After wagons were manually loaded, they were also pushed by hands for a distance of one kilometer to the exit of the tunnel on large heaps that were then transported through a mechanism on trucks. The prisoner returned to the work front with an empty wagon or wooden bodies with which he fortified the area of explosion, after all of the material was extracted.  The routine of description of this road with the wagon full of mineral and return to the front was done seven times per shift.

The smith’s was a small 3x3m structure. The smith prepared the work tools prisoners used, such as pickaxes, axes, etc. Many prisoners respectfully recall the work of QazimVula, a great smith and great ally to them, as his very work helped them in the difficult work processes at the tunnel.

The tunnels’ amortization was one of the largest impediments of the prisoners’ work process and often in their testimonies they recalled that the greatest difficulty was raising a wagon when it derailed and fell. The prisoner was forced to raise the wagon on his own using his shoulders and upon restoring it on the rails, he refilled it with the fallen mineral.

In the pyrite area the daily rate for each working group was seven wagons. As such, the two carters of the group had to fill seven wagons of mineral.  According to former prisoner Shkëlqim Abazi’s testimony, a wagon would take around 200 shovels of pyrite to fill. A shovelful of pyrite weighed from 18 to 25 kg. According to an average number, one wagon had around 3,600 kg of pyrite.  This estimate would mean that the two carters had to fill seven wagons, or 25,200 kg of mineral per shift, or 12,600 kg of mineral each.  Imagine the daily routine for this enslaving work where one man had to load 12,600 kg of mineral every day!

Beyond the grueling process of this mineral’s extraction, pyrite tunnels were far more dangerous than copper ones. The terrain was highly unstable due to the mineral’s acid sand-like composition, therefore collapses in pyrite tunnels were quite often. Furthermore, the acid environment made work all the harder. Acid drops that dripped ceaselessly in the tunnel not only eroded and burnt the prisoner’s unprotected skin; they also eroded and destroyed the rails on which prisoners had to push their wagons. This added on to the exhausting work: as the wagons had to be pushed for around one kilometer and the same distance back.

Whereas the two carters continued the reinforcement process, the miner hammered holes to put the explosive in and then detonate it after exiting the mine.  All of the rocky mass exploded by the dynamite would be the new work front for the successive shift. The second shift would follow the same routine as the first and then leave the area for the third.