Press-centre

10 september 2025

Vladimir Matveyev, an experienced operator of mining dump trucks of Solntsevsky coal mine won the main trophy of the competition – The 2025 Champion's Cup! The winner from Sakhalin Island was joined on the victory podium by two of his fellow-countrymen from Kuzbass, namely Dmitry Sutyagin and Evgeny Ulyanov.

This year, 35 professionals in their field, representing leading mining companies from 5 countries of the world – Armenia, Belarus, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia – competed for the proud title of the Champion of BELAZ Operators Club.

The Championship in Zhodino unites the top representatives of this very important and demanding profession into a single international professional community of BELAZ operators. This was stated at the competition opening ceremony by Sergey Lesin, General Director of BELAZ, who presented the participants with the personalized Club Membership Cards.

– The main goal of our event, of course, is to identify the best of the best, but, in my opinion, we are completing many other targets here at the same time, – noted the head of our company, addressing the participants. – You get the opportunity to communicate with colleagues from other countries, share experiences and exchange opinions on the equipment that we manufacture, and you operate it every day - this is very valuable for all of us. It is pleasant to note that people who come to our competitions ultimately also get a boost in their careers. I hope that our club cards will become an additional advantage for you in the profession.

On the eve of the Championship – on the 9th of September, Tuesday, – the participants managed to get acquainted with BELAZ museum exposition, the assembly workshops, the main locations of the competitions and underwent the mandatory safety training.

BELAZ managers and team, together with the representatives of the companies participating in the competition, fruitfully held the traditional expert session dedicated to the operation and service of BELAZ equipment.

Feedback from the operation site allows us to obtain valuable information about performance of our dump trucks. By promptly responding to customers’ requests and suggestions, BELAZ offers more advanced and tailored solutions taking into account the real needs of the mining industry.

The cultural part of the agenda for BELAZ operators included a visit to one of the attractive thematic locations - The Historical and Cultural Complex Stalin Line.

ТThat same evening, the guests were happy to take advantage of the opportunity to purchase the original BELAZ merchandise in the capital's BELAZ-SHOP. There really was plenty to choose from as a gift for the loved ones or a souvenir to remember the trip to Belarus!

The competitive environment, on the 10th of September, turned out to be hot in every sense - both in terms of weather and the atmosphere of intriguing competitions. An important part of the main day of the Operators Club Championship was testing the participants' knowledge of theory. The test questions included everything the master operating a mining dump truck needs to know about operation, service and traffic safety.

At the most spectacular stage of the competition, the driving skills, operators' skills in maneuvering on difficult sections of mining roads, as well as the speed and filigree accuracy of tasks performance behind the wheel of our top 130-ton BELAZ-7513D mining dump truck came to the fore during the practical races along the test site route.

In the fight for seconds and credit points, the operators skillfully "drew" complex shapes on the route, trying to perform the "eight" as accurately as possible, driving over rough spots, diagonal parking, driving into a "box" and other far from easy exercises, sometimes baffling even the most experienced.

By the way, the youngest participant in the Championship is 26 years old, the oldest is 55 years old, and the most experienced of all 35 BELAZ drivers has 28 years of experience in driving BELAZ dump trucks of various load capacities.

Two women, Tatyana Vinokurova (Berezovsky Open Pit Mine) and Marina Tit (Chernogorsky Open Pit Mine), demonstrated high driving skills on par with the men.

The most spectacular part of the competition program was a task of special "refinement" - to burst two balloons with "spears" attached to a dump truck. At this stage, the operators had to not only take into account the finest nuances of driving a truck, but also rely entirely on their professional intuition.

As a result, according to the calculations of the impartial and unbiased judges, the champion result in terms of the total points scored was shown by Vladimir Matveyev (Solntsevsky Coal Mine). The triumph of the Russian, who has 10 years of work experience behind, demonstrated that in the skillful hands of an operator, even the largest quarry giant becomes not just an obedient machine, but a real assistant and reliable partner on shift, and that is the most valuable of all.

The winner of the Silver Cup of The Championship 2025 and the title of Vice-Champion of the Club was Dmitry Sutyagin (Permyakovsky Open Pit Mine). The Bronze Cup was awarded to Evgeny Ulyanov (JSC “Coal Company Kuzbassrazrezugol”).

Under the fireworks of victory fanfares, the coveted cups, honorary diplomas, valuable prizes and gifts found their deserved owners.

The IV International Championship of Professional Skills of BELAZ Dump Truck Operators turned out to be eventful, bright and memorable. It will become an integral part of the history of the Operators Club and will give a new impulse to further development of this large and unifying project of BELAZ.

The Partners of the Championship: Ruselprom Electric Motors LLC, Cooling Systems Plant LLC, Sibelektroprivod LLC, JSC PTFK ZTEO.