For the first time, a Russian settlement on the territory of modern Kemerovo was mentioned in 1701. Historians note that more than 100 years ago the streets had no official names: in a village where people knew each other, locations were determined by the names of house owners. Street names appeared later, as the settlement expanded.
Today, Kemerovo includes more than 1100 streets and lanes. Each of them has its own destiny, its own history. Some of the streets have changed their names three or four times.
One of the largest inner-city districts of Kemerovo in terms of population is the Zavodskiy district. Within its borders there is an airport, a railway station, a bus station, a number of educational institutions, cultural and sports institutions.
It is curious that the name “Zavodskiy” (it looks like made from “zavod” – “factory”) does not come from the fact that there are a large number of factories, but because of the inhabitants of the right-bank village of Kemerovo, the region was located “behind the water” (in Russian – “za vodoy”) – on the opposite bank of the Tom river.
Subsequently, the territory of the district grew due to the annexation of suburban villages and settlements. Among them was a place called Pleshki. This is a village located between the Iskitimka and Bolshaya Kamyshnaya rivers on both sides of Tavricheskaya street. Norilskaya Street intersects with it.
There is no information when the name indicating the polar city appeared on the map of the Zavodskiy district. It is only known that until the end of 1946 there were no street names and house numbers in Pleshki.
As toponymists assure, the names of the streets in the growing city of coal miners were determined by the party politics and current themes of work. Among other things, it was recommended to choose geographical names. So in the Zavodskiy district, where today there are 453 streets and lanes, Kievskaya, Novgorodskaya, Magnitogorskaya, Orlovskaya, Permskaya, Ryazanskaya and many other streets appeared. Norilskaya Street is among them.
Its length is 345 meters. There are only 12 houses there. This is one of the inconspicuous and strangely located streets of Kemerovo: only exit from it is to Tavricheskaya Street, along which people usually travel from the city to the Tanay ski resort.
We have already seen Norilskaya streets in Moscow, Krasnoyarsk, Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg and Astrakhan.
Text: Elena Popova, Photo: open sources
