The Head of Ukrainian SSES field office in Poltava region Mr.Sologub sent a letter of gratitude for personal involvement, understanding and support to General Director Roman Chernyak. The letter reads as follows: “Thank you for timely response and sending special vehicles for disaster relief efforts and help in releasing vehicles trapped in snow. 1376 vehicles and 2475 persons stranded in snow have been released due to your support and joint efforts”.
Events of December 25-27 proved once again that powerful off road KrAZ trucks made by domestic manufacturer must be available in fleets of municipal and road maintenance companies and SSES units. These are the only vehicles that coped with recovery other vehicles could not tackle.
According to test driver Vasiliy Ukhnal who with other workers at the wheel of the KrAZ-Fiona vehicle was in the thick of the events, it was hard to drive through snow even for the armored vehicle. “At 21:00 o’clock on 25 December the shop foreman called me up and told to get ready to go to Zolotonosha road for recovery works. I came to the company’s facilities at 21:32 but only at 0:45 we could get in the thick of enormous traffic jam caused by the ZIL-131 firefighting vehicle of Emergency Service that stuck in snow. “Where are you? Hurry up!” – MES workers on this section of road hastened us. It’s a traffic collapse!”
First of all, Fiona has cleared the road and traffic jam caused by trapped vehicles by recovering the firefighting ZIL to the emergency command unit. Then, to restore traffic, trapped vehicles were pulled apart. Vehicles used to evacuate people were also KrAZ: the 4х4 5233 drop side trucks and all-terrain buses sent by National Guard and Poltava Mining and Concentrating Company. The vehicles packed with people from Guncel and shuttle buses made a trip to deliver them to the station in Kremenchug. Snow cover was so deep that other vehicles except KrAZ trucks wouldn’t get there. Even Fiona once sank up to axles in snow and we had to use two KrAZ trucks to recover it from snow bank.
After we evacuated the people trapped on the section of road Lipovoye-Sviatilovo, a call came from Cherkassy to help on the section of road Lipovoye-Irkliyev where about a dozen cars were trapped and no vehicle could get through to them.
At the sight of Fiona people who were glad not only to be rescued but also to see a beautiful vehicle took group and individual photographs near it. KrAZ was a hero of those days and nights! Its advantage is an excellent off road ability and, especially, wide rear hatch available on Fiona that could easily raise and lower. Numerous old people and children could easily and quickly get into the vehicle. We didn’t count how many people we evacuated. There were KAMAZ trucks with servicemen going to Donbass, lots of buses, shuttle buses, cars and trucks, and even GAZon transporting a corpse to Nedogarki.
Vehicles were recovered after the BAT crawler bulldozer transported by tow truck from Kharkov cleared the road.”
Mr.Spodaretz, Head of coordination centre duty shift who went together with “AutoKrAZ” workers to the section of road Zolotonosha-Kremenchug talks about them with respect and admiration: “The men like them I would follow into combat blindfolded, dashing, real men. During two days I and Ukhnal we covered about 400 km without rest and breaks. I fell asleep when convenient, while he didn’t get a wink of sleep. KrAZ trucks are reliable: we could get to people to deliver them to Sviatilovka where they were warmed and fed. I don’t know how these guys stood out, I have never met more reliable and strong people and vehicles”.
We thank all those who gave their feedback, reposted and liked photos and videos of those events at the company’s site and Facebook page, gave comments in favor of domestic manufacturer and KrAZ trucks, thanked the company, its employees, were outraged at officials for their appeals, promises and inaction. Our strength is in unity.
