#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. This time, the lecturer, publicist and local historian Larisa Stryuchkova touched upon a very difficult topic for most. It was about historical myths around Norillag (Norilsk camp of forced labor. – editor).
The School of Local History’s first lectures were held in the summer, directly at the scene of the events.
“For the first time, we started the season with field trips. Next summer, we will hold at least six more. Classes, a conference of area researchers, seminars, preparation for exams, choosing a diploma topic are ahead. But today’s lecture is devoted to the Norillag’s history and mythology”, shared Stanislav Stryuchkov, chairman of the Norilsk Club of Territorial Researchers and head of the Local History School project.
We will add that the Local History School project is being implemented with the support of the presidential grants fund. This is one of the few projects in the area that has received a grant from the Russian Federation president for the development of civil society for the sixth time.
The next meeting of local historians consisted of two blocks: a lecture and a question-and-answer session, and at the end of the project, the participants got a book by Norilsk resident Anatoly Belyaev, Early Norilsk: Super-Overcoming, People, as a gift. This publication is dedicated to the early history of Norilsk and the people who created the Norilsk phenomenon.
One of the first myths about Norilsk is connected with the topic of camps, and it sounds like this: the first builders of Norilsk were prisoners. In fact, the first to arrive here were civilians in 1930, and the Local History School’s students, fortunately, already know this and quickly answered this question.
“The first builders were civilian Soviet people, and it is quite logical to begin the lecture from the moment the construction began, in order to understand why five years after the start of construction, a camp was formed on the territory, and Norilskstroy (Norilsk constructing enterprise. – editor) was transferred to the NKVD. We will talk specifically about when industrial Norilsk began to be built, because many of those present know that the settlement of Norilsk, to which the administrative mining settlement belonged until 1939, was already mentioned in the 18th century. The decision to build the Norilsk plant was made in 1929 at the Soyuzzoloto conference. A year earlier, the USSR government decided to transfer the explored deposit to the Ministry of the Gold Industry. In 1929, the Norilsk industrial office was created, and one of its tasks was to inspect the site of the future construction. The state needed to replenish the treasury – after the revolution, the civil war, the economy was in ruins, and Norilsk was rich not only in copper and nickel, but also in platinum, which turned out to be a priority in the decision to begin construction in this structure. In 1930, the name Norilsk copper-nickel combine appeared in the documents, and in the same year, Norilskstroy was formed in the depths of Soyuzzoloto (at that time it was also called Tsvetmetzoloto). Why a combine? Because in the structure of the gold industry there were two types of enterprises: mines and combines. Gold-bearing ores were mined at the mines and processed at the combines, so in 1930 they began building the Norilsk combine”, said Larisa Stryuchkova.
The excursion into the city history was systematically progressing. One after another, the myths were refuted. Most people found it difficult to clarify the two concepts of forced labor camp – a correctional forced labor camp (CFLC) and Gorlag – a mountain camp. Partly, the periods of the institutions’ existence helped to clarify this. FLC was on the territory from 1935 to 1956, and Gorlag – from 1948 to 1954. For some time, they coexisted side by side. And the history of the city is inextricably linked with the first leaders of the plant: Yakov Vedernikov, Vladimir Pletnev, Mikhail Zinger, Vladimir Matveyev and Avraamiy Zavenyagin.
“On June 25, 1935, the construction of the Norilsk combine came under the jurisdiction of the NKVD and the structure of the CFLC – a correctional forced labor camp – began to form, and on July 1, 1935, prisoner-builders arrived in the North. Later, when the narrow-gauge railway appeared, this had little effect on easing the inaccessibility of the territory. As before, prisoners could only be delivered here for three summer months, and therefore the workforce in Norilsk was protected and every effort was made to keep it in working condition. Therefore, mass executions in Norilsk are another myth. Executions happened rarely and mainly for sabotage, when a person refused to work or was engaged in deliberate disruption of the production process. After all, we must understand that the construction of our metallurgical giant began at a time when Europe clearly smelled of war, and in 1939, World War II became a reality”, explained Larisa Stryuchkova.
The lecture time was limited, and there were many questions, and it was impossible to answer them all, so the Local History School leaders decided to return to this topic once again.
“I believe that now it is the time when it is necessary to destroy the myths that were created around the Norilsk story. The most terrible thing for a person is the principle of half-truth, on which the history of Norilsk during the camp period was built in the 1990s. With a shift in emphasis. Instead of warning people about the inevitable tragedy of civil confrontation, when a civil war follows a revolution, and then inevitably political repressions, our society was instilled with a sense of guilt for repressions. But political repressions, in fact, are a consequence of a civil war end, when the victors finish off the vanquished. And not a single country in the world has passed by this sequence (revolution – civil war – repressions), no matter what time you take – the French Revolution, the American Civil War, and so on. Now this is especially important, because a new wave has arisen – it has become customary in the world community to blame the Russian people for all their troubles, continuing to instill in us a sense of guilt for what we did not do. This is wrong. We, local historians, share information we found in archives with people and thus encourage them to compare the facts they already know with those they have just learned about”, added Larisa Stryuchkova.
Earlier, This Is Taimyr wrote that for the Local History School students, the lecture in the geopark took place in the pouring rain.
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Text: Maria Sanina, Photo: Denis Kozhevnikov
