History spot
First Norilsk stores had no names
The first city shops, with glass showcases, stucco moldings and chandeliers on high ceilings, appeared in the late 1940s on Octyabrskaya square. The future Shining store was at first modestly called Tissues. The Moscow grocery store and the Posuda store initially had even more modest ...
Norilsk kids’ favourite word
The favourite word of Norilsk schoolchildren is ‘actirovka’. For the first time in Norilsk, days with bad weather conditions, when students were allowed not to attend classes, were officially approved in December 1953. Then the order on the procedure for stopping work in the open ...
Life-and-death war
At first, the Norilsk people lost in the fight against snowstorms: in the 1940s, up to five thousand people went out to remove snow every day, but they could not win. Snow trenches reached 15–20 meters in height, losses for the combine reached eight million ...
Main Norilsk attractions in 1958
If we look at Dolgoye lake from Octyabrskaya square we can imagine that we are at the city beach which worked there at that time. And the boat station was on the farthest side of the lake, behind the dam. A pier for 40 ...
First kindergarten at Zero Point
According to the first document, the preschool education in Norilsk has been chronicled since 1937. Then, by the order of the Norilsk construction head, Vladimir Matveyev, the kindergarten was transferred from the Norilskstroy trade union committee to the responsibility of the sanitary department. According to ...
Sports festival in war reality
In 1942, the All-Union physical education festival was massively celebrated in Norilsk for the first time. It was celebrated at the first Norilsk stadium, which was still under construction at that time. The stadium was called Dynamo, but later, with the change of sports societies ...
Industrial giant built within a year
The very first copper on the territory of the future Norilsk was smelted by the Sotnikov brothers in the 19th century. With the beginning of the Norilsk combine construction, the metal production began in 1942 at a small metallurgical plant. The Copper plant construction started ...
Oldest and coldest
On August 2, 1945, mine No.7 was separated into an independent division from the very first mine in Norilsk, which was called mine No.1. Later, merged with mines No.8 and No.9, it became known as the mine 7/9. And in 1959 it got its own ...
Big holidays, big celebrations
The earliest mass celebrations in the 1930s took place around the starting point of history – the Zero Point. Demonstrators walked along the streets of the Old City: Octyabrskaya, Gornaya, Zavodskaya. The places for the ceremonial rallies were the Dynamo stadium, where rallies and sports ...