Residents of the Bashkir village of Belaya Usadba were already describing the harsh effects of living next to a mining farm in 2021. In a TVC report, they complained of severe headaches, nausea, dizziness, and constant noise that continued even at night.
The source of the problem was a farm set up in a warehouse building in the village. To keep the cryptocurrency mining equipment from overheating, hundreds of cooling fans were installed there. According to locals, those fans created a permanent and unbearable background noise, especially in hot weather when windows had to be left open.
Irkutsk Region is considered one of the Russian regions most affected by mining. In 2024, regional power companies received more than 1,500 complaints about illegal mining installations located in homes and on private household plots.
People reported noise, humming, vibrating walls, flickering lights, and the smell of burnt wiring or gasoline. Similar complaints were voiced in another region popular with miners, Krasnoyarsk Krai.
In Divnogorsk, residents said the sound from the fans of a local mining farm resembled the “roar of airplane turbines.” The facility operated on the site of a bankrupt low-voltage switch factory, and the noise was reportedly audible within a radius of 600 meters.
For a long time, mining in Russia largely existed as a small-scale semi-improvised business: people bought specialized computers and installed them wherever they could, often directly inside residential areas and connected to household power grids. This “gray” model still exists, although law enforcement agencies are actively trying to curb it.
At the same time, another segment is taking shape alongside it: industrial mining. In this model, operators place their capacity far from residential buildings, on industrial sites, pay higher commercial electricity rates, and mine cryptocurrency on a much larger scale.