#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. A new exhibition at the Norilsk Museum is dedicated to the legendary director of the Norilsk combine Vladimir Dolgih and his work during the Hrushchev Thaw period.
According to museum specialists, Norilsk could have ceased to exist in the late 1950s: all the explored rich deposits had been worked out, disseminated ores were being mined, and profitability was falling. At that time, there was serious talk about mothballing the Norilsk combine. Everything changed with the discovery of the Talnah deposit in 1960.
Vladimir Dolgih, a metallurgist at the Krasnoyarsk refinery plant (now the Krasnoyarsk non-ferrous metals plant), was only 34 years old when he was offered the position of chief engineer at the Norilsk combine. That was in 1958. Four years later, Dolgih became its director.
At that time, additional exploration of Talnah ores was underway. The young manager made a risky management decision that became fateful for Norilsk: even before the reserves of the new deposit were approved, construction began on Mayak (an exploration and production mine) – the first Talnah mine, which would become the main raw material base for the combine for a decade.
During the Thaw period, Norilsk received a second life. The films Spring on Zarechnaya Street and I Walk Through Moscow, the songs of Vysotsky and Okudzhava, jazz and abstract art, the poems of Akhmadullina and Yevtushenko, the first manned space flight, all-Union construction projects and the time of big housewarmings, the ‘corn epic’ – despite all the ambiguity and difficulties, this era carried a special life-loving spirit.
It can also be felt in the documentaries filmed at that time in Norilsk. The exhibition The Long Twelve Years of Vladimir Ivanovich will recreate the atmosphere of the beautiful era not only through the biography of an outstanding person, but also through newsreels of the Norilsk television studio, art and household items.
At the exhibition, viewers will see for the first time Vladimir Dolgih’s personal belongings, notes, photographs and documents from the family archive, which his youngest daughter, the keeper of the family heritage Natalya Arbieva, donated to the museum’s funds – a total of about 200 storage units.
The opening of the exhibition in the main building of the museum on Leninsky prospect, 14, will take place on the day of Dolgih’s 100th anniversary, December 5. Admission to the vernissage is free.
A memorial plaque was previously installed on Vladimir Dolgih’s house in Norilsk.
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Text: Anzhelika Stepanova, Photo: from the Norilsk Museum funds
