Ukrainian miners: Portraits

The miners in this series all work at Stakhanov mine in eastern Ukraine. It is named after its most famous ex-employee, Alexey Stakhanov, who set a record for coal production in 1935. In five hours and 32 minutes, he managed to hew out 102 tonnes of coal. Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov Photograph: guardian.co.uk 'Oil and gas have been so much in the news in recent decades,' ­Kosorukov says. 'People imagine coal doesn’t exist any more. In fact, it is responsible for a major part of the world’s energy.' Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov Photograph: guardian.co.uk Stakhanov mine is part of a c­omplex of four mines owned by the state. Production has fallen since Soviet times, from 1m tonnes a year under communism to 375,000 today. There are fewer miners, too: 2,381 compared with 10,000-12,000 in the mine’s heyday Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov Photograph: guardian.co.uk The miners photographed by Kosorukov were indifferent to Stakhanov’s record. Photograph: GlebKosorukovCopyright/glebk@aha/Gleb Kosorukov Photograph: GlebKosorukovCopyright/glebk@aha/guardian.co.uk 'Miners face extremes in their profession. Mortality is high,' Kosorukov says. Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov 'In some ways miners are modern saints,' Kosorukov says. 'They know that some day they may never come back from the mine.' Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov The photos were taken in September 2009 at the Stakhanov mine, 40km from the ­eastern industrial town of Donetsk. Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov The miners were photographed as they returned to the ground from a six-hour shift. Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov 'Miners are responsible for by far the biggest energy resource of today's civilisation,' Kosorukov says, 'and to some extent their job is a sort of sacrifice in the name of humankind.' To view more images, go to glebkosorukov.com Photograph: Gleb Kosorukov Photograph: guardian.co.uk