaven
Despite being watched for 24 hours, some North Korean workers managed to escape. For example, Kim, a North Korean who managed to escape from a Timber mill in Siberia, managed to live in Russia with fear with the help of a Russian human rights lawyer, and told reporters some real experiences.
To outsiders, North Korean sweat workers are treated like slaves and hostages. They were completely hollowed out, mentally and physically, their passports confiscated as soon as they arrived in Russia and they started working day and night.
After ten years in the army, He was sent to Russia to cut trees and earn foreign currency. Of course, not just anyone can be sent abroad to work, they must have a wife and children in north Korea, have a family as a “concern”, they will be sent out north Korea.
You can’t complain at work, or you’ll get beaten up and beaten up like in the army. The daily ration is an apple, an egg and some rice. The site had no running water or bathing facilities, and endured the bites of various insects in the forest. Unbearable hard labor, finally, the old king chose to escape.
Kim was lucky to have the help of the Russians, who gave him a place to live. But he still has to keep a low profile, and if he talks to the media and says things against north Korea, he will be convicted of treason and his family executed.
As a teenager, he had witnessed the mass execution of an entire village, which left him with a deep psychological shadow.
To avoid being deported from Russia, Kim had to fight a lengthy court battle to seek legal asylum. North Korean officials have also asked Kim’s wife and children to write to him, urging him to return to the motherland and reunite with his family.
He could only pretend not to have seen the letters, because if he did, the consequences would be very serious. In the face of all kinds of reality, Kim can only bite his teeth in Russia, one day at a time.
Andrei Lankofer is a professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, which is considered one of the largest North Korean research institutions in the world.
He told reporters that to prevent the influence of traitors, north Korea does allow only men with wives and children to work abroad, and that family is the state’s card controlling the export of workers.
North Korea exports about 100,000 workers a year, sometimes double that. The main destinations are China, Russia and the Middle East. About 30,000 North Koreans work in Russia, mostly in Siberia and the Far East, mainly in textiles and construction.
More importantly, working abroad is not compulsory — North Koreans work abroad voluntarily. Foreign jobs are very attractive to North Koreans because only a few are selected.
Russia is among the best of several foreign destinations. North Korean workers have to pay a lot of money to the government to get to Russia, about $700.
North Koreans have been seen living in shipping containers, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded. But even then, conditions are far better than in North Korea. Because here, you just have to work to survive, and back home, you have to play the political game of survival — that’s the real danger.
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Afterword.
The World Cup in Russia is only a year away. No matter what happens in the middle of the journey, the festive atmosphere will eventually overshadow and replace everything.
People will always choose to forget the pain, even if only for a moment of enjoyment. North Korean sweat and sweat workers, and all the people who helped build the World Cup.
“We don’t have time to think,” said a migrant worker from Kyrgyzstan, in an interview. “We are just proud of the work we do. When the World Cup kicks off, we will turn on the TV and the people around us will say ‘look, we helped build a stadium. We don’t care who is behind or not paying their wages, we don’t have anger ‘.”
“Times are difficult, everywhere in the world, in Russia as well.”
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