From the day when, far from Civilization, at the foot of this mountain, a huge nugget of gold was found in the jungles of the Amazon River, Serra Pelada does not know peace. The slopes of Serra Pelada – Bald Mountain – its name translates from Portuguese, turned into a giant human anthill. Overwhelmed with the dream of getting rich quick, from all over Brazil, not only the unemployed rushed here, but also those who could not complain about their fate, bank employees, teachers, lawyers and other white-collar workers.
Thousands of prospectors – “Garimpeirus” are looking for gold excitedly from sunrise to sunset, hoping that it will be enough for everyone: after all, according to geologists, every year Lysa Gora can produce 50 thousand tons of yellow metal! Wielding a pickaxe and sieve, aliens frantically explore hundreds of thousands of tons of stones and soil. At times, pistol shots are heard: the lucky ones who discovered the nugget are jubilant. But they are not in a hurry to leave the Brazilian Klondike – an appetite, a well-known thing, comes with eating …
Even those to whom fortune smiled and whose find turned into a fortune are least of all like millionaires. They spend the night in miserable huts or hammocks under the open sky, being attacked by mosquitoes, go to rags, suffer from dysentery. They try to remove daytime fatigue with the help of “cachaca” – sugarcane moonshine, sold here by enterprising merchants at fabulous prices. Drunken fights are a common form of “leisure” in this anthill, where its laws reign – the laws of the jungle. Rainbow mirages give rise to losers from old-timers about the discovery of one lucky 19-pound nugget who “pulled” $ 100 thousand in cash. And some of the “Garimpairus” managed to just over 100 kilograms of gold in just a few seasons.
A lot of “despicable metal” managed to get to the dealers and sailed abroad, especially in the United States, while the Brazilian authorities did not establish strict control over the sale of the miners and introduced licenses to work on the slopes of Lysa Hora. Who, if not the Brazilian treasury, burdened with the world’s largest external debt, cares about the fate of this generous gift of nature?
The “Gold Rush” in the Amazonia overshadowed no less sensational reports from geologists: in the area of Karazhas, rich deposits of iron, copper and manganese ores were discovered, deposits of some rare non-ferrous metals capable of meeting the needs of the industry of the largest Latin American country for the next four centuries! But this message did not arouse the delight of the Brazilians, who, with a sinking heart, utter two magic words – “Serra Pelada” … Отправить отзыв История Сохранено Сообщества
