In the summer of 1978, the Moscow Satire Theater flew on tour to Norilsk. The honored artist of the RSFSR reported that there was no such charming children’s cafe in the capital, while the national artist of the USSR Anatoly Papanov called Norilsk the southernmost point in terms of human warmth. These reviews were kept by a special issue of the Zapolyarnaya Pravda local newspaper dedicated to the 1979 tour of the Polar Drama Theater in Moscow.
Andrei Mironov, an honored artist of the RSFSR at that time, in an interview with a Norilsk journalist said: “At 37, I don’t think that I understand everything. I constantly find new angles and points of view”. Less than ten years later, in August 1987, during the tour in Riga, he would die right on stage.
The former photo-information bureau of the Norilsk Combine has preserved a photo chronicle of the Norilsk tour of the Satire Theater. In the photographs of Georgy Volkov, one can see the faces of the legendary artistic director Valentin Pluchek, Georgy Menglet and Olga Aroseva sitting next to him. Right opposite was Boris Runge, whom the Norilsk people knew as a host of the 12 Chairs Pub teleprogram, and а national actor Anatoly Papanov. In the picture it is easy to recognize Natalia Selezneva and Andrei Mironov together with Alexander Shirvindt, today’s artistic director of the theater (for 20 years).
Text: Varvara Sosnovskaya, Photo: Nornickel Polar Branch archive
