ST. PETERSBURG, June 5 (RIA Novosti) - The Russian government will monitor the situation in the northwestern Russian town of Pikalyovo where workers staged protests after failing to receive wage arrears, a first deputy prime minister said on Friday.
Some 300 people from Pikalyovo blocked a major highway on Tuesday to draw attention to their financial difficulties caused by the closure of three large plants in the town last year.
"I think that now, after the impetus given by the prime minister's visit, after all the solutions that he found... everything should be back on track again, and we will monitor it," Igor Sechin said.
The problems for Pikalyovo, some 200 kilometers from St. Petersburg, began in 2008 when the Pikalyovo Alumina Plant, now called BasEl Cement Pikalyovo and controlled by a subsidiary of Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska's Basic Element group, closed after the price of alumina crashed.
The closure led to the shutting down of two other cement plants, Metakhim and Pikalyovo Cement, after BasEl Cement stopped raw material deliveries to the companies, who were also affected by the global downturn and a fall in demand for cement.
BasEl partly resumed production in spring 2009 through a new production cycle, although its resumption had no effect on the other two companies which remained closed.
On Thursday Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin visited the region and ordered that all wage arrears to workers at the three closed enterprises be paid by the end of the day. The payments were made in full within the prescribed period.
A spokeswoman for BasEl Cement, Svetlana Antropova, said the plant might restart production in a week.
"People believe in the future, but there is still a lot of work to do. To restart [production] is way more difficult than to switch it off," she said.
"We can come [to Pikalyovo] once again, if needed," the first deputy prime minister said adding that a special working group was set up to help deal with the problem.
The group, who will be led by Deputy Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov, will arrive to the town on Monday.
