History spot
“The tree was too small, but it was our legal one”
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. “After the camp uprising in 1953 and Hrushchev’s amnesty in 1954, some relief came to Norillag. Numbers were removed from clothes, we were allowed to receive parcels, and most importantly, mass releases of prisoners began. Sometimes 10–12 people were released from our camp per ...
“We were disappointed in the buildings’ bright colors”
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. The buildings’ colors were determined by the natural materials used in construction. Therefore, different shades of gray and pale sand tones predominated: darker at the bottom, lighter at the top. According to recollections, even the prime minister of the USSR Alexey Kosygin, who visited Norilsk ...
“There was no electricity in Sotsgorod, and we celebrated the New Year with candlelight”
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. On the eve of the New Year, we will share them. Today these are the memories of the Kiriyenko spouses, metallurgists evacuated to Norilsk from Monchegorsk. “The winter of 1941–1942 in Norilsk was not cold, but snowy and stormy. Our residential village of Gorstroy (the ...
“Professor Urvantsev, a gray-haired and honored prisoner, was with us…”
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In 1957, after graduation, Gorodnitsky joined the Yenisey geological exploration expedition, where he led surveys on the right bank of the Yenisey, in the area of Igarka and Norilsk. At that time, Gorodnitsky worked with many well-known geologists in Norilsk, including the Norilsk ore ...
“All students were given condensed milk every month”
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. It has the richest history, dating back to 1935, when a primary school was opened under the trade union committee of the Norilskstroy management. The school moved at least three times: first there was a barrack at the Zero Point, in 1939 it was ...
Ex-Spartak captain Andrey Starostin coached Norilsk football players
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In 1942, all the four brothers were arrested, as well as five more of their colleagues in the Spartak sports society. They said that this was Beria’s way of getting back at the team for its victories over Dynamo, the NKVD team. The football ...
New York Herald Tribune published article about Norilsk in 1944
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In 1944, the American newspaper New York Herald Tribune published an article entitled Russians are Building a Nickel Empire in Northern Siberia. Remarkably, it was stated that the author, correspondent Maurice Hindus, transmitted it, “radioing from Norilsk”. In general, the article by Maurice Hindus, by ...
Nikolay Urvantsev headed Norilsk geological service in 1940s
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. Nikolay Urvantsev was a living legend of the Arctic for several generations of geologists. Colleagues at the Research Institute of Arctic Geology recalled him as “a tall, thin, slightly stooped man in a padded jacket, whose name was deleted from all his works”, a ...
Imangda was most remote village around Norilsk
#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. They are separated from us by the wide valley of the Rybnaya river. The name Imangda comes from the Evenki “imanna” - “snow”. In 1940, Norilsk geologists found an ore deposit there. In 1941, a geological exploration party was sent to Imangda, and drilling began ...