Miners welcomed to their this year’s first shift with lively brass band music

The first working day of the new year is usually a special day in the OKD district. At the gates of the shafts, miners´ brass bands play since the early morning. The bands play not just for the night and mornings shifts but also for those who arrive to perform their working obligations in the afternoon shifts.

As soon as from four-thirty in the morning, the Ostrava band which recently merged with miners´ Azeťanka band performed in front of the Staříč plant of the Paskov Mines. At the same time, other musicians welcomed the miners at the Chlebovice plant. “It is a great tradition that accompanies the beginning of the New Year at the shaft,“ one of the participants commented the chilly concert. “It makes me feel as if the shaft welcomed me and wished me all the best for the New Year.“ This year’s first shift was even more pleasant because of the fact that, in the recently completed year, they managed to extract more coal than planned.

In the Plant No. 3 of the Darkov Mine, it was the miners´ band of the Darkov Mine conducted by Jaroslav Šindel that played lively marches and other tunes to miners hurrying to their first shift in the New Year. No one of the persons present can remember anymore how, when and where this tradition started at Darkov. “We simply played always! I have been conducting this band for thirty years and during all that time we never skipped the New Year's concert,“ claimed Mr. Šindel. The oldest member of the band and its president, the seventy-two year-old Petr Szwanczar, claims the same. He has played in the miners´ brass band for fifty-four years and he worked in the pits for thirty six years.

As many as two brass bands came to cheer up the staff of the Karviná Mine. At the ČSA plant, it was Akorďanka conducted by František Huňař and at the Lazy plant it was Azeťanka with bandleader Radek Fabík. The bands performed before the first and the second shift and brisk marches and other tunes not only filled the entrance area with optimism and a pleasant atmosphere, but also symbolically marked the last year's excellent output results. Due to the rocket start towards the end of the year, the pit extracted 4.245 million tons of coal, and it exceeded the annual plan by 30 thousand tons.

Josef Lys, Marek Síbrt